Credit Card Fee Increases

This month on our two credit card statements are notices informing us that as of Oct. 1st we may be charged "more than two" late fees or over the limit fees" per month. What's going on?
Gwen

It's estimated that Americans charged $1.8 trillion in 2005 on the 690 million credit cards outstanding. According to a Government Accountability Office study released in September, 2006, 13% of credit card users were assessed over-limit fees and 35% were assessed late fees in 2005. So Gwen has a lot of company.

Let's try to do three things. First, understand what these fees are. Next, see how fees are changing. And, finally, what Gwen can do to keep from being hurt.

Credit cards have always had fees. Some, like for a late payment, are understandable. Others came along as credit cards took on new capabilities. Think cash advance and balance transfer fees. Still others, like over-limit fees, seem like they shouldn't be possible. You would think that they wouldn't allow you to borrow more than your limit.

There are also 'penalty interest rates'. If you're late with a payment or go over your credit limit you could see your rate bumped to 30% or more.

The 2006 GAO study looked at fees and penalties. It said that not only were fees increasing, but the credit card companies were doing a lousy job of informing consumers about those fees.

The credit card companies are obligated to tell you about any fees or penalties and how they're triggered. Some fees, like paying your credit card bill by phone, are sometimes not clearly disclosed. What Gwen received with her statement was a notice of a change in how fees would be charged. And, as long as she's notified they can get by with almost anything.

Late fees have nearly tripled in the last 11 years. And many cards have adopted a 'universal default clause' that says a late payment on any card will trigger the penalty interest rate.

Credit card companies say that the higher interest rates and fees are appropriate based on risk factors. If it weren't for the higher fees, they claim that they wouldn't be able to offer credit to riskier consumers.

In fairness, the GAO's survey found that (at least among 6 of the largest card issuers) 80% of accounts paid interest rates of less than 20%. So the vast majority of card users are not paying penalty rates.

But the study also found that the disclosures were written well above the eighth grade reading level and (surprise!) featured small print. They recommended that the Federal Reserve Board revise rules on credit card disclosures.

Now that we understand what's going on we can try to help Gwen avoid problems. The first thing is to recognize that the card issuers get to make most of the rules. And, whether those rules are fair or not isn't relevant. The best she can do is to avoid getting hurt by those rules.

Get familiar with each account. The only way to know exactly what's allowed is to read and understand the "Card Member Agreement." Tough duty. But necessary.

Watch out for unexpected fees. Like for balance transfers or increasing your credit limit. Know what could trigger fees or penalty rates.

Know exactly when your payment is due. Keep a list of due dates for your credit card accounts. If you don't get the bill, it's your responsibility to contact the company and still make a timely payment.

If possible, the best thing to do is to join nearly half of the cardholders who paid little or no interest. That's because they do not carry a balance.

Obviously, for many people that's not immediately possible. Then it's important to send in your payment as soon as possible. Being seven days early is better than being one day late.

If you find it difficult to get your payment in on time, you might want to authorize the credit card company to automatically debit your checking account for the minimum payment each month. You'll probably pay for the service, but that way the payment can't be late.

Talk to your card issuer. If your due date falls at a bad time of the month, they'll move it.

If Gwen is near or over the limit on any card, she should try to shift part of the debt to a different card. Some fees are even being assessed when an account is merely getting too close to the limit. Your best bet is to keep balances to less than half the available credit.

Although the higher late fees are infuriating, they do minimal damage. The real problem is in the universal default clause. Most credit card accounts now have a universal default clause.

Suppose your rate went from 15% to 30% on every open credit account. For every $1,000 you owe, an extra $150 interest would be charged each year. So if you're the type of person carrying a $10,000 balance, that one late payment could cost you $1,500 per year. For as long as you have the balance!

