Save more, spend smarter, and make your money go further
While we don’t yet have flying cars that collapse to the size of a suitcase, pneumatic tubes that transport us from room to room or machines that automatically bathe and clothe us in the morning, every day we’re getting closer to living in a Jetsons-esque future. Thanks to today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to put mundane aspects of your life on autopilot, so you can spend less time stressing out about your tasks and more time doing what you love.
Here are a few easy ways to free up your schedule and start living in the future by having your tasks take care of themselves.
Cook Up Tech Recipes
In a world where many of us carry computers in our pockets and have accounts with dozens of online services, it only makes sense to have these different technologies talk to each other. That’s where IFTTT comes in. An abbreviation for “if this, then that,” IFTTT is a free, easy-to-use service that lets users create “recipes” involving different digital triggers (“this”) and outcomes (“that”). IFTTT supports more than 300 channels (think Instagram, Spotify, Gmail, etc.) and can be used in millions of ways to make life easier. Here are some examples of recipes you can create:
Instantly save your “Liked” Instagram photos to a Dropbox folder.
Receive a text message whenever your favorite sports team scores.
Trigger your air conditioner to turn on when the outside temperature hits 80 degrees, or make your lamp emit purple light when it starts to rain. (RIP, Prince.)
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Spend some time playing around with IFTTT and you’ll be amazed by how you can automate your life.
Ditch Your Dining Decisions
Why worry about what to make for dinner, when there’s a free tool that suggests meals based on your unique dietary goals? Eat This Much is a mobile app and online service that provides users with customized meal plans to help them live healthier, happier lives. Simply punch in your desired caloric intake and how many meals you eat each day, and the service delivers a daily diet with step-by-step recipes that align with your eating aspirations. Here are some other perks:
The service can offer suggestions tailored for those with food allergies or who want to avoid eating meat or processed foods.
Eat This Much automatically generates shopping lists each week, so you know exactly what to pick up on your next trip to the store.
The app can be personalized to fit your budget.
In addition to keeping you from experiencing anxiety about what to eat, ETM also prevents you from making less-than-ideal decisions about your diet. Sign up for a free account and see what a difference it could make in your life.
Ship, Don’t Shop
Between driving to the supermarket, fighting for a parking spot, wandering aimlessly down aisles and standing in line to fork over your money, going to the grocery store can be a drag, right? This is especially true if you buy the same stuff month after month. Rather than wasting your time shopping for everyday household goods, eliminate this errand from your life by having consumables delivered to your home on your desired schedule. Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program can free up hours of your life by shipping vitamins, coffee, paper towels and hundreds of other items to your door on whatever day suits you best. Here are a few other perks:
Save 15% off Amazon’s already competitive prices.
Score free shipping on every Subscribe and Save order.
There’s no need to be an Amazon Prime member, and you can cancel at any time.
Setting up your monthly delivery is a breeze. Simply select the products you typically pick up at the store, enter the quantity you’d like delivered and choose the day that’s best for you. Give it a shot and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Automate Your Life and Say “So Long” to Stress
Life gets busy. With meetings, phone calls with clients and the roll of the dice that is traffic and red lights on the way home, getting to those everyday tasks can seem just a little much at the end of the day. But this is 2016. And it’s a brave new world of magical technology here to help us out!
As our technology grows increasingly sophisticated yet simpler to use, we can benefit from less stress and more peace of mind. And remember, when it comes to managing your money, Mint makes it easy to leave your worries behind by allowing you to manage your finances wherever you are. Our tools not only save you time, but by ensuring that you never miss a payment, you’ll save on late fees, too. Download our free app today, and start living your best life.
Save more, spend smarter, and make your money go further
A new study from the Center for Responsible Lending, “Fix or Evict? Loan Modifications Return More Value than Foreclosure,” found that families facing eviction outnumber those who received a loan modification by 12 to 1.
And argues that banks and loan servicers often foreclose on homeowners, despite the fact that investors (and clearly homeowners) have more to gain from a loan modification.
This goes against recent popular belief, which points the blame for a lack of loan modifications on the fact that many of these mortgages are in securitized bundles, making them difficult to modify.
The CRL found that even with a hypothetical re-default rate as high as 79 percent, which is significantly higher than actual rates, reducing a homeowner’s monthly mortgage payment by 20 percent is better for investors than foreclosure.
“It’s well documented how mortgage servicers’ unfair, shoddy practices have hurt homeowners,” said Mike Calhoun, president of the CRL, in a release.
“This research shows that servicers also routinely give the investment community a raw deal.”
And banks’ interests are often misaligned with the best interests of investors, according to Bill Frey, President of Greenwich Financial Services, and longtime investor advocate.
