Increase your gas mileage by 33%
-Vernon
Williams, 425 Ways to Stretch Your $$$$
These tips will enable you save lots of money as you
drive:
1. Avoid aggressive driving.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency,
speeding, rapid acceleration and braking lower gas
mileage by up to 33 percent on the road and by 5
percent around town.
2. Observe the Speed Limit.
Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 60
miles per hour (mph). Each 5 mph you drive over 60
mph is like paying an additional $0.10 per gallon
for gas. Observing the speed limit is also safer.
3. Replace the oxygen sensor.
You may improve your gas mileage by as much as 40
percent by replacing a faulty oxygen sensor.
4. Remove the roof racks.
A loaded roof rack can decrease your fuel economy by
5 percent.
5. Replace the oil filter.
Replacing a clogged air filter improves your car's
gas mileage by as much as 10 percent, while
protecting the engine.
6. Keep tires properly inflated.
You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3
percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper
pressure. Properly inflated tires are also safer and
last longer.
7. Avoid carrying unneeded items.
An extra 100 pounds in the trunk reduces a typical
car's fuel economy by 1-2 percent.
8. Keep your engine properly tuned.
This can improve gas mileage by 4 percent.
9. Combine errands.
Several short trips taken from a cold start can use
twice as much fuel as a longer, multipurpose trip
covering the same distance when the engine is warm.
Planning your trips ensures that traveling is done
when the engine is warmed-up and efficient.
According to a 2007 study conducted by the American
Payroll Association, 67% of American
employees are living paycheck to paycheck. My
mission is to help employees increase their
discretionary income by cutting their expenses.
I provide:
“Your web site helped me save over $500. My sincere
thanks.” Mary P. - Norcross, GA
Go to
www.howtocutyourexpenses.com.
Bankruptcy is Not Always the Best Solution
One
of the biggest myths is that if you file for
bankruptcy you will be financially free and no
longer have debt problems. Wrong! Bankruptcy is not
the cure-all for getting out of debt. Over a
million Americans file for bankruptcy every year.
One in every 73 households files for bankruptcy. In
2007, approximately 1 million Americans filed for
personal bankruptcies. Millions of Americans are in
debt and get in debt every year. Many people think
that filing for bankruptcy will solve all of their
debt problems. On the surface it seems that if you
file for bankruptcy all of your debt will be
eliminated and you can start with a clean slate.
Actually it is not that simple.
To
file for personal bankruptcy you must reside in a
state for 90 days prior to filing and have a total
unsecured debt XE "debt" less than $290,525 or
secured debt less than $871,550. The new bankruptcy
law that went into effect in October 2005 states
that debtors (consumers) who earn less than the
median income in their state about 80 percent of
those who file for bankruptcy still would be
entitled to file under Chapter 7 XE "Chapter 7" .
But those who earn more than that and who have the
ability to repay at least $6,000 over five years
would have to file under Chapter 13 XE "Chapter 13"
, which requires a repayment plan XE "plan" .
Although it is true that after you file for
bankruptcy you can purchase a house or a car, what
people don’t realize it that the interest rate that
you will be given will be very high. Also, based on
the new bankruptcy law implemented in October 2005,
it is harder to file for bankruptcy and depending on
the type of bankruptcy granted it will remain on
your credit report for seven to ten years. This
greatly lowers your credit score and it will
probably take about 3 to 5 years before you score
increases due to the bankruptcy filed and provided
that you don’t get into any further debt.
When you have financial problems and can’t see any
way out bankruptcy looks like the best option but
there are many other options available to you. If
you have a house you can take out an equity loan to
pay your debts, you can reduce your expenses and
create a budget for yourself, you can get a
part-time job, go to school and further your
education and get additional training related to
your particular job, setup payment plans with your
creditors or sell some of your assets if you have
any.
The best consumer is an educated consumer. If you
find yourself in financial troubles the first and
best thing to do is do research and find out the
options available to you. Next you want to identify
your assets and liabilities. Your assets are
anything that you do not owe money on such as
stocks, bonds, 401(k), retirement plans, etc. Your
liabilities are anything you owe money on such a
house, investment property, boat, car, etc. This
will help to determine if you have any assets that
can be sold or money borrowed against to pay off
your debts. Next you need to create a budget for
yourself to identify how much money you have coming
in (how much you get paid each week) and how much
money you have going out (how much you pay each
month in bills and expenses).
