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If you have been in debt before, you understand how it feels. Debt can feel like an elephant on your shoulders day in, and day out. Many people feel as if there is no hope when you feel you owe your soul to creditors and collectors. Bankruptcy seems to be the only choice at this point whether for your business or for you personally. Is Bankruptcy the choice you should take?

That question is not so easily answered and there may be many things that the general public does not necessarily understand about bankruptcy. Bankrupcy, for the most part, is a societal and governmental means to finding the right solution for your debts when all else has failed. As it stands now, if you file for bankruptcy and are granted bankruptcy, you most definitely deserve it. The laws that govern the various types of bankruptcy make it almost impossible for someone to claim if they don’t necessarily need to. The amount of paperwork has increased, the court fees have increased, and the overall trouble to file has made it quite a struggle for just anyone to qualify for bankrupcy.

Read more at Bankruptcy – The Last Resort

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"We float checks every two weeks at three different payroll-advance places. The balance is around $2,000. The interest and fees are approximately $300 each time we flip. That’s about $600 a month," he wrote at a new blog called Too Smart to Live Like This. How did a bright guy get himself into this fix?

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Ralph Nelson Elliott believed that the Forex market moved in waves or cyclic patterns based on the psychology of traders which he named "The Elliot Wave Theory". Elliot noticed this pattern in the stock market and saw that the markets were not as chaotic as one thought. Elliot noticed that the markets moved in emotional patterns as a cause of outside influences.

Elliot was able to spot unique characteristics of wave patterns and make market predictions based on the patterns he identified. Elliot believed the market moved in five waves on the upside and three waves on the downside. Picking out these distinct patterns, Elliot was able to successfully forecast price movement. The first three waves of the Elliot Wave Theory represent the "impulse," or up-waves in a major bull market, while waves two and four represent the "corrective" or minor downward waves within the major bull market.

In the Forex market we know that every action creates and equal and opposite reaction. As price moves up or down, it must be followed by a contrary movement. Price action is divided trends and corrections or sideways movements. Trends show the general direction of the market, while corrections move against the trend. Elliot labeled these, "impulse waves" and "corrective waves."

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Tags: elliot+wave+theory

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Americans continue to borrow heavily on credit cards as new Federal Reserve Board figures reveal. But don’t expect them to talk openly about how much they owe.

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Personal Finance Info

Tags: credit+card

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Hundreds of thousands of pensioners are losing out because they were not told to shop around for the best annuity, a former Downing Street adviser claims.

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Personal Finance Info

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If you’ve saved enough money to retire, congratulations. You’re far ahead of many others.

Now your challenge is to make that money last.

Some consumers use annuities, which are contracts sold by insurance companies, and create an income stream at a later point in time, typically at retirement, to provide steady cash flow.

But there’s a new kid in town called a managed-payout mutual fund, which is similar to annuities but definitely not the same.

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Personal Finance Info

Tags: managed+payout+mutual+fund, retirement+planning

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In reality, there is none. All of these terms describe the same thing. They are interchangeable names for a short-term (generally about 2 weeks) cash advance. Typically, money is borrowed until the next payday and then paid back with fees. If the borrower cannot pay the money back when payment is due, the loan period can be extended which usually allows the next payday to occur before payment is due. Additional fees apply for extensions of payment. Typically, providers will grant 3 to 4 payment extensions. If done via the Internet, the amount borrowed plus fees can be debited from the borrowers checking account.

Read more at Cash Advance Loans Explained

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Typically when people think of building wealth they are not focusing on credit scores but on assets, cash flow, and investments. Wealth is not quite so one-dimensional; it has a financial side to it, a spiritual side to it, and a credit side to it.

Most people are oblivious to the importance of their credit score until they experience a financial backlash. Home insurance rates are now tied to your credit score. Potential employers can use it to determine if you are good candidate for employment. And of course, some lenders won’t do business with you if your credit score is low and if they do, your interest rates are always high. I’m told some people are now paying up to 30%. OUCH!

Try to get a reasonable mortgage interest rate with a low credit score; it’s impossible. We refinanced our home and lowered our interest rate by 1% and it saved us $145 per month. Now swing the other way and you can see how a person purchasing a nice home with a higher interest rate attached to it could price themselves right out of the market because they couldn’t afford the payments; the interest payments.

Read more at Will Your Credit Score Make You Poor?

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You are laden with debt and experience grave difficulties in paying up. You work from dawn till dusk and hold two jobs, but your income is still inadequate to pay off your outstanding credit card balances. You feel like you are left with no choice but to declare bankrupt and get your debt wiped out. At least you can start on a clean slate and be more careful with your spending next time.

Before you file for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, it pays to evaluate the consequences of declaring bankrupt. Although it may seem like the best option you have at the moment, it pays to consider the future consequences of going bankrupt.

For one thing, being bankrupt will leave mark on your credit history. If you had filed under Chapter 13, your bankruptcy record will usually remain for 7 years, while Chapter 7 will result in a bankruptcy record for between 7 and 10 years. This means that you will face much restriction on your finances at least for the next 7 years.

Read more at How Bankruptcy Can Affect Your Credit History

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For Phillips, the problem was the she ended up with an exotic loan called an option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). With these loans, a borrower has the option of making minimum monthly payments that don’t even cover the loan’s interest. That unpaid interest is then added to the mortgage principal, which means that the loan grows bigger – and more expensive – each month.

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Tags: adjustable+rate+mortgage

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