A guest post from Nancy Smith, Donna Fox’s executive assistant
Today Donna shared with me her concern for the influx of people reaching out to her for help with their poor financial situations, and how badly she felt for their demise as they were in a very devastating place.
Unfortunately most of these people have waited too long to seek help. A lot of times when we are in a bad financial situation we wait for something to take care of it for us, or we think we can just ignore it and it will go away, or we go on about our business in denial that we’re even in such a predicament, or we’re too prideful to ask for help. These are very dangerous reactions to financial difficulties because the longer you wait without taking action, the worse it will get, and before you know it it’ll be too late to do anything to repair it. Don’t let these negative reactions get in your way of saving yourself from financial ruin.
The best advice I could give is to take action when you see it coming, before it’s actually here. Get into financial combat mode. Start cutting down on your wants, only keeping your needs to survive.
Stop eating out, quit going to Starbucks every morning, cancel out the movie channels to save on your cable bill, do your own manicures and pedicures, if you have cell phones – see if you can get by without the land line, make arrangements to share a ride to work, call all your credit card companies and mention what a great customer you have been for so long and ask if you are at the lowest interest rate possible.
Look in your garage and see what you haven’t used in 3-5 years and sell it on Ebay or have a garage sale. In the winter turn down the heat in your home and use lots of blankets. In the summer turn down the air conditioner and wear less. If you have an extra bedroom in your home, take in a boarder. Do your own gardening and cleaning, it’s great exercise.
Move all your outstanding credit card balances to a new card with special intro promotions with no interest for a year and a low rate there after, and during that time don’t make additional purchases, just pay down the debt, aggressively.
If you see there may be a chance that you could fall behind on your mortgage payment, call your lender before you’re late and see if they are willing to work with you. Most often they will set up a plan to help you through those rough times, especially now. This will buy you time to sell if you need to sell, or find a second job, or see if your mate can find employment to generate a second income or borrow from a relative.
Do these types of things right away when you see a downward trend beginning in your financial future. Start these practices now, even if you aren’t on the down, they can help prevent you from going there. We are living in some pretty uncertain times and we can never know when things could get really bad. Be prepared, get ready to be able to sustain you and your family for times of a possible recession or depression. Pay down your current debt more rapidly, especially with at least one of your properties. Refinance your mortgage to a 15 year loan while rates are low, or split your monthly payment into bi-weekly payments, or make two full payments per month, applying the additional on your principle.
Become more in tune with your financial situation. Check your bank and credit card statements monthly, make sure there are no discrepancies. Set up all your bills in some type of automatic online bill pay system to avoid any late charges.
Credit is an important tool in major purchases and growing your business, so protect it from harm before it’s too late. Sell before foreclosure or bankruptcy. Acquire a partner in your business with the knowledge of something you lack in and grow it together. Learn to live below your means and save the extra for later by investing it wisely. Don’t continue to live above your means and expect a miracle to bail you out when you’ve hit bottom. Society has created a sense of false security with credit and it can be very financially dangerous if you don’t watch it. You cannot continue to buy before you have the money or you will never own anything outright. We need to be more conservative when it comes to purchasing on credit by being able to pay down the debt in a reasonable amount of time.
Recently a lot of people were enticed into buying more home than they could afford with some pretty unmanageable adjustable rate loans. Call me old fashion, but in the back of my mind I could just hear my parents telling me Fixed Rate, Fixed Rate, Fixed Rate. Purchasing any differently to me is a gamble, especially during these uncertain times. For all the Real Estate investors that bought investment homes during the housing booms and thought they were going to sell before the rate adjusted, that’s a huge gamble, one of which I could have taken, but chose not to. When I saw the huge price tag on the 800 sq foot homes, with the neighboring house so close you could reach out and touch their hand without leaving your home, red flags went up in my eyes. It’s time to be very diligent and cautious when investing. If you can’t afford to make the payments on all your properties while unoccupied, then you have no business buying them. If you bought thinking you can turn around and sell the property before the rate adjusted, did you do your homework in the area? Were people in the area making enough money to pay the rent amount you needed to charge to cover the payment? Could their salaries allow them to purchase a home at the inflated prices? Is the area growing too much too fast? Did you follow your gut feeling? Yeah, there will be some of the lucky ones that came in at the right time and sold, but to me there is a scale to investment home buying, beginning stage, top of stage, and ending stage. Beware at the top of stage, and steer clear of the ending stage, unless you can afford the loss.
Also beware of the businesses that are waiting for you to be at your lowest point, they prey on people that have given up and want to hand over their trouble for someone else to handle. When you are in this state of mind it can be very dangerous financially. You could find yourself signing your house over to a complete stranger with promises he/she can sell your house for you, keeping you from going into foreclosure. There are some very smart people out there just waiting to take advantage of people in a bad state of financial affairs. Don’t fall for these scammers, if it sounds too good to be true, then it’s just that.
If you are looking for ways to repair your credit, or ways to build your credit in order to make a large purchase or grow your business look into Donna’s From Credit Repair to Credit Millionaire system, she explains, step by step, how to do these things on your own. The action steps in her system really do work, I have tried them myself, and I have received great results. The key to success with her system is simple, take action and follow up.
Happy Holidays!