Gwen is right to pay close attention to her credit card accounts. With newer fees and penalty rates in place, it becomes more important to manage your credit. In fact, it's critical to your financial wellbeing.
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Gary Foreman is a former financial planner who currently edits The Dollar Stretcher website . If you'd like to stretch your day or your dollar visit today! You'll find hundreds of articles to help you "live better...for less".

About The Author

Gary Foreman is a former financial planner who currently edits The Dollar Stretcher website . If you'd like to stretch your day or your dollar visit today! You'll find hundreds of articles to help you "live better...for less".

View their website at: http://www.stretcher.com

Foreclosures - How To Invest Successfully

If someone is about to lose their home to foreclosure, then you can guarantee they're feeling stressed. They're probably being bombarded by calls and letters from creditors, and for many people it all becomes too much to handle. They close their eyes and hope it will all just go away.

Reality is that it won't, and as an investor interested in buying foreclosures, the hardest part can be convincing the homeowner that they really are going to lose their house unless they do something about it. It can also be difficult to convince them that you really are trying to help them, even though you are helping yourself make a profit at the same time.

When you're dealing with foreclosures, time is of the utmost importance. You need to have enough time to bail out the homeowner and take over the property before it's too late. That's why it can be a good idea to subscribe to a foreclosure listing service - you get access to listings at the earliest possible time, and don't have to use your valuable time looking for potential foreclosure properties from other sources.

Many people facing foreclosure have spoken to an attorney, and are convinced that bankruptcy is their only option. In most cases this isn't true, but attorneys tend to stick to what they're familiar with, which is bankruptcy, rather than mentioning other possibilities such as:

- Sale by assumption
- Deed in lieu
- Straight sale
- Foreclosure presale
- Compromise sale
- Short payoff
- Workouts
- Assignment
- Injunctions

There are still more options than these, which shows that bankruptcy definitely isn't the only choice for the homeowner. When you're dealing with a homeowner in foreclosure, make it clear that you're offering an alternative to bankruptcy. Find out whether they really understand what bankruptcy will do to their credit history and how it will affect their future.

If you're serious about buying foreclosure properties, then you need to become familiar with everything that's required in the process, and check everything for every property you consider. These items include:

- Loan and mortgage documents
- Loan amount, monthly payment, and interest rate
- Any outstanding taxes
- Existing insurance policies
- Any other liens or judgments

Make sure you have enough information to complete all the necessary tasks before the foreclosure occurs. If there's not enough time, don't even bother starting. Having said that, learn as much as you can about ways to delay foreclosure, and help the homeowner to implement them all. If may just give you enough time to take over the property before the foreclosure auction.

Above all, focus on creating a solution where everybody wins. It's never an easy time for the homeowner, so be prepared for plenty of anger, frustration and resentment - some of which may be directed at you. Walk away if it's obvious the person doesn't want to work with you. Find someone who is interested in finding a solution, show empathy for their situation, put together a strategy to get the best possible result for them, and before long you'll find yourself with a good portfolio of investment properties.

About The Author

David Jacobsen

If you want to read more about foreclosures, click over to David's site at http://www.foreclosuresonlinecentral.com

3 Keys to Grow Your Business

Are you on pace to accomplish your important sales and financial goals this year?

The truth is, a good majority of US Organizations have been unable to grow their businesses this year. They are not reaching their sales and financial goals and many have all but given up.

Is this you? Are you now looking to next year to be the year you shatter previous productivity, sales and revenue records?

Regardless of whether you are on pace to meet your goals or not this year, it's a great idea to start preparing for your best year ever; but you will need to prepare.

You've surly realized, it takes much more than just setting a goal to accomplish it. The mere act of putting the goal on paper, sharing it with your managers and giving the extra effort to accomplish the goal is really secondary to the preparation required.

Before you begin to work toward an objective, you must insure all of the past barriers that stood in the way of prior goal accomplishment are eliminated. If they aren't, the unfortunate fact is, you'll fail to meet the objective once again… for the same reasons as before.

