A good credit score has its perks. Credit card companies may send you interest credit card offers with a 0% interest rate. But if your credit report gives them a less favorable credit history on you, you may still receive lower interest rate credit card balance transfer offers in order to tempt you to transfer one or more balances over to their credit card. But beware…
What You Should Know About Balance Transfers
Credit cards are big business for financial institutions. After checking your credit report and credit score, financial institutions may choose you to offer balance transfers from your old credit cards to theirs, hoping you will see it as an attempt for debt relief. But they know there is a big chance you won’t be able to pay it off before the grace period ends and the actual interest rate kicks in…probably 20% or more. The grace period is anywhere from six months to eighteen months.
Transferring Your Balance May Lower Your Score
There is a FICO formula that determines your score. FICO is fickle. Taking advantage of the lower interest rate to pay off credit card debt, which is a good thing, can actually hurt your credit score. If your balance transfer offer is on a credit card account you already hold, then it might not be as bad. But, if you open a credit card just to take advantage of the lower interest rate, it can badly hurt your FICO score.
Using the balance transfer to consolidate credit card debt? Think twice, maybe three times. By consolidating debt, your score is lowered again. Why? Because it will appear that you are closer to maxing out your credit limit on that card. If you have to make balance transfers, try not to consolidate the balances into one card. Spread the amount thinner to keep that gap between the amount of credit you are actually using and what is available to you farther apart.
I always told my husband I needed to have more credit cards…to spread the wealth around. I actually liked seeing lower balances on several cards rather than a larger balance on one card. He insisted I use only one because it was easier to track my spending…LOL. I guess my instincts were right!
What this means is that FICO would rather see you have $700 on four different cards with limits of $5000 rather than $2800 on one card with a limit of $5000.
Check the Credit Card Offer Small Print
Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN Money and Market Watch gives this advice:
If you’re planning to take advantage of a balance-transfer offer, read the fine print and consider the following:
- Limit the number of accounts you open. If you want to improve your credit scores, don’t keep bouncing your balances from card to card.
- Pay down your debt. Use the lower rate as an opportunity to reduce your debt load. Paying off debt is good for your wallet and good for your credit scores.
And from Nana,
- Be sure to figure in the cost of the transfer fee which may be around 4%. Ask if the transfer fee is on each balance transfer to one card!
- Call and ask questions of the customer service person to go over the small print.
- If you do transfer to another credit card, don’t use it for additional purchases. By doing so, you may not be able to pay it off by the end of the grace period…and you may not get another offer!
- If you leave the original credit card account open, put the card away so you aren’t tempted to use it. A home safe is a good place to keep your credit cards.
- And those checks they send you? You’ll pay a transfer fee on each one you write after you call to activate them!
Before you do a balance transfer, get your free credit report first. After you review your free credit report, think about whether you want to go through with this. Will the balance transfer help or hinder your credit score?
Tags: credit card offers, credit cards, credit repair, credit score, debt relief, free credit report
Don’t miss this coupon code! Now through August 12, 2010 at 11:59 pm EST, my visitors can purchase one 18×54-inch personalized vinyl banner for JUST ONE PENNY using coupon code SS2R3M at checkout online at ShindigZ.com (item B1118 only).*
To order your banner for one cent, follow these steps:
- Click on the blue “Banner” tab at the top of the ShindigZ.com
home page
- Select a banner design theme from those listed on the right side of the page
- Select a design style from the many examples images that are shown
- Look for the large yellow oval button that reads, “Add to Cart” – and under that, click on the small circle for option “18 x 54 Horizontal Vinyl Banner…. Item: B1118 $14.79 each”
- After you’ve selected the $14.79 banner size, click, “Add to Cart” yellow oval button and here you can add your own wording, edit colors, text and more
- Proofread and click the “Add to cart” green oval button
- Add other party supplies items to your cart or click the “Check Out” green button in the upper right
- During checkout, enter Promotion Code SS2R3M when prompted to apply the $14.78 credit to make your banner purchase just one penny
Choose from over 1,000 unique designs and customize with your own wording. Designs includes holidays, birthdays, school events, fundraisers, Halloween, retirements, and more. Each vinyl banner can be used outdoors and includes free personalization plus metal grommets on all four corners!
