Mortgage Debt: Before You Buy a Home If FICO Score Not in Top Range

This is a smart home-buying move that can save you big-time money on your mortgage debt if your FICO score is between 700 and 760.
Your FICO credit score plays a major role in determining the interest rate on your mortgage. If your score is 760 or higher, you’re in line for getting the lowest rate. But

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Mortgage Debt: How to Handle the Private Mortgage Insurance if You Don’t Have the 20 Percent Down Payment

Many home buyers when they’re taking on mortgage debt don’t have the full 20 percent down payment that lenders want to see. That means more home buyers are getting stuck paying “Private Mortgage Insurance,” an added monthly charge that protects the lender if you ultimately can’t keep up with your mortgage payments.
Traditionally, lenders would just

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Coupons: Smart Strategies to Save Money

Here are some smart strategies for take coupon-clipping to the next level, saving money to improve cash flow and free up cash for saving and investing.
Stack coupons. Save more than the discount on the coupon. ”Stack” the coupon upon other discounts that are available. The average consumer uses a 50-cent coupon when he or she happens to

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College Financial Planning: Options to Reduce the Need for Debt

As prospective college students, and their families, prepare financially for a college education there are options. Here are some tips for college borrowing to reduce the need for debt and total borrowing costs.
Cut College Costs
Before you take out a private loan, look at the big picture. Do you have any savings you can direct toward

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Risks to Your Wealth and Prosperity

Prosperity is having sufficient assets to support your ability to live life for fulfillment and enrichment.
Here are some of the risks that can affect your trek to prosperity.
Spending
The most successful wealth managers know that they must be disciplined in their spending. It’s easy to let expenses increase as you make more and more money. If

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Declare a Want-Free Month to Help Your Cash Flow and Explore Your Spending Lifestyle

A drastic step to help your cash flow and learn about your spending lifestyle is to declare a want-free month.
A want-free month is a one-month period in which a family spends money on necessities such as bills, food and shelter.
The purpose is to witness how much money is wasted on items that provide no real

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Assisting Older Children – Stopping Assistance to Save More for Retirement

One of the hardest expenses to cut out is assistance to older children.
If a son or daughter is counting on you to help pay rent, pay for health-care bills, or get an education, suddenly stopping those payments could throw your child’s life into financial chaos.
But while it’s a difficult move, ending assistance to adult children

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Bartering to Save Cash and Avoid Debt

Bartering can help you get products or services that you need without requiring cash or taking on debt.
A number of web sites can help you to hook up with providers or customers.
Each trading partner decides what is a fair exchange. Bartering especially makes sense for parents because their children constantly need new things. It also

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Tips for College-Bound Students - How to Get Into a Good College

Here are some tips that college counselors and experienced parents of college-bound students have provided on how to get into a good college:

Get a job, either part-time during school or full-time during the summer, and stick with it. It shows a good work ethic and reliability. Colleges are looking for students who will stick with school and graduate.
Take

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Managing Debt as an Important Financial Tool

Debt is an important financial tool that can be managed or mismanaged. If handled well, debt can enable us to purchase appreciating assets, minimize our long-term housing and transportation costs and reduce our taxes.
Debt has the power to improve our lifestyle, increase our cash flow and build our wealth. It also has the power to

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Getting out of Debt – Assess, Budget and then Reduce

In America today, carrying some debt is unavoidable, and even desirable, for most households. But between mortgages, car payments, and credit cards, many Americans find themselves over their heads – unable to dig out from under a growing debt burden that consumes an ever growing portion of their resources.
Assessing Your Debt
How much debt is too

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Taxes: Reduce Your Tax Expense Using IRS Rules

Many IRS tax rules reward you for making wise financial decisions. Here are some ways to lower your taxes and take advantage of those provisions:
Fund your retirement. The federal government provides incentives to encourage you to contribute to a workplace retirement saving plan, like a 401(k) or 403(b). Still, millions of U.S. workers simply don’t

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Preventative Medicine - Use Screening Tests to Save Money

Preventative medicine is an investment in the quality of your life. Not only does it decrease the probability of a future serious illness but it also substantially reduces your future health care costs.
Heart disease, diabetes and cancer contribute to a large number of illnesses, disabilities and deaths. They’re also some of the most costly conditions

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Debt – How Your Credit Score Affects Your Future Cash Flow

Your credit score can affect your future cash flow. It can increase insurance premiums, job offers, housing costs and interest payments.
Insurance
Different rules apply for life, home and auto insurances.
Life insurance
A bad credit score will exclude you from top-tier life insurance, but your score doesn’t weigh heavily at any other level.
Although it does get factored in,

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Your Credit History and Credit Score – An Overview

What is a credit score?
A credit history is a collection of all of the pieces of financial information that relate to your life. It contains information on how long you’ve had your individual credit accounts, the account limits, balances, and your payment history.
Current and future creditors only want to know one thing: if they loan

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Reduce Spending - High Probability Spending Categories Where You Can Save Money

These are some spending areas where there is a good chance that you can save money, freeing up cash for debt reduction or savings.

Look at buying used instead of new. Cars lose much of their value the minute they are driven off the dealer’s lot – losing thousands of dollars in value in their first

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Debt Consolidation and Debt Relief Options

Debt consolidation is an important objective for many families.
For many people there is no clear way out of their debt problems – especially as they continue to meet their ongoing living expenses.
One debt consolidation option is to use equity or some type of collateral to obtain a debt consolidation loan. This option can provide value

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One Phone Call to Lower Your Credit Card Interest Rate

All it takes to lower your credit card interest rate in many cases is a simple phone call. A 2002 study found that over half the people who had good credit and called their credit card company to get a better interest rate were able to do so with the average person reducing the rate

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