Debt Credit

From Financial Advisor to Financial Comparison Site Owner: How To Quit Your Job and Support a Dream Lifestyle

Xavier Spence — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:07:50 +0000

This is the story of how I went from being a bored financial advisor to owning a financial comparison website that lets me travel the world on the profits.

I’m usually not comfortable telling people how to make money online but I wanted to share my story because if I can do it then you can do it. I’ll also give you some tips on what NOT to do when starting a niche site like this. If you avoid the mistakes I’ve made then you’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time and energy, and you’ll probably start making money a lot more quickly too.

I am a qualified independent financial advisor, and although I had a decent job in the UK financial services industry, like many other people I found myself dreaming of making money online and living by the beach. I tried a bunch of things and nothing seemed to work until I started Compare Logbook Loans, a financial comparison site in the obscure niche of logbook loans that I’d never even heard of before.

It wasn’t an easy ride, and I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way, but it now earns me and my business partner a basic living each month, and since it really took off I spent most of 2011 in Thailand and Vietnam living by the beach. The site won’t make me rich it now makes around $8,500 net profit per month between two of us but because I get paid in UK pounds it allows me to live an excellent lifestyle in exotic places where I benefit from the great exchange rate.

There are many different online business models but the one I have managed to get working is a cross between affiliate marketing and lead generation. Put simply, this mean

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Debt relief Best method to deal with financial crisis

Mitchell Horsley — Sat, 12 May 2012 05:36:26 +0000

In order to get an IRS tax relief in United States debtors usually wants to go for Offer in Compromise (OIC). This process allows the taxpayer to escape the financial debt crisis and get maxim relief from their debt. In order to pay less than what they owe, people prefer to avail debt relief services. However, the IRS may not be as charged on the idea of negotiation. It is totally up to them if they are satisfied with the argument and allow negotiations.

Only 10- 15 per cent of the compromising offers received by the IRS are sanctioned by it. A substantial damage to a person’s present financial condition will occur if they have to pay the complete sum of money taken as debt. One has to agree to pay as much amount to IRS as they could get hold of via their pressured techniques.

It is a must to avail the services of a tax attorney in case a person is looking at compromising offer in order to save time and effort.

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The Problems Of Defaulting On Your Student Loan

Abby Gloucester — Sun, 06 May 2012 02:39:18 +0000

Various people who have trouble paying for their tuition at college end up asking for aid in the form of student loans. While these people may need the help when they are in college this matter can change once they have graduated and they have a job. It is at this point that the former student forgets to re-pay the loan. These defaulted student loans are loans which will not disappear even after a number of years.

As you are borrowing money from a state authorized institution the records of your defaulted student loan will be well maintained. To wipe these records clean you will need to have a discussion with your former college tuition officer. From this individual you will be notified as to the amount of money that you have unpaid.

Additionally you will be able to talk about the repayment method which will help you out of this problem. Read full post…

Debt collector dos and don’ts for collection calls

Mitchell Horsley — Sat, 05 May 2012 23:08:53 +0000

If you have intentionally or accidently fallen behind on your bills you may have been placed into collections.
Once an account is turned over to a collection agency, the representative trying to recover the account will begin telephone calls and sending written notices regarding the account. Once those nescience telephone calls begin,they usually do not stop until the account is paid and settled. The debt collectors trying to collect the delinquent accounts have state and federal collection laws they must follow including The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
The FDCPA was passed to protect consumers from abusive debt recovery tactics and to promote fair debt collection practices. Both the collectors trying to collect on the past-due accounts and the debtors placed into collections can get frustrated when dealing with these accounts.

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How to Import: A Guide for eBay Sellers

Xavier Spence — Sat, 05 May 2012 18:08:21 +0000

[Last week I published a guest post about importing from China. That article seemed to have got some of the readers dabbling in eBay excited about a new option they have not explored before for cutting through the competition. I had several mails asking me about some of the basics of getting started. Since the guest author, Alice, is an expert on this topic, I asked her if she could help us with a more basic How-To guide. And she was kind enough to oblige. I hope this will come in handy for some of you.]