* To get your ONE PENNY CUSTOM BANNER, order one B1118 banner product online and enter coupon code SS2R3M in the promotional code box at checkout. A credit for $14.78 will appear with your order confirmation before submission online. Offer applies to the 18×54-inch banner product size and is valid for online orders from ShindigZ.com only. Offer can be redeemed once per customer, per household. The One Penny Banner offer cannot be combined with any other offer or previous orders and does not apply to Create-A-Banner, Photo or Attach’N'Go banners or larger sizes. Shipping charges will apply. Expires August 12, 2010, 11:59 PM EST.
Tags: coupon codes, custom banners, free, free stuff
Everyone likes free stuff, coupons, and photo books. How are these all related? Read on to find out how you can get something for free, a photo book, with a special coupon code…Summer is a great time to take photos of family, travel destinations, special outdoor events, and nature’s beauty. Don’t forget bridal showers, weddings, new babies, and graduations. But what can you do with those photos stored on your computer without spending on costly ink and taking up your valuable time?
Free Photo Book Coupon Code
I have good news! This August just might be the month for you to organize your pics in a photo book for free. Picaboo is offering a special incentive to help you get this done. As a new customer, you’ll be able to order one large, 20-page classic photo book for free!
Picaboo is a free application for PC and Mac that enables you to easily create stunning photo books with your easy to upload digital photos. You choose the book style, backgrounds, layout, captions, borders and more with the easy to use tools.
Get a free Classic photo book at Picaboo! Use code FREEBK through August 31, 2010.
Free Photo Book Offer Details
- The cost of one 20-page Large Classic, Classic Leather, or Classic Custom photo book (up to $39.99) will be deducted from your order total. If your book contains more than 20 pages, you will be charged for the additional pages.
- Additional books, taxes/international surcharges, and shipping costs are excluded.
- Coupon expires at 11:59 PM (PT) on August 31, 2010.
- Cannot be used with any other coupon
- This coupon is for first-time customers only
- We reserve the right to change the terms and conditions of this offer without notice.
Take advantage of the free photo book offer – it’s so easy.
Tags: coupon codes, Coupons, free, free coupons, free stuff
This post is for grandparent bloggers, mommy bloggers, and daddy bloggers…any bloggers or website owners who want to increase traffic to their blogs. If you’re like me, you want to increase traffic to your blog or website to help your page rank on Google…and most importantly, you want to share your thoughts, tips, your creativity, or sell your services or products. You also want your visitors to share your content with others, too. That’s why we blog!
Bookmark and Share
Can you guess how many social networking bookmark and share web buttons there are? I estimate about 240, far too many to place on your blog or website to be sure! Some plug-ins allow you to choose which free web buttons you want to display, but you can’t always be sure you have the right ones for your visitors to choose from.
Bookmark Buttons
Now, there is a single social bookmarking web button that can be displayed on your blog to replace the many individual bookmark buttons. It’s called Pluzit and can be found on Pluzit.com. When you click the button, you’ll see every bookmarking and sharing button. You choose where you want to share the blog, website, or the content post itself. There are additional benefits, too. Pluzit tracks how your readers bookmark and share your blog, website, or content which is something, as far as I know, the other social networking buttons don’t.
If you look to the right, under the RSS feed button, you’ll see my Pluzit button. Since I placed it in the sidebar, my blog URL will be bookmarked and shared. If I entered the code in the post template, it would bookmark and share the post in which it is clicked. To compare, look at the bottom of this post. I used a WordPress plug-in and chose about a dozen networking buttons. There were others I wanted to choose from, but I wanted not more than one line of buttons displayed. One button is much neater.
Customize Your Bookmark and Share Web Button
On the Pluzit.com website, you’ll find a videotour that makes it very easy to understand how to install the code. The button is customizable where your brand and/or logo can be added, or you can also design your own style by changing colors, etc.
