The various credit bureaus can use different methods at arriving at your score and this is why you can sometimes have more luck getting credit from one lending institution than another.
The industry standard is a system called FICO.
FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation Company.
FICO is software for calculating credit score and is regarded as the leader in the calculation of credit score within the finance industry.
The fact that it is commonly accepted as the most suitable way to rate a person's credit score is why many people will talk of FICO scores or FICO ratings rather than calling them credit scores.
The software that is used to calculate credit score, whether it is FICO or other software uses research and mathematics to decide upon the rating.
This information is important to you as it will help you to have a better understanding of what you can do to give your credit score a boost in its rating.
The best way to explain how credit score is calculated is to compare it to insurance premiums where you will pay a higher premium based on various factors in your life.
With insurance those factors will be your age, your occupation, your health and even your choice of sport where dangerous activities will make you a higher risk for the insurance company.
The insurance company can then look at their research data and calculate your risk.
Obviously older people and those participating in dangerous activities will be a higher risk and those people will be expected to pay higher premiums.
Credit bureaus have similar research data that relates to peoples ability to repay debt in certain circumstances, and it is this data that they will use when they input your information to decide whether they will lend you money and if so at what interest rates.
Check out these resources for help with debt
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Understanding Your Credit Score
To have the best chance of improving your credit score you will need to have a good understanding of how it is calculated as that will help you to decide on the actions you need to take.
Credit score is a numerical calculation based on a number of factors that helps lenders decide whether you are a risk to lend money to.
The numbers generally range from 300 to 850 and allow lenders to see how well you are at paying off your debts.
The higher this number is the more likely you are to get credit and you will also usually get it at lower interest rates because of the fact that you will be regarded as a lower risk for repayment.
If your score falls below 600 you will probably have trouble getting credit and if you do you will be expected to pay higher rates due to the risk involved.
Scores over 720 are regarded as excellent and you can expect to get good rates.
This is just a guideline as some lenders place more importance on credit scores than others and while you might have difficulty getting credit with one lending institution that is not to say you will have difficulty with all of them.
Often you can discuss your situation with the lender even when you have a low score and still get them to finance you at reasonable rates.
Sometimes they will look at your whole credit history and take that into account rather than just the current poor score.
Your credit score comes from the calculations that are determined by the credit bureaus and are based on mathematical data that is arrived at from your credit report information that is supplied to the bureaus from people who have lent you money and from people you owe payment of bills to.
Check out these resources for help with debt
Credit score is a numerical calculation based on a number of factors that helps lenders decide whether you are a risk to lend money to.
The numbers generally range from 300 to 850 and allow lenders to see how well you are at paying off your debts.
The higher this number is the more likely you are to get credit and you will also usually get it at lower interest rates because of the fact that you will be regarded as a lower risk for repayment.
If your score falls below 600 you will probably have trouble getting credit and if you do you will be expected to pay higher rates due to the risk involved.
Scores over 720 are regarded as excellent and you can expect to get good rates.
This is just a guideline as some lenders place more importance on credit scores than others and while you might have difficulty getting credit with one lending institution that is not to say you will have difficulty with all of them.
Often you can discuss your situation with the lender even when you have a low score and still get them to finance you at reasonable rates.
Sometimes they will look at your whole credit history and take that into account rather than just the current poor score.
Your credit score comes from the calculations that are determined by the credit bureaus and are based on mathematical data that is arrived at from your credit report information that is supplied to the bureaus from people who have lent you money and from people you owe payment of bills to.
Check out these resources for help with debt
Monday, September 15, 2008
Do you ever wonder why women gain weight during menopause? If you are a woman at or nearing menopause, I'm sure you have asked that question. Women who are experiencing menopause most often go through weight gain due to hormonal changes brought about by aging. Hormonal changes tend to cause weight gain as a woman matures.
For how to lose weight -even during menopause ---- CHECK THIS OUT!
It can be frustrating at best when you notice those extra pounds sneaking up on you. As you enter the stages of menopause, maintaining weight is very hard. Losing it is practically impossible. Your body's hormones have a direct impact on your appetite, metabolism, and fat storage. This is why it is so difficult to control your weight during menopause. No matter what you do, fluctuating estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and androgen levels will fight you all the way.
When becoming a 'young woman', estrogen coursed through your body, you became fertile, with monthly periods. You had children, or not. Estrogen and progesterone both have important roles to play in everyday life. But to have one without the other results in hormone imbalance. Hormone imbalance can cause fatigue, moodiness and weight gain. These are but a few obstacles facing women as they mature.
FACE YOUR OBSTACLES! CHECK THIS OUT FOR HELP!
As your ovaries produce less estrogen, your body looks for other places to get needed estrogen from. Fat cells in your body can produce estrogen, so your body works harder to convert calories into fat to increase estrogen levels. Fat cells do not burn calories the way muscle cells do, which causes unwanted pounds to start showing up.
As mentioned, estrogen is the hormone responsible for your monthly ovulation. Estrogen also helps control bone loss. So losing estrogen around the time of menopause not only causes weight gain, but also causes women to begin to lose more bone than is replaced.
Another reason why women gain weight during menopause, progesterone levels will also decrease. Like estrogen, lower levels of this hormone can be responsible for many of the symptoms of menopause and that includes weight gain, or at least the appearance of it. Water retention and bloating are caused by decreased progesterone levels, making you feel sluggish and less likely to be active. Bloating makes your clothes feel tighter and only adds to your frustration.
DON'T LET THE HORMONES WIN -- FIGHT BACK!
