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
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