Articles Posted in financial wellness

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A significant financial investment is a gamble. It might pay off, but it also could bring negative consequences. The largest purchase an ordinary employee makes is a house. A first-time buyer is justifiably nervous about the impact on his or her financial wellness.

 

What Should I Do?

 

Real estate is an intriguing world with a unique vocabulary. Fixer-upper, distressed sales, rent to buy and FHA loans have definitions most people don’t know. It makes purchasing a house exciting but also a little stressful.

 

Mortgage loans can be sophisticated. Variable interest rates and balloon mortgages might appear sensible, but they triggered the housing collapse of the Great Recession of 2008. Buying property in the wrong location will create domestic problems and buying to flip a house can be a disaster.

Folks will pay dearly for what they do not know. Continue reading

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No one is guaranteed financial wellness. Hard work, planning, and self-discipline are what it takes to have a person’s fiscal house in order. Not fiscally responsible by nature, most folks learn the discipline. It is often by trial and error, but good advice and professional guidance will shorten the learning curve.

Budgets Promote Financial Wellness

The path to real money independence starts with a workable budget. An individual will use this financial tool as a guide for all spending decisions. Essential ingredients of creating a reasonable budget include:

  • Research. Knowing where your money is coming from and what your monthly financial objectives are;
  • Planning. Deciding how your present and future income is spent;
  • Goals and Objectives. Determining what you wish to achieve in creating realistic benchmarks for future earnings and spending;
  • Flexibility. Creating a budget that will respond effectively to any unexpected emergencies;
  • Discipline. Being willing to stick to the guidelines of the budget and having the maturity to focus on the goals.

Continue reading

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You can think of credit as a necessary evil. Credit cards are essential for establishing the credit ratings needed to apply for significant loans. However, a person might get used to buying everything, including groceries, with plastic. Overdependence on credit cards may harm someone’s financial wellness.

 

There Is Danger in the Balance

 

It’s no secret that banks and lending institutions make money from credit cards. Double-digit interest rates and penalties for late payments will provide sizable profits. Retail stores encourage using credit cards since people purchase more when they use plastic. It is easy to accumulate a credit card balance that gets out of control.

 

Young Employees Don’t Understand Financial Wellness

 

The real world is a classroom without textbooks. People learn from good and bad experiences. Millennials and Generation Z college graduates are not familiar with finances. They’re always in a rush and those cards are convenient ways to pay for a purchase. Credit soon becomes the way everything is purchased. Continue reading

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People will stress out over medical bills. The figures can be in the thousands and not everyone knows what to do. Deductibles are high and a person can be liable for significant expenses. Dark clouds seem to form over financial wellness because of the anxiety.

 

There actually is little reason for panic. Medical bills can be managed without panicking. Here are a few points to remember as you decide how to pay the medical expenses.

 

1. Don’t Pay the EOB

That statement is an Explanation of Benefits. It is not the final bill. There is no need to pay anything until your health insurance company determines its part of the payment. Continue reading

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Buying a house for the first time is exciting and frightening. Everyone wants a home to call their own, and owning a house is a sign of success. However, that house can come with a severe price attached to it, and it is not just the mortgage. People make some rather serious mistakes, and they can spend years paying for them.

Home buying is a significant financial undertaking, and it does affect the buyer’s financial wellness. There are some common mistakes that many first-time buyers must be careful about. Continue reading

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Bankruptcy can threaten anyone. It doesn’t matter if the person is a secretary or an executive; this disaster can strike and harm a person’s financial wellness. There is no question, but that declaring bankruptcy is a very personal and highly embarrassing situation.

Debt does not always come from using a credit card during the holidays. Many new employees are saddled with substantial college loan debt, and this must be repaid on a strict schedule. Medical emergencies can cost thousands of dollars and place significant stress on anyone’s budget. These are in addition to late penalties and charges that the credit card company will assess. Continue reading

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A personal budget is a sign of adult responsibility. It indicates that an individual recognizes the value of financial wellness and wants to structure his or her income and expenses to meet personal goals and pay bills. It can be a challenge for a young employee because that person has no experience with setting up a fiscal framework. A lack of understanding can result in several problems.

  1. There Is No Planning for Emergencies

Emergencies are unexpected and need to be handled quickly. There must be allocation of money in a budget for unanticipated expenses such as a medical bill.

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No one should think that buying a house is out of the question. Real estate prices can fluctuate, and mortgages are not always hard to get. A problem that many people face is a lack of information.

What a person needs to know before purchasing a house includes financial data and an understanding of how the world of real estate functions. A first-time homebuyer is not familiar with mortgages or the roles of various people play in a real estate transaction. Additionally, ignorance about the process of financing the purchase is going to cause a person to pause and reconsider buying property.

It can help a person if he or she has access to a certified counselor in the financial world. That professional can give the kind of advice a homebuyer can use. Being able to learn about real estate makes it easier to arrive at fundamentally sound decisions about acquiring a house. Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services has a Financial Wellness program that can fill in the blanks in a person’s knowledge about housing.

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People can stunned be by their credit card debt. They are not always sure how things got out of control, but they face a financial obligation of thousands of dollars. Anxiety goes through the roof as financial wellness appears in danger. Panic does not do any good, because it results in poor decisions. Anyone with a lot of credit card debt must stay calm and plan a way out of the financial mess. It is not difficult to create a credit card debt strategy. The plan relies on common sense and some careful, serious thought. There are some easy steps to follow.

  1. Know What You Owe

You can start at the end of the month by collecting all your credit card bills and then adding up all you owe. It is not easy to confront the size of the debt, but you should have an idea of how much it is before you can begin to look at means of eliminating this financial burden. Continue reading

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Many first-time home-buyers are frightened about buying a house. The cost is enormous, and the obligation will last for years. People are going to make some mistakes when it comes to financing and these errors can be expensive in money and time. Several common slip-ups include the following.

  1. Being Unprepared for Post Purchase Expenses

These bills happen after a person has taken possession of the house. That new home may need repair work on the roof, new electrical wiring might be required, and ordinary appliances such as a new refrigerator or dishwasher are necessary. New owners don’t ordinarily plan for such expenses and are faced with bills they did not initially expect. Continue reading