The most valuable lesson I’ve been taught came from my dad –- from the day I was a little girl being bounced on his knee till today when I’m a career woman in my own right, dad has just one piece of advice when it comes to finance –- Just because you have the money, it doesn’t mean you should spend it. In this day and age of the credit card and blowing away money that you don’t even have in the first place, there are millions who would view dad and his wisdom as a throwback to the days of the dinosaur, but truth be told, it’s this valuable inheritance of mine that’s made me a sort of financial genius among my friends, most of whom are in various stages of debt. Consumerism has dealt a severe blow to the habit of saving for a rainy day –- most of us live from paycheck to paycheck, and as if that were not enough, use credit cards indiscriminately to be swallowed up in the endless black hole of debt. We assume needs that do not exist, we fool ourselves into believing that we have to buy anything that catches our fancy, and we are not bashful about spending money that is borrowed at high interest rates and which we have no clue as to how we’re going to repay. The only way to curb impulsive spending, the scourge of every person in debt, is to separate the chaff from the wheat, our needs from our wants. If you have trouble deciding the difference on your own, here are some questions that will help: Are you or members of your family going to go hungry if you do not buy that item on the grocery list? Is that piece of clothing you have your eyes on going to fight for space with so many others just like it in your closet? Do you want that big screen TV just because your friend/neighbor/colleague/brother-in-law bought one and you have to play “keep up or be left out”? Do you feel you have to graduate to the latest notebook computer simply because the technology is newer even though you’ve had your old one for hardly a year and it works fine? Do you feel that it’s time for a new cell phone simply because you’ve had your old one for some time now and you’d like a change? Do you feel naked or incomplete if you’re not carrying around your credit card at all times? Do you recommend taking out a new mortgage on your home just so you can finance a vacation to the Bahamas? Do you procrastinate on loan repayments so that you can spend a day at the spa? Do you believe in living for the moment and indulging yourself at any cost? Do you feel you ought to have that car that guzzles gas by the gallons even though you live just a few blocks away from work? If you’ve answered in the affirmative for every question except the first, then you’re letting your wants get in the way of your needs and musts. There are things in life that are more important than just buying new things that you have absolutely no practical use for and which are added to your list of possessions at the immense cost of debt. The old adage of being able to live within your means takes on more meaning in this time of economic hardship when prices are skyrocketing and making even the most basic commodities expensive. There’s nothing to do but go with the flow, tighten your belt and ride out the rough times, a task made easy if you’ve been wise enough to put aside more than a few pennies for a rainy day.

As of yesterday, one of my loans at Lending Club became “31-120 days late” — this means the borrower is not making his monthly payment and I could end up losing that money. Since I have 20 active loans, this represents a 5% loss if the loan should default. Curious, I dug a little deeper, and as anticipated, it was the one I made to a low credit rating borrower (credit rating D2).

At first, it doesn’t seem fair that borrowers with the least money to spend, have to pay higher interest rates. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to pay less so that they can afford to pay back? Well, that sounds good from the borrowers’ perspective, but when you borrow, you play by the lender’s rules.

To lenders, it is all about the return on investment. The main purpose of charging borrowers with bad credit rating a higher interest rate is to offset the higher default rate — not to make more money and beat down on these borrowers. However, it does happen to a small degree since borrowers with bad credit have fewer options and are more vulnerable. Please note, I am excluding predatory lenders such as payday loans in my argument above.

Let’s look at 2 scenarios (I am making some assumptions with these numbers):

“A” credit rating loans that pay 8%, and has an average default rate of 0%

“D” credit rating loans that pay 13%, and has an average default rate of 5%

Which one pays more? The “A” loans at 8% or the “D” loans at 13%. If you don’t factor in the default rate, it appears that the “D” loans pay more. But let’s do some math:

“A” loans = 8% interest rate - 0% default rate = 8% return on investment

“D” loans = 13% interest rate - 5% default rate = 8% return on investment

As you can see, both have the same return rate for lenders. Basically, the higher interest rate compensate for the default rate and other related expenses when lending to high-risk borrowers. This is why it’s essential to monitor your credit score and continually works to improve it. Two good tools I use for staying on top of my credit score are: myFICO and AnnualCreditReport.com (for credit score and credit report, respectively).

You would never take out an insurance policy on behalf of your bank and pay its premiums, would you? But that’s exactly what you’re doing when your credit card company convinces you to buy life and disability insurance. The sales pitch plays upon fears of the unknown:
What if you became ill or disabled and couldn’t make your monthly minimum payments?
Wouldn’t you want the peace of mind knowing that an insurance policy will make those payments for you so your credit rating remains in good standing?

