(Reuters) – The Nasdaq turned positive in late-morning trade on Tuesday, led by gains in Apple Inc (AAPL.O) after Barclays raised its price target on the stock.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 31.11 points, or 0.28 percent, at 10,979.23. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX was down 1.82 points, or 0.16 percent, at 1,163.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 2.62 points, or 0.11 percent, at 2,404.95.
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A consumer’s credit card activity can be a key indicator of whether or not they can afford their mortgage, it has been suggested.
Investopedia has set out a list of tell-tale signs that point to mounting financial trouble and the likelihood of mortgage default.
These include the practice of only making the minimum repayments on credit cards, with Investopedia noting that this can lead to expensive debts building up over time, thereby hindering a person’s chances of keeping up with home loan repayments and other obligations.
“In your mind, paying the minimum due on each bill may mean you are keeping up with your financial commitments, but financial experts know that minimum-only payments are a key indicator of financial distress,” it said.
“While this may mean that you carry too much debt, this also means that all your income is barely covering your spending.”
Consumers aiming to limit their debts could choose to compare credit cards in search of the best options. Read more…
Creating a Successful Workplace
One of the keys to being an effective manager is to have an approach and philosophy that is consistent and visible to your employees. In fact, every business should take the time to establish a management philosophy for all supervisors and managers to follow that will foster a productive and successful working environment.A successful workplace will incorporate the following:
I’ve never been to Germany, but living in Central Texas can make you feel culturally close to the beer and wurst of Deutschland. And now, one of my blog posts has made a carnival celebrating the country’s annual Oktoberfest event.
For the latest Carnival of Personal Finance, host Alpha Consumer has chosen an Oktoberfest theme for her collection of blog posts from “the best of the web’s money writers.” The carnival includes my recent blog post, “The South: We’re poor, overweight — and we’ve got low credit scores,” which discusses how those scores appear to sink once you head below the Mason-Dixon line.
As a resident of Texas — which is part of the South, the Southwest or its own country, depending on who you ask — you don’t have to look far to find culinary and cultural connections with Germany (including links of the sausage variety, barbecued brisket, bock beers and accordion music, for example). Read more…
1-800-DryClean is a profitable and established business that is currently offering an opportunity to apply for a franchise within the United States. If successful, you will run a 1-800-DryClean franchise of your own and be eligible for third party financing if required. You will also enjoy ongoing training and support throughout your partnership with them.
About 1-800-DryClean
1-800-DryClean prides itself on being a staple of the dry cleaning industry and one of the most dominant businesses in the market today. This has been the case for some years now as a result of the business format that this particular franchise takes. It prides itself on providing convenience to its customers on a daily basis because the rest of the market is just not cutting the mustard.
MasterCard Worldwide and Cardtronics have partnered to give you the convenience of a prepaid MasterCard. Now you can use the new MasterCard prepaid card in all ATM footprints through Cardtronics “Allpoint” surcharge-free ATM Network of more than 32,000 across the United States. Through its presence in all 50 states, with one out of 12 ATMs in the United States participating in its network, the “Allpoint” surcharge-free ATMs are located in highly trafficked retail locations like Target, 7-Eleven, and Costco for your banking convenience.
If you have ever missed a payment / bill in the past, you have probably noticed that it shows up on your credit report relatively fast.
Now, the question is how long does this debt stay on your credit report?
For starters, if you don’t owe those payments, or there are some errors, you will want to contact the credit bureaus immediately to solve the issues. You will want to make sure that you have as much evidence as possible.
If you did owe those bills and never decided to pay, you will find that on average, your debt is going to stay on your credit report for around 7 years.
Federal law will state that an account can appear on a credit report for 7.5 years. After the first delinquency on the account, the clock will start after 180 days. When you add 7.5 years to the first delinquency, this is when you will find out when your overpaid bill will disappear.
Now, for a bankruptcy, this can show up for up to 10 years from your final order. Other loans such as student loans and more will stay on there until they are paid off. These type of loans are immune to bankruptcies and you will owe until the balance reaches $0.
What happens if I challenge?
When you contact the credit bureaus, you’re going to want to send a dispute letter. Once the bureaus receive a dispute letter, the credit bureau will forward that dispute to the actual creditor. From there, they will be able to fight it, or agree to it.
Depending on the outcome, you will find that if they dispute it, it will be on hold. If the creditor agrees to it, your debt will be wiped from your credit report. This is why it’s important that you dispute all errors that show up on your report. People don’t realize how much it can come back to haunt you.
To read more consumer laws and how you can dispute credit report errors, you will find that this FTC guide is a very valuable resource.
As someone who’s lived in Texas for nearly five years, it’s bad enough to see studies that say the South is more impoverished and fatter than the rest of the country. Now data suggests we Southerners have the nation’s worst credit, too.
Click the image to enlarge Recent data shows those U.S. cities with the highest average credit scores are all in the Midwest or North, according a map of the country’s highest and lowest VantageScores created by credit bureau Experian. Those cities the with lowest average credit scores, meanwhile, can often be found in the South, with five of the six lowest-scoring cities in two particular states: Texas and Louisiana.
Why is that? Read more…
Travelocity, American Express and Barclaycard US have announced the five lucky consumers who were awarded once-in-a-lifetime trips to Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and Orlando in the “Travelocity Rewards American Express Card Sweepstakes,” via Webcast. Wrapping up the summer promotion, which was designed to celebrate the launch of the “Travelocity Rewards American Express Card” by Barclaycard US, the announcement disclosed the randomly drawn contestant winners. The winners included Sandy from Benicia, Ca, traveling to Santiago, Chile; Cheryl from Lumberton, Tx, Traveling to Auckland, New Zealand; Mike from Sherman, Tx, traveling to Cape Town, South Africa; Maria from Durham, N.C., traveling to Zurich, Switzerland; and Judy from Wyoming, Pa, traveling to Orlando, Fl. To hear the winnersâ??