SayEducate

If you delayed your Christmas shopping until the days just before the holiday, then you probably escaped the early January credit card bills that tend to show up around the first of the year. A thirty-day reprieve is nice, but one thing may now be apparent: your Christmas credit card bills have come due in February.

Christmas Buys Are Now Due 

Those sales leading up to Christmas meant that you saved a lot of money on your purchases as stores slashed prices in a bid to move inventory. For shoppers paying cash, huge savings were realized, perhaps the best deals for the entire year.

Pay Off Your Cards ASAP

If you charged your purchases, those big savings will disappear if you do not pay off your credit card balances immediately. Saving 20 or 30 percent on electronics, clothing, and personal goods is a treat, but if you stretch out your payments over several months, then the accumulated interest will wipe out those savings.

The tendency for some consumers when they receive their credit card bills post-holiday is to go into shock — too much spending and not enough money to pay everything off. The first thing to do is get past your shock and determine what you owe. Next, come up with a plan to pay off the balances, even if you don’t have the means to pay it off all at once. Spreading repayment over several months can help you wipe out holiday debt and cutting other expenses can help you do that faster.

Coming Up With A Plan

Besides cutting other expenses, you can gain control of your finances now by instituting the following measures:

Stop spending — Don’t add to your credit card balances. Instead, only pay cash for new purchases. Nip the problem in the bud now and you’ll gain control of your debt quickly.

Save money — Christmas club plans have just about vanished at banks across the US. However, you can authorize your bank to automatically withdraw $5, $10 or $20 weekly from your checking account and deposit those funds in a special savings account. Come next October, those monies will be available to you and you won’t need to use your credit card for next Christmas’ purchases.

Tap your home’s equity — Not recommended by many financial advisors, but still an option open to you is to take equity out of your home to pay off your debt. You can get a low rate loan and pay those monies back over a longer period of time, but there is a catch — if you default on the loan, you could risk losing your home.

Christmas debt can easily overwhelm Christmas memories by adding stress to your life months after the tree has been taken down. Take command of your finances now and come up with a plan that works best for you.  Come next Christmas, you can reap the rewards of your diligence and enjoy the holiday without worrying how you will pay for everything later on.

This is one in a series of articles related to the sub-prime mortgage mess that dominated the news in 2007 and will likely continue to be big news throughout 2008.

Your credit score is one of the most important numbers you need to know, perhaps having more influence over you than even your social security number does. Your credit score determines if you qualify for lending (including a home loan) and what your interest rate will be for your loans. Unlike your stable social security number, your credit score can fluctuate, depending on what you do as a consumer.

Your Score and Who Has It

Three major credit reporting bureaus track your credit history and assign a score based on what they know about you. Experian, TransUnion and Equifax are private companies, but are widely regarded as authorities in consumer credit.

The information they have about you in your personal report isn’t always accurate which can impact your score. Therefore, Congress has stipulated that every U.S. consumer is entitled to one free copy of his credit report from each company annually. This move allows you to obtain your credit report and make the necessary corrections, if needed. You’ll still have to pay a few dollars to get your score, but you need to have it.

3 Credit Reporting Companies, 3 Scores

Your scores won’t be the same with each credit reporting company and you won’t necessarily know which company’s score was used to qualify you unless you ask. Some states requires full disclosure of this information to you, so ask.

Your scores are calculated similarly by all three companies with the higher scores resulting in easier loan approval and lower interest rates.

5 Parts, 1 Score

Each credit reporting company calculates your credit score (a/k/a FICO score) to include five areas with added weight given to certain criteria over others:

1. Payment History — 35%
2. Amount Owed — 30%
3. Length of Credit History — 15%
4. New Credit — 10%
5. Types of Credit Used — 10%

If you have paid your bills on time and your outstanding balances are reasonable for your income level, then 65% of the score is weighted to these two criteria. Less weight, 35%, is given to the remaining three criteria, but they are still important considerations and can move you up or down a notch spelling the difference between approval and rejection as well as monthly payment amounts.

The Difference Between Good and Bad Credit

Ultimately, the difference between a consumer with good credit and the one with bad credit can be seen in two areas:

1. The interest rate you will be charged for loans, and
2. whether you will be lent money in the first place.

Not sure if you will qualify for that mortgage when you do your home shopping this spring? Then, go ahead and order your credit reports right now, obtain your credit scores, work on fixing credit report mistakes, and taking the steps necessary to get your credit house in order.

The pay off for you could be a new home with a competitive mortgage interest rate, something many consumers will miss if they aren’t on top of their credit.

This article is part of our ongoing home construction specification plan series.

Assembling a Home Construction Specification Plan — Spec Plan O: Flooring

I admit it: I am partial to wood flooring. Although wall to wall carpeting is nice, there is something about a freshly polished oak floor that causes me to take notice. I’ve been in plenty of homes where I paid scant attention to the Berber carpeting, tiling, even stone flooring, but when it comes to wood, you got my attention!

Time to Select the Flooring

One of the last big projects with getting your new home ready for move-in is the flooring. Choices abound and you can design your home to include various options in different rooms. Let’s take a look at some flooring projects certain to give your home a warm and inviting appeal.

Traditionally, when it comes to multi-storied homes, the “rule of thumb” regarding flooring was this:

• Hardwoods on the first floor;

• Carpeting on the upper floors; and

• Tiling in the kitchen and baths.

Let Your Personal Tastes Come Forth

Some homeowners in a bid to be unique and to express their personal tastes aren’t always so predictable. A mix and match of hardwoods and carpeting can be found on the first floor with the living room carpeted and the dining room featuring darker woods, even reclaimed flooring.

In some homes the foyer is carpeted but the entranceway is hardwoods with a running carpet or area rug included.

Kitchens, Bathrooms Can Look Unique Too

There was a time when people experimented with putting carpet down in their kitchens, but that practice pretty much came to a halt when dishwashers leaked, sinks overflowed and food stains took over. Still, an indoor/outdoor type of carpeting could be useful especially in a home with lots of children running about.

Tiling remains appealing for its ease of placement as well as cost. Vinyl is a strong favorite as it is easy to clean and to less costly to replace. Both vinyl and tiling can look great in the bathrooms as can specialized stone.

Why Not Wood Upstairs?

What’s to stop you from having wood floors upstairs? Noise, for one. If the insulation between the levels of your home isn’t adequate, you’ll soon tire of the noise above your head. Walk around any basement and you’ll hear an unwelcome racket each time furniture is moved, people walk, or any other kind of activity is present.

If you choose upper level flooring, rugs on top of the floors can deaden the noise. Work with your builder to make sure that the insulation is adequate and that your choice of flooring is appropriate and discuss with an interior designer what types of area rugs would do the job while still looking nice.

With your flooring in place, you’re about ready to move in. A few projects remain but the most difficult part is now behind you.

For more information about wood flooring, please read the following Fox report.