If you lose your life, your family would not have to make your minimums either. All for a low, percentage-of-your-balance fee.

But what you’re really doing is making sure your creditor gets paid should something happen to you. And only the minimum monthly payments, while the rest of your debt gains interest until you can pay. In case of death, your balance owing will be repaid to your credit card company up to a certain dollar value, depending on your coverage eligibility.

But that’s not the only way your credit card lender benefits. By selling you the policy, it earns a handsome commission from the insurance company as high as 40%.

What’s worse, you could be enrolled without knowing it because of standard policy that automatically adds the insurance to your agreement — you can find it buried in the fine print. And not only for credit card accounts, but also other types of loans and credit lines. To add insult to injury, you may also pay interest on your policy as it’s added to the principal of a loan.

You can still protect yourself with life and disability insurance, just don’t sign up through your bank. You can find life insurance policies that will cover all your debts (not just one credit card or loan) that you can also name a beneficiary.

So next time you sign up for credit — be it a credit card, credit line or other type of loan, read the terms and conditions carefully, and ask your financial institution directly about its life and disability insurance policies so you don’t become a victim of this credit card company secret.

I knew that applying for too many credit cards could adversely effect on my credit score. However, the concept wasn’t picture perfect until I read Rocket Finance’s story where he said, “we traded our credit score of 748 at it’s highest point in exchange for favor from credit card companies.”
How Did I Sell My Credit Score?

I am not above this pitfall either; however, not all of them were bad trades. Here is some of what I have done:
10% Off — Guilty! I have signed up for many store cards at Macy*s, Target, Saks Fifth Avenue, etc. The only worthwhile one was Home Depot card where I got 10% off a $3,000 purchase with no interest and no payment for 12 months
Mileage for Air Travel – My wife and I got Citibank Premiere Card for our trip to Thailand. In hindsight, we should have used our existing DiscoverCard or Citi Dividend Card.
No-Fee for International Transactions — Did you know that most credit card companies charge 3% fee for international transactions? Well, my wife and I found one from Commerce Bank that offers no-fee for international transactions. Another good trade in my opinion.
Other Ways To Sell Your Credit Score

I believe that’s all I have done as far as selling my credit score. But there are other ways:
Free t-shirt, pen, mug, etc.
Cash bonus
0% Introductory rate
0%, no fee transfer

I am sure there are other creative ones.
Is It Bad To Sell Your Credit Score?

I guess the answer is depends. In case of Rocket Finance, I think it isn’t so bad. After all, he got $5,000 through sign up bonuses and credit card arbitrage — enough to balance his budget. However, it could be bad if you are planning to do something that depends on your credit score — i.e., take out a home mortgage. In general, there are two types of trade that I think are worthwhile:
1. Leverage 0% Introductory Rate to Reduce Interest Expenses

I mentioned this strategy in 7 Steps Debt Reduction Illustrated, where I said it make sense if you could transfer balances from high interest credit cards to ones that offer no-fee 0% APR transfer to save you money. For example, these cards offer no-fee 0% APR transfer:
Clear from American Express
Pulaski Bank Gold Visa® Card
IberiaBank Visa® Platinum Rewards Card
ESPN Total Access Visa® Card
2. Leverage Cash Back Rewards

I am also a big fan of getting money back by using reward card, as mentioned in 40 Alternative Income Ideas and Resources. There is nothing wrong with using credit cards if you pay off the balances in full each month. Some cards that offer cash back reward include:
Chase Freedom(SM) Credit Card
BP Visa® Rewards Card
Discover® More(SM) Card

When it comes to credit cards, I believe the key is to pay them off in full each month so that you don’t have to pay any fee. If you can manage this, then credit cards are great for collecting cash back rewards and other bonuses. They are also safer than cash and debit cards when you travel. And lastly, they could act as your emergency cash reserve if needed.

If your business operates at flea markets, you may not realize that you still have the ability to accept credit cards from your customers. It’s no secret that shoppers spend more money when they use their credit card, so you definitely want to offer your flea market customers a way to swipe those cards to increase your sales volume.

If you’re just starting out, or are a small-time business that occasionally rents booths at flea markets, it may not be in your best interest to sign up for a merchant account with a bank and then purchase the somewhat expensive equipment that would let you physically swipe a card at your flea market booth. On the other hand, if you are a thriving flea market business, you may be able to do just that- and use a satellite internet connection to send the credit card details to the processor.

Using A Telephone to Process Credit Card Payments From Customers

Most of the small and medium sized businesses with flea market or vendor fair booths can’t justify the expense of the merchant account equipment. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean there is no way to accept credit cards on-site! One of the easiest methods of accepting credit cards from customers in a flea market situation is to use a phone-in method.

