Debt Relief Blog — Page 11

More debt relief strategies, credit card debt tips, and financial advice from Adem Selita — CEO of The Debt Relief Company.

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So Many Service and Product Offerings It’s Getting Hard to Choose
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By Adem Selita

So Many Service and Product Offerings It’s Getting Hard...

As a consumer, you might feel like you are constantly being inundated with an unnecessary number of product and service offerings that offer little to no variation. There are simply too many choices that are all essentially the same and it makes it that much harder for consumers to rationally decide and choose which offering to go with.

Pros and Cons of High Yield Saving Accounts
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By Adem Selita

Pros and Cons of High Yield Saving Accounts

A high yield savings account is a bank account that is setup to maximize the return from an APY. They are FDIC insured bank accounts that provide consumers with a better yield than your typical 0.25% from a checking account but do not necessarily require you to lock your funds up like a CD.

Department Store Credit Cards
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By Adem Selita

Department Store Credit Cards

APR’s on department store/retail credit cards are higher than any other class of credit products because they are typically defined as the riskiest assets in regards to unsecured lines of credits. Meaning, borrowers are more likely to default on these debt obligations than any other type of debt

Tips for First Time Home Buyers
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By Adem Selita

Tips for First Time Home Buyers

Although everyone harps on credit, in terms of owning a home and qualifying for a mortgage, the most important financial parameter is usually your Debt to Income ratio. Your DTI shows lenders how much free cash flow you have within a given month and is often times more important than your credit score.

Will Paying Off Your Credit Cards Hurt Your Credit Score?
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By Adem Selita

Will Paying Off Your Credit Cards Hurt Your Credit Scor...

There are many benefits to paying off your credit cards and never is there a scenario in which paying back what you borrowed from those credit cards hurts your credit score. Paying down debt is almost always a good idea.

What’s the Difference Between an APR and an Interest Rate?
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By Adem Selita

What’s the Difference Between an APR and an Interest Ra...

An APR is all-inclusive of all finance charges and other associated costs not included in a loosely defined “interest rate”. An interest rate on the other hand is a loosely defined term for what can be considered the percentage (%) of interest you payback on a given borrowed principal amount.

How Can Young People Optimize Their Time While Living at Home?
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By Adem Selita

How Can Young People Optimize Their Time While Living a...

If you’re living at home with minimal expenses, you have a golden opportunity to save and invest for the future. Now’s your chance to take whatever income you have and set yourself up to succeed.

How Does Mental Health Affect How People Manage Their Money?
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By Adem Selita

How Does Mental Health Affect How People Manage Their M...

The relationship between debt and mental health is not one-directional. It is a feedback loop: mental health problems make financial management harder, and financial problems make mental health worse.

What's the Very First Move to Make After Paying Down Large Credit Card Debt?
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By Adem Selita

What's the Very First Move to Make After Paying Down La...

If you have high interest credit card your next step should be to tackle the other accounts—especially if they are considered “bad debts” like credit cards, personal loans, unsecured lines of credit, etc. If you’ve completely finished paying down all your credit card debt you should definitely congratulate yourself!

What Can You Do With Your Money After You Finished Paying Off Credit Card Debt?
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By Adem Selita

What Can You Do With Your Money After You Finished Payi...

Most people don't need to be asked what to do with money, they usually find a way to spend it. With those who just finished paying down their credit cards, the sky is the limit.

What is Net Worth?
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By Adem Selita

What is Net Worth?

An individual’s net worth is their total assets subtracted by their total liabilities. If you have a home worth $1 million, a stock portfolio of $500,000 and cars, boats and miscellaneous assets worth $250,000. Your total assets = $1,750,000. Now let’s say your home has a mortgage of $400,000 and your auto loans, boats and other assets have debt of $100,000; your total liabilities are $500,000.

What to Do If You Get Rejected for a Credit Card?
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By Adem Selita

What to Do If You Get Rejected for a Credit Card?

Getting denied for a credit card does not technically hurt your score but even worse it leave you feeling defeated. What is actually hurting your score is an abundance of hard and soft inquiries and the actually application for credit, the rejection itself has no bearing on your score.

What Caused the Great Depression and Can It Happen Again?
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By Adem Selita

What Caused the Great Depression and Can It Happen Agai...

At its root, the Great Depression was caused by the stock market crash in October of 1929 and the end of the economic expansion experienced during the Roaring Twenties. However, the root of the issue experienced with the populace back then goes a little deeper than this. After the stock market crashed there were “Runs on Banks” (i.e. the general population lost confidence in the banking system and tried to withdraw all cash within clusters and all at once).