The following are the three keys market leading organizations have used to grow their businesses. I suggest you consider them to take your organization to the next level of success also.

1. Operational Systems

There are two types of systems in your organization. The first is your operational systems, including:

1. Vision & Mission 2. Financial & Budgeting 3. Production, Manufacturing & Distribution 4. Sales & Marketing

All four of these systems are in place for one reason: to efficiently grow your business. They are the standards to how your organization operates from day to day. More importantly, they are the standards to how your workforce operates from day to day.

To improve productivity this quarter and prepare for your best year ever, it is vital to analyze your operational systems. In the next month, recognize what current productivity barriers must be eliminated, what operating expenses must be reduced, what unique cultural standards must be maintained and what marketing promises must be upheld.

2. Managerial Systems

In answering the previous questions, most organizations realize an important fact. Changes to operational systems are almost always made to improve the productivity of their workforce. But the truth is, these changes alone rarely help.

Organizations failing to accomplish their goals tend to make irrational decisions. They feel if they rewrite a vision, increase spending on technology, reorganize production procedures or alter their marketing messages, workforce performance and profits will magically improve.

However, the opposite is usually the case. The changes usually end up harming efficiency, production and morale. The usual outcome is, those employees who naturally performed the job they were hired to do before the changes, still naturally do. Those who failed to produce before the expensive operational modifications, still underachieve.

The second type of system in your organization is your managerial systems. The five most important processes of your managerial systems are: recruiting, hiring, training, developing and retaining (productive employees). When you create a successful managerial system, your hiring success rate, employee motivation and the effectiveness of your leaders will naturally improve.

To prepare for your best year ever, there is only one question to ask yourself: Why haven't we been able to hire, develop and retain TOP Performing employees in every position.

3. Focus on People

Market leading organizations realize "people" are the key to growing a business and meeting goals. The more productive their individuals are, the more productive their teams have become.

A recent study of over 2,200 managers by Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Human Resource Executive Magazine found: Of the hundreds of management functions, "Selecting Staff" and "Retention" are the second and third most important management functions in business today. Recruiting was rank fifth.

Since almost three of four new hires fail to meet our expectations within the first year and managers are forced to constantly replace underachievers, recruiting is the number one management expense in business today. Although selecting staff and retention are rated very important, they rank 36th and 44th in management effort and spending respectively.

Although executives understand the importance of Top Performers in every position, their time, energy and financial priorities have become operational. With the amount of organizations failing to meet their goals or grow their businesses, it should be apparent that this strategy just doesn't work.

Hiring Top Performers for every position in your company, the first time, is the only way to insure your productivity and profits will improve. Traditionally, Top Performers are five to eight times more productive then their counterparts.

You've probably learned the hard way, no modification to an operational system will ever increase your organization's performance five to eight times. If you are like the most effective executives, you'll understand this and will double or triple the productivity and profits of your organization by giving your managers the tools to hire, develop and retain your greatest value; your people.

Great customer service, work ethic, motivation, productivity and sales success comes from employees that fit your culture, their team and the job they were hired to do. Whether it takes developing your underachievers or replacing them with someone who will naturally produce, it is now time to focus on your people to prepare for your best year ever.

About The Author

Grant D. Robinson is the President of People Values and the Author of the Market Leadership System. To improve your “Hiring Success Rate” of TOP Performing Employees, watch a free, 5-minute, on-line video at: http://www.peoplevalues.com.

Is Coffee The Drink That Will Conquer The World?

Coffee's venerable history is, of course, shrouded in the mists of time. According to a popular myth, there once was a shepherd who realized that, if he ate the berry of a certain plant, he could stay awake and protect his sheep better. Another legend says that coffee's discovery began with monks who learned that a certain berry would help them stay awake to pray.

And then there is the myth of an Arab, lost in the desert, who was able to survive by boiling berries from a plant. The town nearby was named Mocha.

