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Restrain Holiday Eating and Spending for a Happier New Year

November 23, 2015 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Have you been in this situation before?

You want to start a diet and shed a few pounds, but you decide, since it’s November already, you should just wait until after the holidays. You tell yourself you’ll have a fresh start January 1^st. New year, new life, all that.

This plan may sound good to you, but since you keep thinking about the diet you’re going to start in January, you indulge more than you normally would over the holidays and gain 10 pounds. Now, you have an even bigger job ahead of you come January 1^st.

If you had instead started your new eating plan at the beginning of the holiday season, you would have had better control over your eating. You likely wouldn’t have gained weight. If you were doing great and were motivated, you may have even lost weight, but let’s be honest—even remaining the same weight during the holidays is an accomplishment.

We’re in November, which is when most people are at risk of two negatives—eating too much and spending too much.

Just like the decision to lose weight, many people may decide to start focusing on managing their money better after the holidays. After all, there are so many presents to buy and parties to host. Getting on a budget isn’t possible during the holidays, they think. And then, because they’re not keeping an eye on their finances, they spend lavishly and find themselves facing an exorbitant credit card bill that they can’t pay in full.

Sound familiar?

Why not make this year different?

Yes, the holidays are right around the corner, but it’s not too late to keep your finances in check. Here are some simple strategies:

Don’t give gifts to everyone. If you don’t have a lot of money saved up for gifts, don’t go into debt to buy them. Think about it. Do you remember what gifts you received for Christmas last year? Do you remember who gave them to you?

Yeah, I thought so.

I remember only one gift from last Christmas, even though I got several.

Give a gift that you can pay for later. I love this strategy! If you don’t have a lot of money for holiday gifts but still want to give something, consider offering a gift at a later date. For instance, you could offer a close friend a present of dinner and a movie at a time of her choosing. Maybe she decides in March that she’d like to take you up on the offer. You’ve had three months to save the money for that gift.

Don’t give in to peer pressure. There is an enormous amount of peer pressure during the holiday season to go to parties, bring food, buy gifts for everyone. . .It’s okay to step off this spendthrift merry-go-round and simply say no. You don’t have to go to every party. You don’t have to buy a present for everyone you have contact with in your life.

Just say no.

The next four to six weeks can have a significant impact on the first few months of 2016.

Are you going to indulge occasionally in sweet treats but mostly eat healthy, or are you going to let loose and gain 10 pounds?

Are you going to be financially responsible and only give gifts that you have the means to give, or are you going to charge everything and create a hole that will take you three or four months to dig out of, if not more?

Haven’t you had enough of overindulgent holidays? Wouldn’t you like to start 2016 with a truly fresh start and no extra weight or bills?

Pay Off Your Debt for Good

August 18, 2015 By Nic @ Young and Wealthy Leave a Comment

“There are two ways to enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” There is an ongoing debate on the internet about whether or not that quote was first said by John Adams. Regardless, the quote is very powerful with its meaning. Debt is slavery. With debt you are controlled by the person in which you owe. If you don’t believe me, stop paying your monthly payments on your house, car, or other loans. The bank or other creditor will come along and seize that asset from you or other assets that have been used as collateral. Debt is very powerful and can take a massive financial and psychological toll on us. Paying off our debt can lead to previously unfathomed levels of financial freedom and happiness. I’ve started Young and Wealthy Living to help others realize this dream.

Today, we will observe multiple methods that can be used to pay off different types of debt faster by taking various steps.

The Debt Portfolio

If you’re like most people, you have many different forms of debt. These could be a credit card balance, mortgage, student loans, car payments, or personal loans. If you are looking to make more than just your monthly payments on these loans, I commend you, this is the first step to finally becoming debt free. But you may be wondering, which loans should I put the extra payments toward? To answer this we will use the debt stacking method, as I strongly believe that this is the best way to attack debt. It’s very simple and straightforward. Put extra payments to the debt with the highest interest rate and pay the minimum payments on the rest of the debts. The reason this method works is that over time you will be able to accelerate how quickly all of your debt will be paid off since more and more of your payments will be going towards the principle instead of the interest. Using the debt stacking method you will pay less in total interest and you will have all of your debts paid off faster than if you just used the shotgun approach on your debt.

Student Loans

If you’re like me, you graduated with student loans consisting of private and federal loans. My student loans ranged from 3% interest to 6.8% interest. If you plan on taking the full ten years to pay off your student loans, you could be paying thousands of dollars in interest alone over this time period. If I had only been making the minimum payments on my loans I would have paid over $10,000 in interest alone. To help lower your monthly payments and literally save yourself potentially thousands of dollars in interest, you can consolidate all of your loans into one loan. Yes, you read that correctly. Not only does this give you only one loan to have to keep track of and remember to pay, but it would most likely lower your interest rate and save you money. A couple of good resources for this are Sofi and Earnest. You can also check with local credit unions as many of them offer this service as well. There are a couple things to note, however. First, many services will require that you be employed or have an offer of employment and some might require that you have an emergency fund setup. Continue to make the larger payments you had before consolidating and you will have your student loans paid off ahead of time!

