Archive for the ‘Credit’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

What You Should Know Before You Budget

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

evil-marketing-rays.jpg
Credit: apium

Sticking to a budget is more or less like sticking to a diet: It sucks, and you’re almost guaranteed to fail.

BUT! There’s another way. With a few simple tricks, you can take control of your spending and avoid feeling guilty all the time. Here’s what Tara Siegel Bernard from the New York Times has to say:

  • Let the robots take control. Set up automatic transfers to your savings and investment accounts. It only takes a few minutes. If your savings is being automatically transferred out of your spending account every month, you don’t have to worry about spending it!
  • Start at the finish line. What are you saving for? Saving is easier when you have a goal in mind (a vacation, a new car, an obscenely expensive pair of shoes). Figure out how much money you need and you’ll know how much money to have automatically transferred each month.
  • Separate the fun money from the serious money. If you have a phone bill or rent to pay, keep that money separate from the money you plan to squander irresponsibly at the mall. Obviously.
  • Brace yourself for big surprises. One of the easiest ways to muck up your budget is to suddenly spend a lot of money you hadn’t planned for. This one’s easy, though. Put a little extra away somewhere each month. You can use that to cover your surprise expenses without feeling like a total budgeting loser.

Best Quote:
“Ultimately, what we want our money to be is an energy source. It should help us get somewhere or do something.”  – Amanda Clayman, Financial Therapist (only in New York!)

Santa’s Skipping The Credit Card Debt This Year

Friday, December 10th, 2010

Credit card companies are freaking out as they try to entice shoppers to pay for gifts with credit. But those 5% cash back offers aren’t exactly worth taking on thousands of dollars in debt.

  • Even though holiday spending is up compared to last year, shoppers are less likely to whip out their credit cards at the register this year.
  • Some shoppers are trying to avoid taking on more dangerous debt, and some simply lost their cards because of the recession and last year’s credit card reform. Outstanding credit card debt is “bad debt” because it lowers your credit score.
  • Card issuers make money when customers run up their credit bills and then fail to pay the entire balance at the end of the month. If they miss payments, their interest rates go up, and so does their total amount owed.

Facts & Figures

  • Use of Visa and Mastercard cards fell 11% in the past year
  • Spending on Black Friday was up more than 6% over last year
  • 15 million Americans lost their credit cards because of the recession and new credit card regulations

Best Quote

“With the interest rates, it just seemed like I never paid it off.” – Liz Gonzalez, talking about her credit card debt

A Liability is…

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

A liability is anything that an individual or organization owes to someone else. Liabilities can be salaries owed to employees, dividends owed to shareholders, taxes owed to the government, fixed or long-term debt such as bonds (which must be repaid with interest to the holder) or bank loans (which must be repaid with interest to the bank). Liabilities are the opposite of assets.

Loan-Linked Debit Cards Sidestep College Credit Card Law

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

The CARD Act of 2009 has barely been in place for a month, but companies are already turning a profit with a variation on the theme…

  • A company called Higher One has figured out how to make money on college students using plastic, despite recent regulations designed to keep credit card companies from preying on the under-21 population. And they’re not the only ones finding loopholes in the new regulations: PNC Bank has been encouraging schools to market PNC’s products to students on campus, since PNC is now barred from doing so itself.
  • With the cooperation of school administrators, Higher One links student loan accounts to debit cards, allowing students to spend their financial aid funds anywhere with a single swipe. The cards are accepted anywhere MasterCard is, and they’re often branded with the school’s emblem.
  • Though participating colleges say the card program makes accessing financial aid easier for students, many students are not convinced. The cards come with all sorts of fees, and the way the program is pushed by schools makes it look suspicious. Some schools use the cards as substitutes for student IDs, requiring everyone on campus to have one even if they don’t have a HigherOne account.

Facts & Figures

  • The penalty for not using your Higher One debit card for 9 months is $19 per month.
  • Other fees include $2.50 for ATM transactions with other banks and $0.50 per transaction made as “debit” (entering a PIN) rather than “credit” (signing a receipt).
  • 675 colleges in the U.S. participate in Higher One’s debit card program.
  • Higher One’s sales in the 3rd quarter of 2010 were $27 million.

“The [Higher One] Refund Card mailing may look like an unwanted credit card offer. PLEASE DO NOT DISCARD IT.” – From the website of the University of Maryland at Baltimore

DailyCandy Editor Lauren Lumsden On Discovering New And Cool

Monday, October 4th, 2010

It’s not every day you get to interview an editor from your favorite daily mailing list, but we somehow convinced Lauren to chat in front of our camera last week. Check out her interview to learn about the dude-ranch-to-web-editor career track and, of course, Bacon Salt.