I recently wrote a post about The 6 Essential tips for importing from China. Not surprisingly, it sparked an interest among some of the enterprising readers about what is possible when you import items from China to sell on eBay and they want to learn more. So, I have put together this little guide to cover some of the finer points of importing goods from China to the US.

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The best available way to make foreign currency exchange smooth

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:39:28 +0000

As money is the main ingredient involved in the currency exchange, it is important to know the exchange rate prevailing in the foreign exchange market is one of the most important factors in our economy’s development. International exchange rates are always floating and changing every minute. So you can use Caxton to get the best rates when you need to change foreign currency or send money abroad in an effective manner.

Therefore, when dealing with the exchange of two currencies, by default, you are supposed to know the updated rate of currency. There are some useful tools with which you can know the updated exchange rates. One such tool is the currency converter. In our era of advanced information technology you can use calculators built into the system or calculators that are available online. B Read full post…

Don’t File Insolvency ! The way the Insolvency Laws Have Made Debt Management Programs tasty.

Abby Gloucester — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:14:56 +0000

In their despair they decide to file insolvency, but dont file insolvency as it should really only be thought about as a final resort. You do not have to file insolvency as there are several alternatives available to get you out of your balance issues.

Now the world is facing a downfall vis economy, each individual is also faced with the issue to control his expenditures. Many folks were fired thanks to the enterprises going bust. Heres a awsome page on the subject of
debt relief. Fortunately filing insolvency isnt the only course available. There are several alternative ways to cut back your liabilities. And definitely nobody wants to have that long-term effect of his actions.

Did you know there are countless hundreds of folks prepared to offer you information freed from cost? Debt control isnt a new idea any more.

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Is Credit Card Debt Settlement Dangerous For Your Credit History?

Mitchell Horsley — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:41:10 +0000

Being a lawbreaker in monthly payments is a common demand most US banks have towards a person who pretends to get a debt settlement. It’s not a secret that missing regular payments may negatively affect your credit score. Generally, the longer you miss the payments, the more damage it causes to your credit history. However, if your manage to obtain a negotiated settlement from bank, it will inform the credit bureaus that your account has been paid or settled for less than your owed earlier. Of course, such measure will not bring your credit score as high as a “paid in full” status of your account. Thus, be ready to the fact that your credit score will be constantly rebounded, and remember that a settled account, even if it has been settled for less than you initially owed, worth more than an outstanding account.

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IVA help may be needed as ‘expensive borrowing increases’

Abby Gloucester — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:50:44 +0000

More consumers could find they need individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) help due to an increasing tendency to rely on expensive credit like payday loans and cards to make ends meet.

Managing director of Debt Advice Foundation David Rodger observed that people are increasingly seeking help after getting into trouble through such financial arrangements.

He said people are using these kinds of credit to “supplement” their everyday living costs and noted this has been caused by banks being less willing to lend in recent years.

This has led to a situation in which the payday loan market has “quadrupled in size in just two years”.

An IVA may be useful for anyone whose debts have reached £15,000 or more, at which point they may be completely unpayable.

One of the problems many consumers could face is that of fuel debt, where money is owed to energy companies following price hikes.

Money Advice Trusts National Debt line took a call on the issue every five minutes last year and the situation has got gradually worse.

In 2004 fuel debts accounted for just 2.7 per cent of calls, whereas the figure had risen to 13.7 per cent in 2011.

Take Charge of Your Credit Repair

Mitchell Horsley — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:29:48 +0000

Having bad credit for most people make them feel like they have not just lost control over their finances but over their entire life as well. Almost all transactions that we encounter on a day to day basis – from signing a housing lease to closing a job application – can be affected by us having a reliable credit history or not.

It’s a good thing there are ways that we can maximize our bad credit repair efforts without having to feel victimized constantly by the mistakes that we made before.