Some merchant accounts actually let you call a toll free number, enter in your personal account number to verify your business, and then using your cell phone’s keypad, you would enter in the credit card details. The automated system can tell you whether or not the credit card has funds available for their purchase and you can proceed with the sale. This is a superior method to simply writing down the customers card details on an order form, because you never know if the credit card will go through until you’ve returned home or to the office and entered the details- long after the customer has already received his or her merchandise from your flea market booth!

The fees for an accept-by-telephone credit card processing method are often much less than a traditional merchant account as well. Not only do you not have to purchase the equipment to process the card, but your monthly fees are usually lower. You can expect to pay a one-time fee to join the program, around $100 or so; and then an affordable monthly fee around $5. When you process credit cards by phone, each transaction will be discounted by the discount rate (typically around 3-4% of the transaction price).

Using Your Laptop and Internet Connection to Process Credit Card Payments

If you have a laptop with a wireless connection that works pretty much everywhere you go for flea markets or vendor fairs, your other option is to use a credit card processing system that allows you to accept credit cards via a web form.

For each customer, you would type in their payment details including their name, address, card type and number, expiration date, and even the three or four digit security code found on the back of the card. The web form would send the information through a secure server and return a response to let you know whether or not the card is valid- at which time you can continue processing the sale for the customer or tell them the card was declined.

Using these alternative methods of credit card processing makes it possible for small and medium sized businesses operating booths at vendor fairs and flea markets to increase their sales volume by accepting credit cards as payment.

#1 - Starting a Blog

Blogs are informational websites that people use to share information. The basic idea here is that the sharing of free information can bring visitors to your website, and you can in turn make a profit from that traffic. Most blogs will show the latest articles (known as posts) on the homepage, making it very easy for people to find the latest information that has been shared.

Examples:

• Engadget
• The Huffington Post
• Lifehacker
• Treehugger

People use a variety of methods to bring traffic to a blog including search engine optimization, social media, paid advertising, email marketing, and press releases. Recently there is a growing trend of bloggers using traditional media such as television and radio to gain exposure to their blogs, but in all honesty this is only happening for elite level bloggers.

To make money with a blog, people use a variety of different methods including selling advertising space, products, and services. Many other blogs make great money by using affiliate marketing, which is selling products for others in exchange for commissions.

This method is a great way to go, especially if you want to start casually. You can start a blog with no pressure, and allow it to build up over time. For more information on this method, check out this post: Starting a Blog.

#2 - Starting a Content Website

This method uses the same basic idea as idea #1. You will use free content to attract visitors to a location where you can sell advertising and products.

Technically, a blog is a content website, but for the purpose of this guide, ‘content websites’ are the traditional content sites that aren’t blogs. There are a lot of ways to create content websites. Usually people use content management systems like Joomla, Drupal, and Mambo to manage the content.

You may be wondering to yourself what type of content people use to create content websites. These sites can be built around literally anything, but many of them review products and services or report on news specific to an industry or niche.

Like idea #1, people use a lot of different methods to bring traffic to content websites, such as search engine optimization, social media, paid advertising, email marketing, and press releases.

Examples of successful content websites:

• GSM Arena
• SEO Chat
• DP Review

#3 - Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is the process of promoting products for other people and companies, in exchange for commissions. For example, let’s say that you have a site that provides people with home loans. I could sign up as an affiliate and then push people to your loan site. When people get a loan, you will make some money and will pay me a commission. I would be the affiliate marketer and you would be running an affiliate program.

There are thousands of different affiliate programs that you can use to make money online. Here are some examples of some of the more well known programs:

• eBay - eBay’s affiliate program pays you commissions when you get people to sign up for eBay, and also pays some commissions if the traffic you send ends up buying something on eBay.
• Amazon - Amazon’s program pays you commissions for pushing people to Amazon. You earn a commission when a person you pushed to Amazon buys a product. Amazon commissions start at 4% and go up from there and depend on how many conversions you can get.

Affiliate marketing is often combined with a few of the other ways to make money online. For example, bloggers often use affiliate marketing to make money from their blog traffic. List builders (see list building section) use affiliate marketing as the primary method of making money with their lists. They will usually send their list an affiliate offer (an offer to buy a product or service) around once per month (sometimes more or less often).

Affiliate marketers often stay under the radar, but for a good site that teaches this process, visit Super Affiliate Zac Johnson.

#4 - List Building

List building is one of the more aggressive and powerful ways to make online money. The method combines amazingly well with affiliate marketing, and most good affiliate marketers rely heavily on building lists to scale up their businesses.

