Wrecking Their Credit

My sister’s husband was in a car wreck back in March and hasn’t worked since. He hurt his back and has been back and forth to all kinds of different doctors. It’s bad enough that his car was totaled and he can’t afford a new one, but he’s in pain every time he does the least little bit of lifting or carrying or pulling on things. We figure the car insurance will help take care of most of these kinds of things. What worries my sister and me is that he’s not earning any income all this time and the household bills are piling up.

Sis had to come out of retirement and go back to work just to bring in some money and pay the basics, like food and the utilities. But the rest of the bills are getting harder and harder to put off. I’ve helped her out a little here and there, but they are going to need a lot more help than what I can give.

She finally started looking into debt consolidation and counseling, and I’m sure the possibility of filinf for bankruptcy is in the back of her mind, too. There’s a wide difference in the types of debt relief services and I want her to make informed decisions about this important financial matters. It’s bad enough that we are in a tough economy, but with her husband hurt and her two sons in college, she has a lot of worries.

What she might do is refinance her house and use the equity in it to consolidate debt and come up with a schedule to pay off the important bills. But there’s a chance that the real estate market being in the tank will limit how much she can borrow against the house. So she’s busy talking with a real estate attorney and her bank this week.

Cross your fingers that this will all work out for her and her family. Obviously this car wreck has done more than just wreck their car and hurt her husband. It’s wrecking their credit, too. I’m sure the credit will work itself out with some help from the right people. I hope her husband gets healed up and can go back to a normal life sometime this year, too.

Fresh Look at Credit Cards

With September just around the corner, I took a look at my budget and tax situation and wanted to get a feel for where I’ll stand at the end of the year. I’m due for my performance review and raise next month and I’m pretty sure I’m on track to buy a new house after the first of the year. Of course, a lot depends upon the economy and whether the price of gas has leveled off or if it is going to keep rising over the next several months.

Part of my strategy for buying the new house depends on the work I’ve been doing on my credit report. I met with a loan officer and talked about what I need to do to have a good rating and we made a plan that I’ve been working on all summer. According to the loan officer, I need 5 open lines of credit and all of them need to be paid down to less than half of the credit limit or loan amounts.

For that to work, I need two more credit cards and I’m applying for them now. I found a web site called Smart Credit Choices that has information on all the major credit cards and I can sort through the different options, like 0 balance transfers to find the cards with terms that I need.

One of the attractive offers is for a0 APR balance transfer. I’ve seen commercials for those and they promise 0% APR for up to one year. However, after reading the information on this site, I find out that most of them offer the 0% for only 3 months, or possibly 6 months. That is still technically “up to” one year but it’s not the full one year that most people would expect from hearing that commercial.

But I did find a Discover Card that offers no fee balance transfers and 0% interest for one full year. This card also offers cash back on purchases. That’s the one I’m going after and there was a link right there on the Smart Choices website that takes me tot he Discover Card site to put in my application online.

Who Are They Really?

With my little incident of my car getting egged last night, I happened to chat with a couple of my other neighbors this afternoon and mentioned my troubles. They both have noticed little problems like mine.

My neighbor across the street says that his trash can that was put out for pick up was knocked over and the trash strewn across his yard a couple of weeks ago. He thought at the time it might have been animals that did it, but it could have been kids trying to pull a prank.

My next door neighbor says that her boyfriend’s car was left parked on the street one night and that the next morning it had been broken into and all the personal items gone through, although nothing seemed to be taken. We doubt that the CD’s with titles like “Country Hits of the 80’s” and “Best of Travis Tritt” had any value for the punks down in the ghetto.

All three of us suspect the new renters down the street or their friends. I’m going to have a little talk with the owners of the two houses down the street and suggest that they run background checks on the tenants who are renting their houses.

It is easy to order criminal background checks over the internet and they don’t cost very much money. I think it is within a landlord’s right to run credit checks and criminal checks on people with whom they are going to be trusting their houses and income. It’s for their own protection as well as peace of mind.

Get Your Car Loan Before Car Shopping

Eventually the only cure for a bucket of bolts is to retire the old Nelly and get a new car. The problem with getting a new car is figuring out how to pay for it. After all these years, I have figured out some of the better ways to do that.

When I have a good idea what type of vehicle I want to get and what the ballpark purchase price might be, I shop around for the car loan before I ever step foot on the dealer’s lot. It strengthens your negotiating position to have your financing arranged before haggling with the dealership. I used to go to my bank and the big finance companies to shop for a new car loan, but they have gotten harder and harder to deal with over the years.

In today’s world it is much easier and faster to go online and find a New Car Loan. On a good web site you can apply online and get approved either the same day or within 24 hours. They make it so easy to take care of your financial matters with a few clicks instead of having to drive all over town to meet with bankers, wasting a lot of gas and time.

Reworking the Budget

Next week I’m sitting down and going over the entire household budget. We need a better working plan for managing our household finances and we need to make a few more adjustments to offset the extra cost of gas, since that has gone up so much this spring and summer.

One thought that is worth exploring is to completely re-evaluate my insurance coverages and premiums. I think that there is a chance to save money by shopping around for a different homeowners policy and also possibly a new car insurance policy. In fact, from reading up on insurance at the home insurance.com web site, I should save significant money by putting both my home insurance and car insurance policies with the same company and take advantage of a discount rate up to 15%.

My homeowners has been with the same company on automatic renewal for over 6 years. I think it is time to shop around and make sure I’m getting the best rates and the right coverage. I know I can do it all on the internet now which is easy and more convenient, and I’m sure I’ll save both time and money by getting new quotes and making some changes.