“It pays for banks to keep mortgages in a state of suspended animation, because they can collect late fees while also protecting second mortgages that are in the bank’s portfolio,” he said in the release.
Finally, the report contends that the poor track record of loan modifications can’t be blamed on homeowners who re-default, but rather on the use of proprietary programs that fail to adequately help homeowners.
“Servicers have been allowed to follow their own voluntary loan modification program, and the result has gone against the best interests of everyone but the servicers themselves,” said Calhoun.
“We need mandatory reforms that ensure servicers follow the law and act in the best interests of their clients—that would end up benefiting everyone.”
Unfortunately, most of these foreclosure prevention programs are coming to an end, with HAMP already under fire from House republicans, and expected to prevent just 700,000 foreclosures when all is said and done.
The initial HAMP re-default rate was seen at about 20 percent, well below the re-default rate for proprietary loan mods.
Save more, spend smarter, and make your money go further
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Each year as you await your tax refund, you face the same question – what to do with that money once it arrives? For some, the money immediately goes to cover basic needs, but for others, the money goes to far less-essential items.
According to a 2020 survey by Self Financial, 44% of respondents said not getting a tax refund this year would completely derail their budget for the rest of the year.
So how do you use your tax refund to plan ahead, build your wealth, financial health, and ultimately, your credit?
Here are 5 ways to put your tax refund to work to build your credit.
But first…
Why use your tax refund for credit-building?
Maybe you’re itching to spend your tax refund to treat yourself. While there’s nothing wrong with using a bit of that money for fun, tax refunds are a great opportunity to get ahead with your finances too.
But why, of all things, focus on your credit?
First, bad credit could cost you thousands of dollars more over your lifetime, since you often get charged higher interest rates (if you can get approved at all). Your credit can also impact your ability to rent an apartment, qualify for certain jobs, or even get a cell phone.
Good credit, however, creates a financial safety net to fall back on if you need it. If you have good credit, you may have an easier time qualifying for personal loans, credit cards, or other credit products if you need to borrow money, often at a lower rate.
If you don’t have an emergency savings fund, credit may be your only other option to lean on if you face job loss, an unexpected medical emergency, etc.
You have to build credit before you need it though. Otherwise, you might not be able to access it when you actually do need it.
5 ways to build credit using your tax refund
Once you have your tax refund in hand, here are some ways you can put it to work to help your financial health.
1. Pay down debt
While paying down your mortgage or other personal loans may help your credit score, it may be a good idea to focus on higher-interest, more expensive consumer debt (like credit card debt) first.
Not only could paying down this higher-interest debt save you the most money in the long run, but it could also have a bigger impact on your credit score. That’s because credit usage, or how much of your available credit you use at any given time, counts for 30% of your FICO® credit score.
While installment loan usage (like personal loans, car loans, or home loans) does count somewhat towards this factor in your credit score, revolving account balances (like credit cards or HELOCs) count more, according to credit bureau expert Barry Paperno.
That doesn’t mean you have to pay your credit card debt off completely to see benefits to your credit score. Even paying your balance down 5-10% may have a positive impact.
According to credit scoring agency FICO, people with the highest credit scores tend to have credit utilization between 6-10% on their revolving credit accounts. While that’s a great goal to aim for, start with paying down what you can, no matter how small that amount may seem at first. Small wins can add up to big ones over time.
Aside from credit utilization, the only other factor that impacts your credit score more is your payment history. Which brings me to my next point…
2. Get your current accounts in good standing
If you have late payments or missed payments on your current credit accounts, make up those payments if you can. While many lenders report a late payment to the credit bureaus if it’s more than 15 days late, how late your payments are can impact your credit score in different ways. A payment that is 30 days late affects your score differently than one that is 90 days late.
For example, according to one FICO score simulation, if you have a 793 credit score and miss a payment by 30 days, your score could drop 60-80 points. In that same situation, if you missed a payment by 90 days, your score could drop 100 points or more.
So the sooner you catch up on a late payment, the better. Besides, making those payments could keep more late fees from adding up.
While catching up on payments may not undo the damage of a late or missed payment on your credit (it can take years for just one late payment to fall off your credit report), it could prevent any more damage from being done.
If the late payments were on property, or loans that were secured by property, like a home loan or car loan, catching up on payments could also prevent you from losing your home or car.
3. Open a Credit Builder Account
This next one is for people who either have no credit history, a limited credit history, or need to rebuild credit after financial hardship such as bankruptcy, foreclosure, or identity theft, to name a few examples.
Unlike a traditional personal loan, credit builder loans don’t give you the money upfront.