The first coffee plants were only grown in Ethiopia, from where it was brought to the Arab lands, where it flourished. From Arabia, coffee was brought to Turkey, where the native Turks preferred to drink their coffee sweetened with cinnamon and cloves.

If was only a matter of time before traders brought coffee to Europe. Despite the claim of Christians that coffee was the beverage of the devil, even Pope Vincent III became a coffee advocate. By the 18th century, not only was coffee all the rage in Europe, with coffee houses springing up all over the place, but coffee was also transported to America. During the early days of the American Revolution, in protest of the heavy taxes imposed on tea by the British, coffee was proclaimed to be the official beverage of the American colonies.

From Maxwell House being "good to the last drop" to Chock Full of Nuts being the "Heavenly Coffee", Americans have long become accustomed to coffee as being a part of every day living. And then Starbucks started up in Seattle. Suddenly, the beatnik coffee houses of the '50s and '60s transmogrified into popular culture of the '90s and into the 21st century.

Today, Starbucks is even expanding into markets where tea, not coffee is not only the primary beverage, but where tea is practically synonymous with the culture itself. If you've ever heard the phrase "all the tea in China," you'll realize the enormous impact on the Chinese way of life if coffee were to become as popular in the world's most populous nation as it has in the western world.

Recently, when Starbucks opened up a coffee shop in Beijing's culturally-sensitive Forbidden City, the Chinese state television broadcaster referred to the move as "an insult to Chinese civilization."

China is not the only target for the expansion of the huge coffee chain. Starbucks reportedly is also hoping to open up coffee shops in India, Russia, Brazil and Egypt in 2007. Brazil, of course, is already a nation of coffee drinkers. But with India, Russia and Egypt now in the tea category, it will be very interesting to watch and see whether lattes and cappuccinos will catch on in Delhi, Moscow and Cairo.

About the Author

Robert Scheer is a freelance writer and contributor to the Gourmet Coffee Trends blog

Success With your own commercial cleaning business

started my own commercial office cleaning business just to earn some extra money. But now I'm concentrating on building it into a full time income. That's one of the great things about starting your own cleaning business. You can start part time and grow the business at your own pace.

Here are some other reasons to start your own cleaning business:

Unlimited Income Potential - The sky's the limit on how much you earn. You decide. More accounts equals more money. It's also a recession proof business. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, and other professional offices are usually busy in good times and bad, therefore "protecting" your income. No matter what happens in the financial world, I still get paid for my services.

Job Security - You keep hearing that there's no such thing anymore. Well if you do a good job for your clients, you'll have just that. I learned first hand that job security is just an illusion. I worked at a place for four years while cleaning a few offices at night part time. Then one day I was let go. Just like that, no more "day job". I decided right then that no matter what I would never be in that position again. So now I am building my cleaning business to bring to a full time income.

Quick Start Up - You could be in business by the end of the week. Maybe even at the end of today. Getting the first client is probably the hardest part but once you do, you're on your way.

Low Cost to Start - You can start your business on a shoestring budget. Most of the things you need you probably already own. Cleaning supplies, mop, buckets, vacuum, etc. Even if you had to buy everything, it probably cost less than $100.00. Maybe the vacuum would push that up a little depending on what model you bought.

Be Your Own Boss - There's nothing like it. When I'm cleaning offices there's nobody telling me what to do or when I have to do it by. I've even started training my son to help me. We don't have to be there at any set time. We can start at six if we want. Seven, seven thirty. Whenever we want. There is no time clock to punch.

Easy to Learn - If you can clean your house, you can clean an office. The key is to be quick and efficient. The less time you spend in a place, the more dollars per hour you make. And the more accounts you can get done in a day. If you have children especially the ones that are getting their drivers license, this is a great way for them to earn money for gas, insurance, etc. That's exactly what I'm doing.

Whether you're looking to pay off debt, get a new car, take a great vacation, a commercial office cleaning business may be just what you're looking for.

About the Author

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