Let's not forget testosterone. Testosterone help promote lean muscle mass from calories taken in. When testosterone is burning calories metabolism is increased. During menopause testosterone levels drop creating decrease in calorie burning and a decrease in metabolism.
And if that weren't enough, androgen is increased during menopause causing a women's weight to start distributing around the middle instead of the hips and thighs. This is often referred to as the "middle age spread".
There you have it. These are the main reasons women gain weight during menopause. There may be other contributing factors, such as stress, changing lifestyle, etc., but those nasty hormones are the main contributing force.
What a women needs during this time is a healthy balanced diet, along with an exercise plan that fits her lifestyle.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Making the Right Moves when Debt is Excessive
While the budget will help you to manage your debt and to begin eliminating outstanding debt if you have excessive amounts of debt then you are going to need to take a little more action to reduce the impact this will have on your life, your credit rating and your future.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
If you have a lot of creditors or a lot of debt owing to creditors then you will probably need to contact them and try to work out some deals were you can pay them off in installments over a period of time that is manageable.
If you're already paying installments then they might need adjusting so you can handle them more easily. Your budget should have the details of all of your outstanding debts and the amounts that you should be paying. With this information you can work out accurately how much you can afford to pay and then present that to your creditors to see that they are happy to allow payments at a reduced rate if necessary.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Expect them to try to pressure you into higher payments but if you let them know that your budget only allows for a specific amount to be paid per period then more often than not they will agree to it knowing that the debt will get cleared in that manner.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Sometimes it is necessary to borrow more money to pay off existing debt and while you will be reluctant to borrow money it can be beneficial where consolidation of debt reduces costs in the form of penalties and interest. You should only borrow if you can find money at a lower interest rate than the debt that is currently owed. You can also get help from good credit counseling agencies that will help you to prepare a budget and negotiate with your creditors to reduce payments.
Often they will give you other advice that will help with the management of your finances and will be invaluable to helping you improve your financial position.
And finally if worst comes to worse and you really can't afford to pay off the excessive amount of debt that you have built up there might be no alternative but to file for bankruptcy.
You will need some professional advice as to when and how to do this as it can make the difference between eliminating your debt completely or alternatively giving you three to five years to pay off what is owed.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
If you have a lot of creditors or a lot of debt owing to creditors then you will probably need to contact them and try to work out some deals were you can pay them off in installments over a period of time that is manageable.
If you're already paying installments then they might need adjusting so you can handle them more easily. Your budget should have the details of all of your outstanding debts and the amounts that you should be paying. With this information you can work out accurately how much you can afford to pay and then present that to your creditors to see that they are happy to allow payments at a reduced rate if necessary.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Expect them to try to pressure you into higher payments but if you let them know that your budget only allows for a specific amount to be paid per period then more often than not they will agree to it knowing that the debt will get cleared in that manner.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Sometimes it is necessary to borrow more money to pay off existing debt and while you will be reluctant to borrow money it can be beneficial where consolidation of debt reduces costs in the form of penalties and interest. You should only borrow if you can find money at a lower interest rate than the debt that is currently owed. You can also get help from good credit counseling agencies that will help you to prepare a budget and negotiate with your creditors to reduce payments.
Often they will give you other advice that will help with the management of your finances and will be invaluable to helping you improve your financial position.
And finally if worst comes to worse and you really can't afford to pay off the excessive amount of debt that you have built up there might be no alternative but to file for bankruptcy.
You will need some professional advice as to when and how to do this as it can make the difference between eliminating your debt completely or alternatively giving you three to five years to pay off what is owed.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Determining What Your Current Debt Is
The very first thing that you need to do to address your current financial position and reduce and eliminate your debt is to determine exactly what your current debt is.
Now this might seem very obvious and when you ask most people they would probably say that they know how much money they owe but more often than not it comes as a great surprise to them when they sit down with a pen and paper to work out exactly what the current debt actually is.
It is very difficult to remember precisely how much you owe on so many different areas of debt and it is only when you do take account of all the individual debts and add them up that you can actually see the extent of your debt.
Be prepared for a surprise because that is what happens most often and it will give you a really good picture of why you are struggling to make ends meet each week and why all the income that might seem reasonable isn't enough to cover your outgoings.
So step number one on your debt management program is to address the situation.
It is only after you have done this that you will be able to create a budget that will help you move towards eliminating debt from your life.
You will be able to compare your monthly spending to your monthly income and that will give you the opportunity to see how much is left over if any to start reducing your debt.
When you are making a note of your debt you must ensure that you put down everything that you owe even the most minor of debts because at some stage they need to be settled and even small debts that are left unpaid can give you a bad credit rating.
For more information CHECK THIS OUT!
Now this might seem very obvious and when you ask most people they would probably say that they know how much money they owe but more often than not it comes as a great surprise to them when they sit down with a pen and paper to work out exactly what the current debt actually is.
It is very difficult to remember precisely how much you owe on so many different areas of debt and it is only when you do take account of all the individual debts and add them up that you can actually see the extent of your debt.
Be prepared for a surprise because that is what happens most often and it will give you a really good picture of why you are struggling to make ends meet each week and why all the income that might seem reasonable isn't enough to cover your outgoings.
So step number one on your debt management program is to address the situation.
It is only after you have done this that you will be able to create a budget that will help you move towards eliminating debt from your life.
You will be able to compare your monthly spending to your monthly income and that will give you the opportunity to see how much is left over if any to start reducing your debt.
When you are making a note of your debt you must ensure that you put down everything that you owe even the most minor of debts because at some stage they need to be settled and even small debts that are left unpaid can give you a bad credit rating.
For more information CHECK THIS OUT!
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