If you have very little or no assets then you will
need to do some quick fixes such as cutting back on
expenses such as: bringing your lunch to work,
carpooling, catching the subway or bus to work,
riding your bike or motorcycle to work, eating
breakfast at home, renting videos instead of going
to the movies or cutting back on how often you go to
the movies, canceling your pager or cell phone
service or switching to the cheapest plan available.
These things will provide extra money in a short
period of time until you develop a plan for paying
off your bills. If you have researched all options
that are available to you and are unable to use any
of them then bankruptcy should be your last resort,
not your first option.
Getting in debt is the worst place to be but with
time you can overcome this obstacle. Think long and
hard before filing for bankruptcy. It may not be
worth the headache.
Harrine Freeman is the CEO of
H.E.
Freeman Enterprises, a credit repair and
personal finance services company. She is a
member of the American Association of Daily
Money Managers, SPAWN, Toastmasters, NAWW and
the Women Network.
For more
information on how to get out of debt or to buy
her book please visit
http://www.hefreemanenterprises.com.
She can be reached via e-mail at
hfreeman@hefreemanenterprises.com.
Who is Derek Ward?…
And what is his plan to
make an impact in the world as we know it?
Derek Ward is a mortgage broker with a
far reaching background in the realm of
financial counseling and education. He has been
in the world of finance for more than two
decades and is now dubbed “The Financial
Educator.” A title that he says he “doesn’t
take lightly”. Ward is also a former co-founder
of First Federal Mortgage in Palmdale,
California. He is currently promoting a state
of the art product that will allow many people
to not only stay in the mortgage game without
losing their shirt or home, but actually
get ahead with increased equity and a paid
mortgage much earlier than your loan documents
state.
With the economic “crunch” (don’t call it a
crisis…or even a recession) that America is
facing, many people are trying to find a way out
of debt, mortgages and credit obligations. A
record high in nationwide foreclosures is
putting a damper on the American dream. A
change in the stock market is leaving many
people concerned about the future of retirement
based investments. And, the increase in the
cost of living coupled with the decrease in the
value of the American dollar is leaving many
people in a quandary as to what their next step
should be.
In steps Derek Ward…
“The Financial Educator” has been offering
advice for many years…advice that has been so
succinct and on point that he, jokingly, often
finds that he “talks himself out of business by
telling his clients what all of their options
are and allowing them to make the decision for
themselves”. Despite his strong financial
background, he has found a solid stepping stone
in the mortgage world. In light of the spike in
home foreclosures, he has focused his efforts on
bringing relief to consumers finding pain in the
housing market.
With a system that is fairly new in the United
States but very popular abroad, Ward is vowing
to help clients pay off their mortgage in record
time. “We are in the process of trying to bring
this system to the United States and I am a man
on a mission; my goal is to change the financial
landscape of America one family at a time by
showing people how to own their home free and
clear and eliminate all of their debt and have
financial freedom.”
This is how it works…
“Traditionally homeowners deposit their income
into a checking account and pay their monthly
expenses as they’re due, using that account.
And, any money that’s left over at the end of
the month is either left in their checking
account or transferred into their savings
account.”
“Well with my system, homeowners are actually
able to cancel out interest on their mortgage
with the money that they would normally leave
sitting in their checking account or their
savings account. It consists of three
components:
1.
Your mortgage: We can show homeowners how to
take their thirty year mortgage and pay it off
in a fraction of the time…many cutting their
mortgage repayment by 1/3 to 1/2 of the normal
time.
o
They do not have to refinance
o
There’s no increase to the current monthly
payments
o
It’s not a bi-weekly program
o
There’s no lifestyle changes to the consumer
Derek Ward breaks down mortgages and the way
this all works together. “A current mortgage is
a ‘closed-in’ mortgage and what that means is
that the consumer has a monthly scheduled
payment and they [the consumer] send it to the
bank and the bank applies a very small portion
to the principal and the bank then takes the
huge chunk and apply it towards your interest.
By doing that, you’re actually paying almost
double the finance charges in a thirty year
period on a typical mortgage, for example a 200k
mortgage will cost you about 431k total so you
are actually paying about 231k in finance
charges on a 200k mortgage. That is a lot of
interest. In the United States, we are a
payment driven society. In the United States we
normally look at two things; ‘what’s my monthly
payment’ and ‘when is it due’. They never tend
to take a look and see what the finance charges
are that their being charged on that loan. This
goes for credit cards. This goes for car
payments. This goes for any type consumer
debt.”
2.
A line of credit: You can use any line of
credit. You can use a personal line of credit.
