Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Top 6 Benefits Of IVAs

An Individual Voluntary Agreement (IVA) is a great alternative to filing for bankruptcy. This is a binding agreement made between you and your creditors that they’ll freeze your debt, as long as you pay back some of the sum owed through monthly premiums. After five years, your outstanding debt will be written off, and you’ll only be asked to pay back what you can afford. You’ll need to be indebted by over £10,000 to be eligible for an IVA, and you must have more than two creditors.

Predetermined Period

Don’t you just love the satisfaction of marking down an important day on your calendar? Within five years, you could be debt-free. The best thing is that you know exactly when to look forward to your last payment. Take this time to start cutting up your credit cards or swatting up on spend-thrifty techniques.

Peace Of Mind

Debt is a leading cause of depression. With creditors banging down your door, life becomes stressful. You may be feeling overwhelmed and desperate. An IVA freezes all interest and charges, as well as gets your creditors off your back, leaving you to deal with your debt problems calmly. Your house shouldn’t be threatened either and all court charges should be stopped.

Looking forward to being debt-free also gives you a goal to work towards! That light at the end of the tunnel is a great way to motivate yourself to meet your repayments.

Paying Back

The amount of money you pay back through IVA is agreed with you and is based purely on what you can afford. This means you’ll be able to live reasonably comfortably whilst slowly paying off your debt. This sum won’t increase unless, at your annual review, it’s deemed that you have a higher salary which merits a larger premium. It’s in everyone’s best interests to ask for a sum that you can afford.

Professional Ramifications

When you apply for an IVA, this is a personal issue that won’t go beyond yourself and your creditors. Your professional position will not be affected in the same way that a bankruptcy would damage your career prospects. Nobody needs to know and the IVA will drop off your credit history completely, in six years’ time. For more information on how an IVA will affect you, visit this website for advice.

Paying Less

It’s likely that you won’t be able to pay off the entire debt before your five year contract runs out. This means that you end up paying less to your creditors than you already owe. Before you start feeling too sorry for your creditors (ahem), consider the amount of money they’ve made off your debt already.

Legally Binding

With the law behind you, you have the security you’ve been longing for. As long as you meet your IVA payments, you’re completely protected. Make sure that you talk at length with the financial advisors at your IVA company about the legal requirements of your agreement, so you’re 100% protected.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Setting financial goals - A knowledge base

You have a pretty big choice to make.

There will always be things, pretty awesome things in fact, that you really want to buy.

There will always be places you want to visit. Exotic and wonderful trips to spend lots of money on.

On the other hand, you have five more fingers. Also on the other hand, you think of the future and you always picture yourself having enough money to pay your bills. You picture the future you having some money in a savings account, for your kids' college, or a house you want to buy. You picture money being something that's not a huge stressful problem for you month-to-month.

Well the truth is that these two separate thought processes are often fighting each other. You want a secure financial future, sure, but you also want to buy all that awesome stuff now too.

You can't have both. What to do?

In order to get where you want to be, you have to set financial goals and then you'll be way better equipped to work toward hitting them.

So how do you do that? Here's a few tips.

1. Define your goals. Financially, where do you want to be in 5 years? in 10 years? Figure that out, and you'll know where to work toward.

2. Collect all your financial data. This means track your spending, track your debts, track your income, everything. You don't know what to fix, until you know what's broken.

3. Make changes in your money habits now. That might mean sacrifice. It's hard now, but you'll enjoy it later when you're financially secure. It may mean looking for a better job, consolidating debt, switching where you shop and what brands you buy. No Pain, No (Financial) Gain.

What are you waiting for? Set some Goals and go for them!

This article provided by : National Payday, the web's trusted payday lender since 2000.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Top 5 Hidden Costs Of Renting A Car

More often than not, people who are looking to rent a car take the time to compare prices and read customer reviews in order to find the right one to suit their purpose. However, it is necessary to mention that the overall costs of hiring a vehicle imply more than the actual price you pay for the pre-established period during which you rent the car. Unfortunately, irrespective of how much window shopping you are doing, you will end up paying for the following fees!

 1. Fuel

Unless you fill up the gas tank yourself, when returning the rented car, you will be charged extra for the fuel. While the great advantage of opting to prepay a full tank of gas consists of the fact that you will pay market price for the fuel, the downside is that you will not get any refunds for the gallons of unused fuel. In other words, you will wind up paying for what is left in the tank and since the gas prices are rather high, it means you will be taking quite a lot out of your own pocket for the sake of convenience. With regards to the option of filling the tank yourself too, you have to remember to do so as otherwise you will end up overpaying for gas.

2. Loss/damage waiver

When signing the contract with the car rental service, it is important to read the policy on the loss and damage waiver carefully. While it is true that you will be completely covered and most companies include the zero-deductible coverage, it all comes at a rather spicy price usually starting with 15 pounds of more per day. Therefore, it is advisable to review your individual car insurance and determine if you have the coverage included in the policy.

3. Other drivers

In the eventuality that the rented vehicle will be used by other drivers than the one stipulated in the contract, then you should expect the car hire company to charge you an additional price, usually around 5 pounds per day. Consequently, in order to avert overpaying, it is best to add the other potential drivers in the contract. Given the fact that including other drivers in the contract does not cost you anything if you are a member of a recognized automobile association, it is not worth the risk of voiding the car hire contract to risk this.

4. Partial days

Sadly, few people know that if you picked up the rented car at 11 am for instance, you have to return it at the exact same time or else you will be charged for another full day. In addition to respecting the time frame rule, it is necessary to mention that in many instances or unless arranged beforehand, the rented car must be dropped off on the exact agency bureau where you picked it up, or you will wind up paying another fee as well.

5. Mileage limitation

Even though not all car rental services apply this fee, some of them charge you extra if you exceed the number of miles stipulated in the contract. Sure, the price of an extra mile may not seem like much, but don't forget that fees tend to add up quite quickly as the miles go by! For this and all the other above reasons it’s vital to check out the terms and conditions of your contract before you hire. Carhiredirect.co.uk offer a comparison tool where you can compare prices across a number of car hire companies across the world and look at their various terms of contract with regards to these above costs.