Oh, I forgot to mention this…Pluzit is free. Please do me a favor…click my Pluzit button so I can track traffic to my site. Thanks!
Tags: blogging, social bookmark buttons, web tools
What is a Credit Report?
| If you have applied for credit, be assured there is a credit report on you including where you live, date of birth, place of employment, income, and whether you pay your bills on time or not. It is very detailed. Your credit report is used to evaluate your debt-to-income ratio and you as a credit risk. There are three separate credit bureaus (Credit Reporting Agency) that create the reports: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. The credit bureaus are in business to earn a profit by selling your credit information to banks, employers, landlords, credit card companies, mortgage lenders, car dealers…. |
How to Get Free Credit Reports
It is your right to receive one free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus annually. Your free credit reports can be obtained directly from only one government authorized website, annualcreditreport.com. Be aware that other websites and companies claim to give you free credit reports, also. Those companies require you to buy something to get it “free.” Use only Annual Credit Report as your source for your free annual credit reports.
After identifying yourself through answering a few security questions related to your credit history, you can download the free printable credit report. You have two other options on how to receive your credit reports via either ordering it by phone (1-877-322-8228) or completing the printable annual credit report request form which can be found along with the mailing address on the official website noted above.
Correcting Credit Report Errors
With the number of credit data submitted to each of the three credit bureaus and the billions of updates performed each month, there are bound to be mistakes. Humans update the data and no one is perfect all of the time, so it is inevitable. That is why it is important for each of us to take advantage of the free credit report we are entitled to from each of the three credit bureaus once a year. Correcting your credit reports may also help in your credit repair process.
Because of the possibility of mistakes with over 2 billion downloads per month (and that’s just for one of the three companies), it is imperative that you check your credit report very closely. Highlight each entry that looks suspicious or not familiar to you or even misspellings, then contact the creditor listed and the credit bureau that included the information in writing. By law, the credit bureau you contact must investigate and correct the incorrect or incomplete information that proves to be in need of attention that you reported. On average, the corrections should be taken care of within 30 days unless your report turns out to be more complicated than the average. For further information on how to report credit errors, follow this link.
Tips On Correcting Your Credit Report
- Don’t expect each of the three credit reports to be the same – they won’t be. Take time to look through each one very closely.
- If you find things that need correcting or deletion, put it in writing – keep a paper trail just in case files get misplaced or additional copies are needed.
- Follow up on your request if you don’t get a response within a reasonable amount of time, allowing time for receipt and processing.
- Include a copy of the credit report in which the misreported information appeared. Remember to highlight the disputed data on the copy.
- Don’t get discouraged if you need to do more footwork than you expected. You may find names and accounts that are not yours. You need to prove that that isn’t you and the creditor needs to support your claim.
- Look for evidence of identity theft such as credit card accounts under your name that you don’t remember applying for – any unauthorized activity. If you do find it, contact each of the credit bureaus to report a Fraud Alert on your files.
- If you order a credit report directly from the credit bureaus, then you will be charged for the report.
- You don’t have to order all three free credit reports at the same time. Space your free credit report orders four months apart so you can monitor your credit activity and possible identity theft throughout the year.
- Make lists of all the accounts listed on your three credit reports. Divide the lists into closed and open including account name, account number, type of account, date opened, date closed if applicable, and balance reported. Update your two lists during the year as needed. Next year when you get your free credit reports, you can compare your accounts to those listed.
AnnualCreditReport.com is the only website you should use to obtain your free credit report. The following information is from The Federal Trade Commission:
AnnualCreditReport.com is the ONLY authorized source for the free annual credit report that’s yours by law. The Fair Credit Reporting Act guarantees you access to your credit report for free from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — every 12 months. The Federal Trade Commission has received complaints from consumers who thought they were ordering their free annual credit report, and yet couldn’t get it without paying fees or buying other services. TV ads, email offers, or online search results may tout “free” credit reports, but there is only one authorized source for a truly free credit report.
Tags: credit repair, free, free annual credit report, free credit report