A good list builder will usually set up a site specifically to capture names and emails. You have probably done a search in Google to find a page that offered you a free product. All you have to do to get the free product is type in your name and email, right? By downloading that free product, you will probably be signed up to be on that marketer’s list. He will then be able to communicate with you in the future and will send you and everyone else on the list offers. A certain percentage of the people on the list will take advantage of those offers and this will get the marketer paid.

Good list builders will come up with ways to help the people on their list, which will keep them on the list for a longer time period. They are able to create a win-win. Over time, their list grows larger and larger which provides them with larger and larger income. Good affiliate marketers sometimes end up with millions of names.

To build their lists, list builders usually use a service like Aweber, which helps them to create forms to capture information, and stores the names and emails in a database for future communication.

List building combines with quite a few of the other methods, including blogging, affiliate marketing, lead generation, and starting an online service business.

#5 - Lead Generation

Generating leads can be an extremely lucrative way to create money online. Mortgage leads, for example can be sold for more than $40 per lead, with no promise of conversion.

Usually the process of lead generation involves setting up a site to bring traffic, and then funneling traffic to a page where the visitor requests more information about a product or service. In the case of mortgage loans, the visitor would request more information about a loan. The marketer doing the lead generation (the person who created the lead) will then sell the information to a mortgage broker or company, who will in turn call the lead to try to get them to get a loan.

There are literally hundreds of different industries that rely on lead generation including:

• Loans
• Finance
• Weight Loss
• Real Estate
• Credit Cards
• Cell Phone Plans

Savvy marketers will set up businesses that capture leads in these and other industries and can make some truly killer profits.

To find lead generation programs, I would visit CJ.com - they manage affiliate programs and lead generation programs for hundreds of companies.

#6 - Starting an Online Service Business

Those who become good at generating leads will often transition into creating their own service businesses. They usually realize that while they are able to make good money selling off leads, they could make more by creating businesses for the leads.

For example, a marketer may create a site at some point that provides people with good information about finance. They then go through the lead generation process to create and sell leads to an experienced financial planner. This goes great and the marketer makes great money, but eventually realizes that the financial planner makes a lot more from those leads than he does.

At that point, the marketer will often find a financial planner to partner with, or will become a financial planner himself. The leads are already there so the transition isn’t too complicated.

Selling services online usually takes a few simple steps:

• Bringing traffic to a website
• Generating a lead
• Selling to that lead

Since the first step in the process is bringing traffic to a website, the method is often combined with other ways to make money online including blogging and list building. Many times, people that use this method will also purchase a good amount of paid advertising, as long as they are able to convert that traffic into clients.

Examples of online service businesses:

• Clientside SEM - Aaron Wall’s SEO consulting service
• Unique Blog Designs - blog design service
• Logoworks - logo, web, and graphic design services
• Article Marketer - article distribution service

#7 - Creating Products

Those that make the most money online are often those that create their own products. These products are often informational and can be downloaded by the purchaser.

For example, a savvy marketer will do research and then create an information product that will teach people how to lose weight. The product will probably be sold as an ebook or as a site that has a paid membership. The marketer will then use a variety of methods to bring traffic to the site including affiliate marketing (the marketer will recruit affiliates), paid advertising, list building, and sometimes blogging.

Since an informational product costs basically nothing to deliver, there is often great money in creating this type of product. I would highly recommend getting some experience before using this method because there’s a lot to it.

#8 - Setting up an Online Store

The old fall-back is creating an online store that sells tangible products. Some people will buy products at wholesale and sell them at retail for profits. Others will drop-ship, which is the process of selling a product before you buy it. You hold a list of what you can buy products for and sell them at an increase. Your supplier will then ship the product for you.

This method is often combined with many of the other methods including list building, lead generation, affiliate marketing, and creating products.

Examples:

• Amazon
• Lets Talk
• Buy.com

Hopefully this list is enough to get you started. While there are literally hundreds of ways to make money online, this list contains some of the most powerful. Adding one or more of these to your current arsenal may also help some of you to be more successful with what you’re doing now.

You know what else? Working this plan has provided other unexpected side effects. And they’re wonderful. Here are a few:

1. My husband and I both work out our finances together. I’m still the budget maker and bill payer in the family, but since we make the decisions on how the money is allotted, we have to make the time to communicate, come to an agreement, and project our monthly financial plans. We’re more unified in our marriage than we’ve ever been.

2. We eat healthier. Again, this has never been a major issue, since I prefer cooking from scratch, but because fresh ingredients are cheaper (in the long run) than boxed food, we eat well. And we eat frugally! I’ll write more on our monthly menu plans in the near future.