What You Need to Know About a Home Down Payment
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By Adem Selita

What You Need to Know About a Home Down Payment

A typical home down payment can range anywhere from 5-20% of the purchasing value of the home. Although, this can definitely vary! If applicants are making use of an FHA loan this can be as low as 3- 3.5%. The minimum down payment for a conventional 30-year mortgage is typically 5%

Why It’s Important Families Talk About Finances
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By Adem Selita

Why It’s Important Families Talk About Finances

In American culture, money is more taboo than almost any other topic. According to a Wells Fargo survey, money is the number one source of stress for Americans — yet it remains the topic families are least likely to discuss openly. People will discuss their health, their relationships, even their therapy — but asking someone about their credit card balance feels invasive.

What is a Stock Market Index?
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By Adem Selita

What is a Stock Market Index?

A stock market index is simply a fund that tracks a basket of stocks and its composite performance as a “group”. The most commonly cited stock market indexes are The Dow Jones Industrial Average (Tracking most industrial companies in the US), The S&P 500 (The index tracking the performance of Standard & Poor’s most popular basket of equities) and the Nasdaq (Tracking the performance of technology stocks).

What is the FICO Resilience Index?
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By Adem Selita

What is the FICO Resilience Index?

Most people know they have a credit score. Very few know they also have a FICO Resilience Index — a separate score that predicts how likely you are to weather a financial downturn without defaulting on your debts. It's the score behind your score.

Pros and Cons of Cosigning on a Student Loan
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By Adem Selita

Pros and Cons of Cosigning on a Student Loan

Cosigning a student loan is one of the most consequential financial decisions a parent, grandparent, or family member can make — and one of the least understood. When you cosign a student loan, you are not vouching for the borrower or providing a character reference. You are becoming a co-borrower.

What is a Bad Credit Score?
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By Adem Selita

What is a Bad Credit Score?

Credit scores in the U.S. run from 300 to 850 on the FICO scale, which is what roughly 90% of lenders use. Here's how the ranges break down and what they mean in practice: Most people say they have bad credit when they fall into the 300-579 range.

What is an IPO?
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By Adem Selita

What is an IPO?

An IPO is an initial public offering, in which a private company raises capital on public markets by offering equity in the company via shares. Once an IPO is completed, shares of the company are listed on public markets (like the Nasdaq, NYSE, etc.) and can be purchased and sold by the general public.

What Should You Do After Getting Laid Off?
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By Adem Selita

What Should You Do After Getting Laid Off?

You should file for unemployment and begin the long and arduous process of receiving benefits. Immediately discontinue any work-related expenses (i.e. metro card, parking costs, commuting costs, etc.).

Checking Accounts for Beginners
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By Adem Selita

Checking Accounts for Beginners

Don’t get too caught up on your APY for the checking account. For many consumers it’s more important to have a convenient bank that provides them with a valued service.

What is a Personal Loan?
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By Adem Selita

What is a Personal Loan?

A personal loan is an installment loan — you borrow a fixed amount, receive it as a lump sum, and repay it through equal monthly payments over a set term at a fixed interest rate. When the last payment is made, the loan is done. No revolving balance, no open-ended obligation, no surprise rate changes.

What is Debt Depression?
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By Adem Selita

What is Debt Depression?

Debt depression is the flat, hopeless emotional state that develops when someone has been carrying unresolvable debt for so long that they have stopped believing it can change. Not sadness about a bad month. Not stress about a bill. A pervasive sense that the financial situation is permanent and that they are powerless to alter it.

Personal Loans vs. Zero Balance Transfer Credit Cards
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By Adem Selita

Personal Loans vs. Zero Balance Transfer Credit Cards

When someone is looking for a way out of credit card debt, these two options almost always come up first: take out a personal loan to consolidate everything, or transfer balances to a 0% introductory APR credit card. Both can work. Both can also backfire spectacularly.

What Happens When You Go Over Your Credit Limit?
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By Adem Selita

What Happens When You Go Over Your Credit Limit?

Most people do not even realize they have exceeded their limit until they see the fee on their statement or get a notification from their card issuer. Understanding what happens when you cross that threshold — and what options you have once it happens — is important whether you are managing a temporary cash crunch or dealing with a larger debt problem.

Paths That Lead to Debt and How to Avoid Them
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By Adem Selita

Paths That Lead to Debt and How to Avoid Them

Many might wrongly assume the leading cause of falling into a debt spiral is simple financial irresponsibility, however this is simply not the case a majority of the time.

The Game of Credit
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By Adem Selita

The Game of Credit

Our current credit system is a bit of an oxymoron, it's a great system for some consumers but not for others. Those with the highest scores probably don’t need credit; but those with the lowest scores do.

Deciding on Renting or Buying a Home
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By Adem Selita

Deciding on Renting or Buying a Home

There are definitely many considerations consumers should make when deciding whether to rent or own, but the most important has to be “opportunity cost”.

Millennial Money Tips
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By Adem Selita

Millennial Money Tips

Millennials — roughly ages 30 to 44 — occupy the most financially pressured position of any generation right now. You are old enough to have accumulated significant obligations (mortgages, student loans, credit card debt, family expenses) but not yet old enough to have the peak earnings and wealth accumulation that typically ease financial pressure in your 50s and 60s.