If you have items on our credit reports that you don’t agree with, if you can explain yourself on your reports and write, then by all means do so. You have a legal right to write and voice out your side. This means that you can file a short statement to be sent on all credit bureaus. This statement will then show up on your credit reports. Don’t d

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Notice of Mortgage Protection Insurance, a Scam.

Abby Gloucester — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:24:40 +0000

I had never heard of Mortgage Protection Insurance until a week ago. I usually only get bills and credit card offers in the mail these days, but last week I got something new. Heres how it happened

The case of the misleading mailing.

The mailing was a nondescript brown envelope with an unfamiliar return address and nothing else on the outside besides my address and red letters that looked as though they were hand-stamped and read:

“Requested materials inside”

Requested materials? I dont remember requesting any materials from anyone.

At first glance it seemed like a credit card application. Ive received many in unmarked envelopes like this and even a few with URGENT printed in red on the front. But

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Efficient Debt Collection through Softwares

Mitchell Horsley — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:02:02 +0000

After a student graduates, he/she usually has a period of six to nine months before the repayment starts. The lending institutions inform the borrower about the date on which they have to start the repayment. Any default in repayment can lead to negative consequences. Student loan is a necessary evil but there are several ways to make a student loan repayment manageable through consolidation.

Non Payment of Loans

Often students find it difficult to meet the expenses and also maintain a regular payment on the education loan. So it is advised to plan about the repayment when they apply for a loan. A very wise idea is to start paying early, even before the completion of the course. One can also opt for an extended payment period. Although it increases the total amount repaid, it reduces the immediate burden as the amount repaid is significantly reduced.

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How Much Should You Pay a Freelancer?

Xavier Spence — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:59:04 +0000

When outsourcing work for the first time, one of the most important aspects is deciding on how much to pay your freelancer. As this might be unfamiliar territory, the aim of this article is to provide some practical advice in addressing this decision.

Generally there are 3 reasons why we utilize the services of freelancers. These include:

Freeing Up Time Many individuals do not want to sacrifice time for money. When considering the online market, for example, it allows Internet Marketers the opportunity to outsource work such as article writing or graphic designs etc. Many established Internet Marketers will rather pay someone else to do the work for them in order to free up more personal time.
Professional Service Very often the skills of a professional are required to carry out certain tasks. W

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Credit Checks And Their Impact On Credit Scores

Abby Gloucester — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:43:14 +0000

Credit scores: everyone knows their own, but how much do you know about the reason your score is the number it is? A number of factors can affect the amount on your credit score, including credit checks (or credit inquiries). Even though it is the case that your credit score has the capacity to fall a little bit after some sorts of credit checks, analysts say that checking your own credit history will not have any impact on your score in any way.
Inquiries can be understood as “soft” or “hard.” Whenever you apply for credit, every hard inquiry by lenders can lower your credit score by a few points. On the other hand, when you are shopping around for a loan during a brief time span, it will only result in a single inquiry, thereby lowering the damage of having multiple credit checks. Conversely, your credit score will not be affected by a soft inquiry. Read full post…

Before You Dive Into the World of Freelance Writing, Beware of These Three Gotchas

Xavier Spence — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:22:40 +0000

If you’ve been a salaried employee all your life the allure of a home-based self employment gig can be awfully compelling. And it seems that there are several economic and cultural shifts occurring today that are opening up the freelance market to people in many industries. It’s an open secret that corporations have taken to hiring “consultants” or contractors both for specific projects and for an indeterminate period of employment.

Software engineers and network experts often hire out on a contract basis. Case managers and clinical study professionals for pharmaceutical firms, even executives with backgrounds in finance or operations management are to be found today working under contract. But this article is about people who are interested in starting a freelance writing business in partnership solely with a computer and high speed online service. One of the cultural phenomena that are driving the freelance writing business today is the remarkable range of online commercial enterprises. Those that are depending on using the internet for marketing purposes need quality content, and a lot of it, to establish their presence.

