Dive into the archives.
How much am I supposed to tip??
I wish sometimes that people would just tell me what their expectation is. I certainly don’t want to be rude, but sometimes I really don’t know what the expected tip is. Generally, I tip 20% for everything, be it drinks, dinner, or haircuts. I don’t use valet parking much, but when I have, I’ve usually given the guy $5. My haircuts are $40, and I usually leave $48, but last time I was there, I told the guy in front to put $48 on my card and he rang it up for $50.. Subtle hint from a friendly gay guy that I should be tipping more? I took it as such, and welcomed the input…
The best rewards cards for credit card deadbeats
The credit card industry refers to people who use their credit cards frequently, but then pay the balance in full every month as “deadbeats” or “freeloaders.” Why such a negative term for people who are diligently and responsibly taking care of their finances? Because the card companies can’t charge them any interest. (Don’t feel bad for them, though, they still make money on transaction fees charged to the seller every time the card is used to make a purchase.)
How to get a free online credit report
I’ve been watching my credit at TrueCredit.com. Keeping track of my credit online lets me know what to expect if I apply for a new loan or line or credit, and lets me know right away if something incorrect is showing up. TrueCredit.com includes a free credit score (not included in most free credit reports), and provides graphs of your debt-to-income ratio, available credit, balances/payments, and total debt over time.
Credit Cards lowering credit limits
In the wake of the subprime meltdown, credit card issuers are getting nervous as well. Reportedly, they’ve been slashing credit limits at the first sign of trouble (a single late payment, for example). The ratio of credit used vs. credit available is used in calculating people’s credit scores, so this may have a negative effect on many people’s scores.
Patient financing for non-covered medical expenses
To get the financing, I simply went to Care Credit’s website, and filled out a short online application (they asked for my contact information, DOB, Drivers license info, Social Security number, Net Income, and my housing situation - own/rent/etc.). I instantly was told how much money I qualified for, and was given an account number…
How to refinance a HELOC without involving the bank.
OK, so the obvious answer here is to pay off the balance. Not all of us have $20,000 or so just sitting around to do that with, however. When I refinanced my house a few years ago, I put 80% on a fixed rate mortgage, and the remaining $20,000 on a Home Equity Line of Credit. I didn’t realize that the rate was adjustable until I was at the closing (thank you to the mortgage broker for giving me all of the facts). But at the time, the rate was only 4%, I was paying interest-only for the first 5 years, and my payments were pretty low.
Adjustable rates will adjust, though, and adjust they did. Within less than a year, my 4% had gone up to 10%, and my payments had doubled, and I wasn’t even touching the principle. I looked into doing another refinance, but it hardly seemed worth it, to pay for several thousand dollars worth of closing costs all over again. I could refinance just the HELOC to a fixed Home Equity loan, but the rates weren’t significantly better than what I was paying on my HELOC.
Then, one day, when I was about to shred some balance transfer checks from one of my many credit cards, I had an idea. And I turned off the shredder.
How to get an 800 credit score.
I didn’t think it existed. Well, ok, I thought that if you were 80 years old or so, had no debt, and owned several mansions, perhaps you could have a credit score of 800. I felt pretty good about my score of 764 — until I found out that my friend Brian, age 32 HAS A CREDIT SCORE OF 800. Seriously? Seriously.
How did he do it?
It’s pretty simple, really. It didn’t involve any sort of complicated “piggybacking” strategies, or transferring balances from one card to another one with a higher credit limit. Here’s what he did..
How to become rich?
If you walk around acting like you’re worth a million bucks, will it get you ahead in life?
According to Steve Pavlina and his very popular blog, part of becoming wealthy is in your mindset. And he takes this quite literally — walking around with $400 in your wallet or purse will make you feel like you have plenty of money. If you feel like you have plenty of money, you probably won’t be making a big deal out of things that don’t really matter much anyway — like not ordering the most expensive thing on the menu at lunch to save a whopping $2. That $2 won’t matter much whether you’re rich or poor, so you might as well just order what you really wanted to eat.