You can use a business line of credit, or if you
have equity in your home, you can use an equity
line of credit.
o
The line of credit, typically depends on your
mortgage balance. Your line of credit can
usually be anywhere between 8k and 80k.
3.
The software: The software works as a financial
dashboard to enable the homeowners to
effectively manage the entire process.
o
We offer lifetime service support to the
homeowners in addition to coaching services that
enable them to benefit from the full potential
of the program.
o
The software instructs homeowners to transfer
specific amounts at specific intervals from
their line of credit to be paid directly to the
principal on their primary mortgage.
After discovering the 3 basic pillars of the
program, Ward continues to explain the full
breakdown of this process and how it works to
save you time and money. “This creates
considerable interest savings over a homeowner’s
primary mortgage. After the homeowners transfer
specific amounts of money, they will then
deposit their income back into the line of
credit instead of depositing it into their
checking account. So what it’s coaching us to
do is change our banking habits and paying the
bills directly out of the line of credit, and
you start depositing your line of income back
into the line of credit.”
“The nice thing about this is that when you go
to pay your bills each month, you don’t have to
wait until you get paid because you are using
OPM which is Other People’s Money. You are
going to advance the amount of your expenses
directly from your line of credit. Now when you
advance that money from your line of credit, the
bank typically calls for a minimum payment
that’s required because you borrowed the money.
By taking your income, paycheck, payroll or
commission or whatever you have and applying it
back to the line of credit, that does two
things. The first thing that it does is cancels
out the interest on that line of credit because
you have applied money back to it. The second
thing that it does is actually satisfies the
banks requirement of the monthly payment.
Homeowners are still able to use their line of
credit services such as checks, debit card, ATM
card…they still have access to their money.”
Through typical banking we deposit our money
into a checking account to make monthly
payments; leaving our money to remain dormant
and stagnant for us. Additionally the bank is
loaning that dormant money out and making money
on it through interest payment from other
consumers and you still make nothing from it.
This type of program cancels that out and allows
your money to work harder for you. Ward
explains the remaining portion of the program
and how it comes into play beyond the standard
three steps.
“Once the software determines that the homeowner
has reached an optimal balance on their line of
credit, the software instructs them to initiate
specific funds transfers towards the primary
mortgage to reduce the balance on the
mortgage.”
In our society, this all seems too good to be
true, yet Ward explains his own personal doubts
he had with the system in the beginning and how
it has proven to be what was promised and more.
“When I first heard about this, someone came to
me and said ‘Derek, I can show you how to pay
your 30 year mortgage off in 8 to 11 years.’ and
I said ‘How is that done?’, and they said ‘Let
me run an analysis on your house.’ Well, it came
back the next day and it showed that I would
actually pay my house off in 11.8 years and I
would save over 700k in finance charges. And I
said ‘this is too good to be true.’ So I
started to do my own research on this company
and found that this company is licensed with the
National Better Business Bureau. They have an
AA rating with the Better Business Bureau and
they’ve also been approached on many occasion to
purchase the rights to the software and the last
offer was over 60 million dollars and they
declined it. IT appears that this will be the
next paradigm shift for homeowners. It is
predicted that anywhere between 40 and 60 % of
homeowners will be on this type of program or
something similar to it in the next five to
seven years. So my mission is to get this out
to the homeowners and let them know that you can
own your house free and clear.”
“One of the additional services that we offer to
the client is that once determine how you can
pay off your home early, then we put together a
financial strategy in terms of your retirement
investments. We all know that social security
is not going to be there. We so many people
going back into the workforce and usually you
see them at the front door of Wal-Mart greeting
you. That’s simply because they didn’t plan for
retirement and they were not given the choices.
It’s not that they planned to fail, they just
failed to plan.”
With a 100% success rate, 97% rate of client
retention rate and a conservative projection
from the software, many people are finding that
the program causes a shift in their spending
habits; a change in habits that actually results
in a major adjustment to initial projections for
the better. Whether you are planning to stay in
your current home or sell it, the program has
proven to be beneficial due to the increase in
equity and earlier pay off date. To learn more
about the program and obtain the software go to
Derek Ward’s personal website:
http://www.TheFinancialEducator.Blogspot.Com.
Then click on “Pay Your mortgage off in 8-10
years.” This will direct you to a website and
you will click on “Free Analysis” to see if the
program is right for you.
-
Additionally, Derek Ward is looking for more
agents to promote the program and may be
contacted for employment opportunities
through his personal e-mail address at
DWARDENTP@Yahoo.com.
-
Derek Ward is also a contributing columnist
with Center Stage Magazine and his advice
may be viewed online at
http://www.CenterstageMag.com.