Nancy Smith
Every time that someone looks at your credit report, the inquiry is noted. If you have lots of inquiries on your report, it may appear that you are shopping for several loans at once - or that you have been rejected by lenders. Both make you appear a poor credit risk and may affect your credit score. This means that you should be careful about who looks at your credit report. If you are shopping for a loan, shop around within a short period of time, since inquiries made within a few days of each other will generally be lumped together and counted as one inquiry.
You can also cut down on the number of inquiries on your account by approaching lenders you have already researched and may be interest in doing business with - by researching first and approaching second you will likely have only a few lenders accessing your credit report at the same time, which can help save your credit score.
When you’re building your personal credit, you will always be asked for your Social Security Number SSN) . This is because it’s a unique identification number, everyone in the US only has one, and no two people have the same number. This makes it a perfect method to store information in computer databases.
In case you were wondering, here’s how the numbers are assigned.
An SSN consists of nine digits, commonly written as three fields separated by hyphens: AAA-GG-SSSS. The first three-digit field is called the “area number”. The central, two-digit field is called the “group number”. The final, four-digit field is called the “serial number”.
The process of assigning numbers has been changed at least twice. Until 1965, only half the group numbers were used. Before 1972, numbers were assigned by field offices; since 1972, they have all been assigned by the central office. The order in which numbers were assigned was changed in the 1972 transition. There may have been other changes, but it’s difficult to get information on how things used to be done.
Area Numbers
The area numbers are assigned to geographical locations. They were originally assigned the same way that zip codes were later assigned (in particular, area numbers increase from east to west across the continental US as do the ZIP codes). Most area numbers were assigned according to state (or territorial) boundaries, although the series 700-729 was assigned to railroad workers regardless of location (this series of area numbers was discontinued in 1964 and is no longer used for new SSNs). Area numbers assigned prior to 1972 are an indication of the SSA office which originally issued the SSN. Since 1972 the area number in SSNs corresponds to the residence address given by the applicant on the application for the SSN.
In many regions the original range of area number assignments was eventually exhausted as population grew. The original area number assignments have been augmented as required. All of the original assignments were less than 585 (except for the 700-729 railroad worker series mentioned above). Area numbers of “000″ have never been issued.
001-003 NH
004-007 ME
008-009 VT
010-034 MA
035-039 RI
040-049 CT
050-134 NY
135-158 NJ
159-211 PA
212-220 MD
221-222 DE
223-231 VA
232-236 WV
237-246 NC
247-251 SC
252-260 GA
261-267 FL
268-302 OH
303-317 IN
318-361 IL
362-386 MI
387-399 WI
400-407 KY
408-415 TN
416-424 AL
425-428 MS
429-432 AR
433-439 LA
440-448 OK
449-467 TX
468-477 MN
478-485 IA
486-500 MO
501-502 ND
503-504 SD
505-508 NE
509-515 KS
516-517 MT
518-519 ID
520 WY
521-524 CO
525 NM *Guam, American Samoa,
526-527 AZ Philippine Islands,
528-529 UT Northern Mariana Islands
530 NV
531-539 WA
540-544 OR
545-573 CA
574 AK
575-576 HI
577-579 DC
580 VI Virgin Islands
581-584 PR Puerto Rico
585 NM
586 PI Pacific Islands*
587-588 MS
589-595 FL
596-599 PR Puerto Rico
600-601 AZ
602-626 CA
627-645 TX
646-647 UT
648-649 NM
650-699 unassigned, for future use
700-728 Railroad workers through 1963, then discontinued
729-799 unassigned, for future use
800-999 not valid SSNs.
Some sources have claimed that numbers above 900 were used when some state programs were converted to federal control, but current SSA documents claim no numbers above 799 have ever been used.
Group Numbers
The group number is not related to geography but rather to the order in which SSNs are issued for a particular area. Before 1965, only half the group numbers were used: odd numbers were used below 10 and even numbers were used above 9. In 1965 the system was changed so assignments continued with the low even numbers and the high odd numbers. So, group numbers for each area number are assigned in the following order:
Odd numbers, 01 to 09
Even numbers, 10 to 98
Even numbers, 02 to 08
Odd numbers, 11 to 99
Group codes of “00″ aren’t assigned
In each region, all possible area numbers are assigned with each group number before using the next group number. This means the group numbers can be used to find a chronological ordering of SSNs within a region. When new group numbers are assigned to a state, the old numbers are usually used up first.
SSA publishes a list every month of the highest group assigned for each SSN Area. For example, if the highest group assigned for area 999 is 72, then we know that the number 999-04-1234 is an invalid number because even Groups under 9 have not yet been assigned.
Serial Numbers
Serial numbers are assigned in chronological order within each area and group number as the applications are processed. Serial number “0000″ is never used. Before 1965, when number assignment was transferred from field offices to the central office, serial numbers may have been assigned in a strange order. (Some sources claim that 2000 and 7000 series numbers were assigned out of order. That no longer seems to be the case.) Currently, the serial numbers are assigned in strictly increasing order with each area and group combination.
Invalid SSNs
Any SSN conforming to one of the following criteria is an invalid number:
Any field all zeroes (no field of zeroes is ever assigned).
First three digits above 740
A pamphlet entitled “The Social Security Number” (Pub. No. 05-10633) provides an explanation of the SSN’s structure and the method of assigning and validating Social Security numbers.
