Financial Advisor Locator

Examples of financial assets include cash, savings and checking accounts, 401ks and IRAs. Understand the difference between life assets and financial assets through tips from an experienced businessman in this free video. Expert: Patrick Munro Contact: www.northstarnavigator.com Bio: Patrick Munro is a registered financial consultant (RFC) with outstanding sales volume of progressive financial products and solutions to the senior and boomer marketplace. Filmmaker: Reel Media LLC Video Rating: 5 / 5

Credit cards are a staple of modern life. Like a telephone, television, or computer, you can live without credit cards but few people do, most have more than one, and many have specific purposes for each one (e.g. sitting room, travel, work). If you pay them off each month, or use them to self-finance purchases that you could not readily afford, credit cards are a great addition. Convenient, secure, and flexible, credit cards really do have a lot in their favor, but they are not all they seem. The true cost of credit cards is not the annual percentage rate (APR) alone. Fees also need to be included, and when they are, the true cost of credit is closer to 35 percent (regardless of your APR).

Most credit card issuers will add one or more of the following fees and charges:

ANNUAL FEE: Many credit card issuers, and more every day, require an annual fee for carrying certain credit cards. Annual fees are typically flat fees and range from $10 to $500.

Read full post…

So, you want to get married, but you’re worried about your finances?  One of the biggest problems when it comes to a marriage proposal is money.  If you have any type of debt, it’s always best that you tell your significant other to avoid any type of stress issues in the future.

What happens to your debt before marriage?

First off, what you’re going to find is that your debt won’t go anywhere.  It’s still going to be there, and you’re still going to have to pay it.  There isn’t a magic wedding pass that you’re going to get, when you’re fighting debt.

Now, onto debt, what you will find that the only way that you will be responsible for your spouse’s debt is that if you put them onto the debt with you.  While many spouses won’t do this, you will find that if you add your name to the account itself, then you will be held responsible together.

Now let’s say that god forbid you  have a divorce in the future.  When you get a divorce, you find out that there is debt still sitting there prior to your marriage.  As long as you can prove that you didn’t create it, and it happened before you got married, you generally won’t be held responsible.

Once you’re married, all debts that you accrue while married will hold both of your responsible.  If you go on to purchase a home, a car, boat or whatever it may be, once you’re married, you’re looked at as a “one.”

In the end, as long as all of the debt was accrued before the marriage, you won’t be held responsible.  In case creditors call, and mistaken your identity, all you will have to do is prove that you don’t owe that debt.  Most of the time, you can show marriage certificates, etc to show that you weren’t married at the time.

Proposals to ban the $100 bill, as a way to thwart terrorists and other criminals, were in the news a couple of years ago, as we reported here at the time. Nothing much happened on that front, but today’s New York Times has a provocative op-ed piece that takes the concept a big step further: banning cash altogether, worldwide. The alternative to cash, according to the piece’s author, Jonathan Lipow of the Defense Resource Management Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, is smart-card technology that would allow consumers to transfer money from a buyer’s card to a seller’s, for example. Apparently the cards themselves would keep records of all transactions, which would periodically be downloaded onto centralized computers. There, according to the piece, “insurgents’ and terrorists’ electronic payments would generate audit trails that could be screened by data mining software.” Presumably your transactions and mine could be similarly searched, if anybody cared to. What do you think of this? Read full post…

Here is todays post on Budget Tips

To many people, budgeting is burdensome because it makes them do extra paperwork and work with numbers.  Worse, it makes them put control or limit to how they spend money.

But all that work delivers important benefit that can enhance your life, especially if you are living on limited income.  Budgeting provides you with a goal to achieve with your money.  It prevents you from spending unnecessarily on unimportant things so that you can have the important things.

If you are working on limited money, trying to solve your debt problem, planning to retire early, and trying to make the best use of your money, you should budget.

In a nutshell, here are some guidelines you should consider to make an effective budget:

Have a goal in mind in budgeting.  Your goal could be as simple as being able to make ends meet or being able to save enough to invest and be comfortable when you retire. Hel Read full post…

Here’s some food for thought. Bruised by debt and swelling competition, A&P, one of America’s most venerable supermarket chains filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection over the weekend, though the company says all of its nearly 400 stores will remain open, fully stocked, and operating business as usual. At least for now.  Founded in 1859 as a coffee, tea, and spice merchant, A&P today runs nearly 400 stores in the Northeast under its flagship name as well as Waldbaum’s, The Food Emporium, Super Fresh, Pathmark, Best Cellars, and Food Basics logos. The bankruptcy filing will give the company breathing room to restructure its debt, reduce “structural” costs, and keep paying its bills via access to some $800 million in what’s called “debtor-in-possession” financing. Experts predict that A&P might end up scuttling as many as a quarter of its stores on the road back to solvency. Like man Read full post…

The coalition government has announced the scrapping of the rule forcing pensioners to buy an annuity once the reach the age of 75. The decision means retirees will be allowed to defer their annuity decision if they have at least GBP20,000 in annual income .

This sum can include the state pension, which means that pensioners really only have to ensure they have GBP15,000 income from their independent pension savings to be eligible under the new rules. However, any money withdrawn from their pension funds will still be subject to tax, which can rise to as much as 50 per cent for wealthier individuals.

The move should provide pensioners with more control over how much they withdraw from their pension funds once they retire, and also when they withdraw the money. Read full post…

This past fall I entered into the world of a smart phone user. I picked up an iPhone 4. Mostly because I get a good deal through my place of employment. Otherwise it would have been an expense I could live without. For the first little bit I was using it as an iPod for music and as one of those ebook readers for my books. This really isn’t the most productive use of the phone.

I am guilty from time to time of missing a credit card payment. It happens. You get the email or the snail mail and you forget about it. I hate paying interest and so should you. I haven’t paid a cent since I got my phone thanks to the world of banking apps. I downloaded my banks free app from the itunes store, set up my account and set up my monthly bills for credit cards and other payments such as cable or hydro.

Now everytime a bill comes in the mail, I grab my phone, load the app and make the payment over the phone and post date it to the date that it is due on. It is as easy as that. No mo

Read full post…