The average credit card debt for American adults with a credit card is $5,047 according to creditcards.com. Unfortunately, credit card debt is usually the most painful because it typically carries the highest interest rate of debts people are likely to have. It is not unlikely to see credit cards with an APR of 15% to 24%. If you are carrying a large balance on your credit card you can expect to pay thousands of dollars in interest before your card is paid off and have it take years to do. The key to lowering your payments on the credit card debt is to lower your interest rate. This will allow you to pay off that debt faster and potentially saving you thousands in interest payments.

The first method here if you have a high credit card balance and are struggling to make your payments is to transfer your balance to a new card that offers an introductory offer of 0% interest on balance transfers. A couple of great cards for this are the Chase Slate and Discover It cards. This introductory rate is only good for a period of time however, typically 12 to 21 months, before it increases to the typical 15% – 24%, so you should be paying as much as possible during this time as 100% of your payments would be going towards the principle. Again, there are a couple things to note here. Sometimes there is a fee to transfer a balance, oftentimes of 3% – 5% and you will need good to excellent credit to qualify for the best offers.

Another method you should try if you have not already: simply ask. Just call up the credit card company, be very polite, and explain to them that you would love to pay off your credit card debt but the current interest rate makes it very difficult for you to make extra payments. Then ask them if they could lower your interest rate for you. You may initially get a ‘no’ but it is very likely that you will need to go through several people in the company before you reach someone that has the authority to negotiate this. Just remember to be polite to the person on the other end of the phone and they will be willing to pass you along to someone who can help.

You may think the credit card company doesn’t care about you and if you can make your payments or not. But the truth is they absolutely want you to make your payments and have a payment plan you can afford. They would much rather work with you and have you pay off your debt than to sell your debt to a collections company for pennies on the dollar.

Of course, these are not the only methods you can use to decrease payments and pay debt off faster but we all have our favorites and those we believe to be the most effective. Recognize how debt has the ability to control you and make a plan to attack it and you will be well on your way to wiping out your debt and becoming debt free! Feel free to share your debt elimination plans and stories with me by emailing me at nic@youngandwealthyliving.com. Together we can conquer our debt and be on the path to financial freedom!

Is It Worthwhile To Still Use Credit Cards with So Many Data Breaches?

August 13, 2014 By MelissaB 7 Comments

Just recently, PF Chang’s acknowledged that 33 of their restaurants had suffered a security breach over the last 8 months and that the credit card numbers as well as possibly the customers’ names and the expiration dates of the cards were compromised. This news should be shocking or surprising. Unfortunately, data breaches have become common place. Just consider the recent security breaches at Target, Michael’s, and Neiman Marcus, to name a few.

If you’re diligent about shredding your personal information so that it can’t get into the wrong hands, you’re still not safe. Consider all the recent security breaches. It’s enough to make people start to think about not using credit cards just to avoid this problem. Until they remember all the cash back they’re earning!

But even that is not a complete solution. Yahoo! Finance just announced that a Russian gang has stolen billions of Internet passwords and millions of e-mail addresses. “The records include confidential material gathered from 420,000 websites, ranging from household names to small Internet sites” (Yahoo! Finance).

The problem is so widespread. If you want to live in the modern world, going without the Internet and credit cards to preserve your identity is very difficult. Instead, consumers need to become even more diligent in their efforts to protect themselves and their identities.

Consider taking these steps:

1. Change passwords frequently and make them difficult.

If you’re using “Sunshine” or “password123” as your password, it’s time to step things up. Choose passwords that have capital and lower case letters as well as symbols and numbers. A password like “S&36ptrM$9” will be much more difficult to crack than the passwords most people use.

Remember to also change your passwords frequently and avoid using the same password for all of your accounts.

2. Protect your data.

When you shop online, you have the option to have the company save your credit information. Do not opt to do this to protect yourself and your financial information. Yes, entering your credit information every time you place an order online is a pain, but it’s much easier than trying to resolve identity theft.

3. Order your credit report 3x year for free.

Each of us is entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the credit bureaus. Make sure to order yours, but rather than ordering all three at once, stagger them. Order one from Experian in January, one from Equifax in May, and one from TransUnion in September. By staggering them, you can keep a close eye on your credit and notice fairly early if there is any unusual activity.

4. Check your accounts regularly.

Especially if you have automatic payments set up, make sure to still take the time to look at your account to make sure there is no suspicious activity.

5. Consider freezing your credit.

This is a radical step, but freezing your credit is the best way to protect your identity. If your credit is frozen, no one can open a new account (including you) unless the credit is thawed using a special code you’re given when you freeze your credit.

Identity theft is an unfortunate consequence of our modern world. You can’t avoid all technology to protect your financial information. These strategies will help protect you while letting you use and enjoy modern financial conveniences like credit cards and ordering online.