Some freelancers read everything they can about blogging and set out to develop a site with sufficient quality to build a following that in internet terms, translates into a revenue stream from advertising dollars. Others who are casting about for a starting point in the business gravitate to one of the bidding sites for freelance services such as Guru, Elance, oDesk, ScriptLance, and many other lesser sites offer the freelance writer an opportunity to sign on and bid on posted writing jobs.

Most of these have a premium subscription level that provides full access to listed jobs, so you’ll be paying a monthly stipend. In addition, once you land a job with one of these services payment is handled through their site and they take a cut of up to 10% of your earnings. If you’re being paid through PayPal, that’s another deduction from your earnings.

But the real high wire act with these services is the bidding. You can count on some ridiculously low bids, usually from offshore writers; it’s a phenomenon that has skewed the entire pay structure in the business (see the comments on the article How Much Should You Pay a Freelancer, for example). The best you can do in these situations is to develop your profile on the site with a focus on quality work. You can’t sell yourself out for jobs that end up paying $4 or $5 an hour; you’ll just have to wait until a potential employer comes along who is looking for quality along with price and hope that you get the job. Once you’ve established contact with an employer and made a favorable impression with your work, you may have your first steady client.

I turned to Craigslist when I was first starting out in this business. There are postings for legitimate writing jobs to be found there, interspersed with a remarkable variety of hustles. You’ll learn to recognize the frauds fairly quickly; the most obvious being those that promise instant income of thousands a month while working from home. Don’t even think about responding. Then there’s the “paid internship” opportunity and the listings that are looking for bloggers or content writers for unspecified topics, work available instantly wherever you are. Those sorts of open ended ads are usually a waste of time. There are also ample placements for non-profit organizations involved in social activism; generally they are counting on your dedication to the cause as justification for starvation wages.

There are also listings for legitimate positions at various seniority levels, but many of those are for office jobs. Occasionally you’ll find one that will consider telecommuting but often those are for technical writing or specialized work that doesn’t require interacting with a team. Most of them want some sort of background: could be SEO, could be medical writing, and could be finance. If you meet the qualifications for experience it is sometimes worth submitting your resume and bona fides with an inquiry about at least part time telecommuting.

Sometimes the best legitimate gigs on Craigslist are the most boring but they can mean steady work. Commercial websites that need a paragraph of written material to accompany every picture for the hundreds of items that they are selling are in need of a ton of content. It’s assembly line work but it’s steady – and if the proprietor has a list of keywords then you can raise the pay scale a bit. The best way to find these and other legitimate telecommuting jobs is to check the twenty five largest cities in the country every couple of days. Listings do vary from market to market although you will see the same listing in each of the cities; usually those are listings to avoid.

If you explore the writer profiles on Guru or Elance you’ll read about writers that have earned a handsome living working with the one-off proposals put out to bid by employers. That’s one way to do well in the freelance writing business but it requires a lot of personal marketing through the site, and the ability to write on many topics knowledgeably without much time for research. The job bid sites and Craigslist all have listings from employers who need quality product and will continue to need it, but you’ll have to search through a lot of writing opportunities to find them.

Those are the people that you want to connect with and stay connected with, if you don’t wish to spend endless hours bidding on jobs. Once you’ve proven your worth as a writer, employers are going to stick with you because if they’ve been in the business for a while, they’ve encountered lots of inexpensive writers for whom English is a second language. You’ll also find that the entrepreneurs building out commercial websites tend to know one another and are not averse to recommending a writer who has given them good service.

Basically, creating a freelance writing business requires a startup period when you get your first jobs and in so doing, establish some experience in the business. From there if you keep up your trolling for new clients eventually you will find a few that are a good fit for you, that pay a decent sum for your work, and that have constant needs for additional content.

It is simply a matter of working the odds: connect with lots of people who need content, stick with those who don’t haggle over price, and develop a group of clients that keep you working full time. Good writers are not that easy to find, even though the competition is fierce. Employers who connect with a quality writer will often take steps to maintain those writing services – it’s not always the employer that holds all the cards.