Instead, the lender holds the loan amount in a bank account. Each month, you pay into this account and the lender reports your payment history to the credit bureaus, which helps you build credit history.
Once you pay off the loan amount, the money inside the account comes back to you, minus the interest charged on the loan. In other words, these loans give you the opportunity to put some money away for savings while you build your credit.
If you have trouble gaining access to other credit products or want to build credit while you build some savings, a Credit Builder Account could be the right option for you.
4. Use it as a deposit on a secured card
For many, a secured credit card may be a good entry point for accessing credit cards. A secured card works just like a regular credit card, except you put down a security deposit that is usually equal to your credit limit.
For example, you may have a secured card with a $100 credit limit and a $100 security deposit. Like a deposit for utilities, a secured card deposit is used to cover your bill if you don’t pay back what you owe.
Some companies (like Self Financial) provide an option for you to build your way slowly towards a secured card through a Credit Builder Account, no extra deposit or hard inquiry needed. Bonus: Self doesn’t deny you if you have a history of bankruptcy or foreclosure, unlike some other credit card issuers.
There are many different secured credit cards to choose from, so shop around to decide which one is right for you.
5. Work with a credit counselor
Not sure where to start when it comes to your credit? Or what product might work best for you? You may want to use some of your tax refund to hire a qualified professional to help you come up with a credit action plan.
Here are a few reputable places to start searching for a credit or financial counselor:
National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). This nonprofit provides financial counseling services through their member organizations across the US. Visit their website to connect with free or low-cost help in your area.
Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE). AFCPE has over 3,200 certified financial counselors, planners, educators, and researchers around the world. You can find local or virtual financial counseling through their online tool.
Operation Hope. Operation Hope is a national nonprofit that provides financial coaches to help people “develop customized action plans around building their own businesses, raising their credit scores, buying homes, or simply making better decisions with the money they have.” Their website also has tons of free resources about financial basics.
These organizations provide access to qualified financial counselors who can help you create plans that align with your financial goals, whether that means building your credit, paying down debt, budgeting, or working towards buying a house, to name a few examples.
Depending on your current income and situation, you may also qualify for no-cost or low-cost help, since many financial counselors offer a sliding scale based on financial need.
Be careful when browsing for professional help with your credit though, especially if you search for credit repair. While there are some good players in the space, you have to be really careful to pick the right one. The Federal Trade Commission provides some guidelines to help you find legitimate credit repair help, which you can view here.
Bonus: Build an emergency savings
Okay, so this one isn’t exactly credit-specific, but having an emergency savings fund could help reduce the amount you need to borrow if you ever did need to lean on credit during times of financial hardship.
Research from SaverLife shows that even just $100-$200 in savings could mean the difference between keeping your housing during hard times or having your utilities cut off.
According to the IRS, the average tax refund in 2020 was $2,741, which for people who make about $30,000 is roughly one month’s salary – a pretty healthy cushion if you lose your job and need time to find something new.
The good news is, there are tools that could help you build both your credit and some savings at the same time.
Bottom line
While credit may not usually be top-of-mind when you get a sudden rush of cash, it’s a key building block for your financial health, and can help open doors to your future.
So if you have a little extra money, whether it’s thanks to a tax refund, stimulus check, bonus, raise, inheritance, or even just finding $20 in an old pair of pants, put that money to work for your future self.
Save more, spend smarter, and make your money go further
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You’ve got an apartment. Now you want to be sure and get the rent paid on time each month. That way, you won’t incur late fees, wreck your credit rating, or damage your relationship with the management (you’ll probably need them at some point down the road).
Six great ideas for keeping that rent paid on time:
Set a calendar item in your phone for three days prior, with alerts one and two days before that. Then if you have to get the funds together, you’ll have a chance to round it up and get it paid.
Better still: set up an automated payment from your checking account. Be aware, however, that these payments can take several days to generate. So if your rent is due on the 1st, best to set it up for the 20th-24th. You can inquire when the money is actually received.
Set up a savings account to automatically transfer funds to your checking account, so if it’s short of funds, the savings will cover it. Throw any extra cash or unexpected windfalls into your savings account.
Add a “pay the rent” note to any wall calendar or Daytimer, for the 26th of each month. (And buy a box of envelopes and a book of stamps to have on hand if you actually mail the rent).
Ask your management company if they can auto-deduct your rent using a credit or debit card. They will keep it on file, so you might inquire how that is securely done. It could be risky to have your card numbers on a piece of paper in the manager’s file cabinet.
Look at your lease and find out what the late fee is. Think of all the things you could do with that money instead, from a treat at Starbucks to a new piece of décor for your home.
Can you think of other ways to make sure the all-important task of paying the rent happens on time? We’d love to know them. Please share your comments!