We would like to thank
Makeda Smith
from
Jazzmyne Public
Relations for arranging this
interview.
So
what do you think? If you would like to respond to this
article
click here and sign our
Guestbook
to leave a public or private statement, comment or
reaction.
Why You Need to Save
Many Americans today don't have a savings
account or emergency fund. I heard on the news
on recently that the Commerce Department
reported that Americans spend all the money they
have and personal savings rates reached the
lowest level since the Great Depression.
Start you creating an emergency fund. Your
emergency fund is your safety net, in case you
get sick or lose your job you can use your
emergency savings to hold you for a few months
until you can find a new job.
Your emergency account should be separate from
your checking or savings accounts and should
only be used for emergencies such as an
unexpected expense, unemployment, medical bills,
etc.
An emergency fund should be enough savings to
pay your bills for at least 3 to 6 months.
Money for an emergency fund should be readily
accessible and stored in a checking or savings
account, preferably a high interest savings
account such as Emigrant Direct or ING or a
money market account where you can make money
while saving money.
To determine how much money is needed to pay 3
to 6 months worth of your bills do an inventory
and write down all your bills and expenses and
the monthly amount spent for each. Calculate
the total. Use this amount and multiple by 3 or
6 to determine the total amount you need to save
in your emergency fund.
Make sure you do some comparison shopping before
opening an account for your emergency fund to
ensure that they are no minimum or other fees
for accessing your account. A good source to
use is
www.Bankrate.com.
You can start off by contributing small amounts
to your emergency fund until you are able to
contribute more. Start off with a contribution
of at least $20 a month to your emergency fund.
Once you are able to contribute more to the fund
do so. Make several short-term goals for your
emergency fund. Once you have saved enough
money to pay one bill pat yourself on the back.
Then keep saving until you have enough to pay
three bills and so on until you have enough
saved to pay your bills and expenses for 3 to 6
months.
Once you have reached your emergency fund goal
it is time to start developing some long-term
goals such as an additional savings account and
to start planning for retirement. A great site
to learn about retirement planning is
www.Morningstar.com
and look under the Personal Finance section.
Having an emergency fund will ensure that you
are on the road to becoming financially secure
and will prevent you from going into debt when
an unexpected tragedy happens or unexpected
expenses arises. An emergency fund is the first
step to getting out of and staying out of debt.
There are many organizations that provide
emergency services for people such as the
American Red Cross Emergency Assistance,
Salvation Army Emergency Assistance Program and
the United Way. The utility companies provide
funds for people in need. You can use these
funds to pay necessities and use money from your
part-time job to pay other bills.
According to MSNBC.com, the savings rate
of Americans declined to -5% in 2005, -1% in
2006 but has not risen to .6 in the second
quarter of 2007. Consumers are spending over
half of what they earn. The other 40% is spent
on health insurance.
We no longer live in a
society that promotes longevity and encourages
stability. You must prepare for the future and a
critical component of that is having a savings
account. You may not know what the future holds
but if you prepare your finances now, it will
ease the burden of what tomorrow holds.
Harrine Freeman is the CEO of
H.E.
Freeman Enterprises, a credit repair and
personal finance services company. She is a
member of the American Association of Daily
Money Managers, SPAWN, Toastmasters, NAWW and
the Women Network.
For more
information on how to get out of debt or to buy
her book please visit
http://www.hefreemanenterprises.com.
She can be reached via e-mail at
hfreeman@hefreemanenterprises.com.
5 Ways to Become Financially Empowered
Wealth is
defined as the value of everything you own minus
any debts. A wealthy person is described as
someone who can live comfortably for a least 5
years without working. Not everyone during his
or her lifetime may become wealthy but you can
become financially empowered. Financially
empowered is being in control of your finances,
spending your money responsibly, buy needs more
often than buying wants, and setting goals for
your future.
Here are 5
ways to become financially empowered:
1. Become a
homeowner. Becoming a homeowner increases your
credit score, proves that your are a responsible
spender, provides a tax write-off, increases
your financial worth, provides you with an asset
that will appreciate over time which will
provide you with equity.
2. Buy
insurance. Buy health, life and disability
insurance. Many people get in debt from medical
costs because they do not have life insurance.
Life insurance is critical because medical costs
increase by 10 to 20% each year. Disability
insurance (short-term and long-term) will help
you in the event you become seriously ill and
have to be off work for an extended period of
time. This will help you to recover because you
will not have to worry about how your bills will
be paid during this time.