3. We have less stuff. Because every dollar is accounted for in our zero-based budget, we know whether we have the funds to buy that random coffee cup or candle. More often than not, we don’t even want that kind of clutter-fying stuff because we have written down financial goals. And those are far more important than those cute dessert plates at Target. Every cent counts.

4. Because we have less stuff, our home is easier to clean. Our small amount of storage space (in our one closet) is mostly well-organized, we know where things are, and surfaces are basically empty. This makes cleaning much quicker.

5. And because we have less stuff, our home is also more visually serene. It’s a simple place without much clutter, so it’s usually peaceful.

6. We talk about money with our daughter. Sure, she’s only 3, but she can understand basic concepts. She’ll be aware of our family’s financial goals because we’re okay with talking out loud about money with her. It’s not a taboo topic, because money’s not scary to us.

7. We’re actually aware of where we are financially. We know our net worth. We know exactly how much we’ll have set aside for Christmas this year. That’s a great feeling. Such peace.

8. We have goals - financial goals - and they’re reachable! It might take awhile, but I don’t doubt we’ll have 6 months of expenses in savings, at least a 20% down payment for a house, and plenty for retirement when the time comes. Knowing that they are possible breeds excitement about the future and contentment in the present.

9. We have some money to spend on whatever we want, guilt-free. In our monthly budget we’ve allotted a small amount for each of us to spend on anything at any time. Passing by a Starbucks and craving a latte? If I have personal money left still in the month’s budget, I can buy one without feeling like I’m blowing cash on stuff I should be using for the electric bill. It’s in the budget.

10. I know more financial stuff. Before my introduction to Dave Ramsey, Roth IRAs, escrow, mutual funds, ESAs and 529s, and even sinking funds were really confusing. But because he targets the average American with little financial knowledge, it’s simple enough for me to understand. And cooler than that, I actually enjoy flexing my financial smarts. I feel in control because I get it.

Before leaving for debt credit card help

Typically, you find that there are more credit card debt help that what is really needed. Just leafing through the newspaper and you’d be surprised by the number of advertisements related to debt credit card help. From time to time, there are articles on credit card debt and credit card debt help. The television channels are full of ads related to debt credit card help. There are websites and magazines that are devoted to debt credit card help. You can also hear on the topic of “debt credit card help ‘under discussion in Parliament. There appears to have policies and laws in training for debt credit card help. All kinds of suggestions seem to be floating debt credit card help. Everyone, even some of your friends, have a piece of advice related to debt credit card help. All banks seem to offer debt credit card help in terms of different types of loans (usually short-term loans) at low rates.

Thus, debt credit card help is readily available and, indeed, even unwanted debt credit card help or advice will be invested in your ears. However, not all offer credit card debt help control enough to be able to provide a credit card debt help for you. You do not need to understand some basic facts about credit card debt and credit card before you go looking for debt credit card or assistance before starting to help you with your card credit debt. So you should try to understand how providers of credit card bills, how interest is calculated on the balance of your credit card and how your credit card debt increases. Agreement on all APR, goes without saying. Even if you think you’ve seen it all when choosing your credit card, you should review these concepts to ensure that you do not even know them. If you decide to go against the credit card debt professional help, you’ll need to understand these concepts further details. All of these concepts will be handy when you’re comparing different offers balance transfer (for example). In addition, knowledge of these concepts will also be useful in discussions with Councillor credit more fruitful.

Thus, debt credit card starts to really help develop a better understanding of credit cards and other concepts related to credit cards (regardless of whether you go outside debt credit card help or not).

Most people are using credit cards for their needs. They can pay their bills for the purchase of a store with their credit card. There are many of these people who have more than five credit cards in the wallet. There are many credit cards offer the world’s leading banks and credit institutions such as Bank of America, Citi Group, American Express, Chase, Capital One, First National Bank, etc., and these institutions to continue the implementation of a new credit card, properties often beat the competition and win more customers. In this case, it is appropriate to see how the experts www.YourCreditNetwork.com. It is an excellent place for you. You can also choose and adopt a new credit card.

They help you gain access to credit cards in three simple steps. We shall use the menu on the left to research which type of credit card, you’re looking for, select a credit card offers that best fit the needs of your credit immediately and apply for credit cards to choose from the online. It ’so simple, right? Yes, every time you must obtain a credit card, better visit the site and everything is fine.

YourCreditCardNetwork.com offers many options to choose from. They are not a credit card company, they only help people find the best credit card they want. The site is like a credit card encyclopedia, where you can search and find many credit cards you can apply. What are you waiting for? Visit their Web site and now travel credit cards that you can apply