>>TILE brings you exclusive interviews from people doing great things in SPEND, GROW, and GIVE. To view more, click on TILEcasts in the TILE Library.

Have a burning question or someone you’d like to see interviewed? Let us know – just Ask TILE!

Your Friend Can Now Lend You $20 Using A Credit Card

Friday, October 1st, 2010

Is this the end of the entire credit card business model as we know it??

  • A new company called Square is blowing the minds of credit card company executives everywhere. Square produces a little gadget that plugs into the headphone jacks of a variety of iThings and the Android phone. That’s where things get crazy.
  • The free device allows anybody with a bank account to accept credit card payments in person or over the phone.
  • Usually, only businesses accept credit cards. They have to purchase expensive equipment and then pay fee after fee just for the ability to process credit payments. Square Up changes that, eliminating equipment, setup, and maintenance fees.

Facts & Figures

  • Square’s chief executive is the co-founder of Twitter.
  • Each time you process a payment using Square Up, the company keeps 2.75% of the transaction amount, plus $0.15.
  • At first, transactions are capped at $1,000, but that cap can be raised over time or for established businesses.

Luxury Sites Replace Luxury Stores

Friday, July 16th, 2010

In a struggling economy, online shopping might replace even the highest high-end stores.

  • In the wake of the recession, luxury stores are forced to sell merchandise on the web.
  • Selling clothes online, though less atmospheric than a downtown boutique, allows profits to go directly to the company by cutting out the costs of a store.
  • Technology’s infinite possibilities has increased the number of high-end online stores, allowing boutiques to make their websites seem as impressive and exclusive as their boutique.

Facts & Figures

  • In 2009, when the worldwide luxury-goods industry fell 8%, luxury sales online were forecast to grow 20%

Best Quote

“These brands are finally taking the plunge to establish an online retail presence. The recession forced these manufacturers to realize they needed to look for revenue wherever they could.” – Jeffrey Max, Chief Executive, Venda E-Commerce Sites

How can you look at your credit score?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Checking your credit score is a lot simpler than you may think — in fact, everyone in America is entitled to one free credit report each year from all of the three credit reporting agencies. You can request them online at the fishy-sounding but totally legit and official www.annualcreditreport.com.

You can also buy your credit report, for a nominal fee, directly from each one of these agencies. Make sure you type in the correct website address, because fake websites have similar names and will try to trick you into giving away personal information or signing up for services you don’t want or need.

The Secret Behind Ikea

Friday, June 4th, 2010

You know you’ve spent hours wandering its hallowed halls, browsing cheaply-made furniture and believing that its functional European designs will somehow make you a better person. But have you ever wondered how a giant warehouse next to the highway can do that to you?

  • Ikea brought on Kerri Molinaro in 1992, and with her arrival came a brand-new approach to customer appeal. Molinaro brought fashion sense and an eye for merchandising to the efficient furniture store, and changed its image completely.
  • Ikea’s unique business model involves scrimping on production costs and sales staff, and splurging on things like consumer research, product design, and advertising.
  • The store’s layout is not a coincidence, either. Products are displayed alongside one another in beautifully decorated mock-rooms; items cleverly displayed on a wall are easy to find in nearby bins, and, of course, the store is a literal maze, trapping customers who cannot navigate beyond the store’s arrow guidance system.

Facts & Figures

  • More than 50% of Ikea visitors buy something before leaving; in women’s clothing stores this number is closer to 8%
  • Each Ikea store employs approximately 400 people. Of these, 30% are in sales and 70% work in the warehouse or in merchandising.
  • During an average visit, Ikea shoppers spend two hours in the store.

Best Quote

“Often people will never come into contact with staff until the cashier. These products are really selling themselves.” – Kerri Molinaro, President, Ikea Canada

Can anybody look at your credit score?

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

While your nosy neighbor isn’t allowed to look up your credit score, almost any business with a legitimate purpose can. So what makes a credit inquiry legitimate as opposed to a neighbor’s snooping?

The rules that govern who can look at your scores are spelled out clearly in the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Someone who wants to see your score must have an acceptable business or financial reason to do so. People who are evaluating whether you qualify for credit cards, loans, insurance policies, jobs, or housing rentals all have a “legitimate” reason for looking at your credit score. For those situations, a credit score is vital in determining whether you are a good candidate or not – their businesses depend on this information to know you are consistent, trustworthy, and dependable with money. What this means is that any company that stands to gain from looking at your score is entitled to do so.

In most of these situations, though, a person must first authorize the company to obtain their credit score. If you don’t want your loan adviser to look at your credit score, then he won’t be able to. The only caveat is that if you refuse, you probably won’t be getting that loan…

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »