When it comes to debt, so many people are just unaware of how it really works. It seems simple — you purchase an item using credit and pay it back over time with interest added. Yet, it can become very complicated rather quickly.

So many people have gotten into debt and used bankruptcy as a quick way out that Congress has actually passed a law to make it harder to be granted a bankruptcy. This means that it is harder for you to get out of debt.

According to the Consumer Debt Council, 98% of all debt is avoidable. That means that the debt incurred wasn’t necessary. Debt can add up so quickly. Before you know it, you are maxed out and have no where else to turn.

The good news is that there is a way out. It isn’t quick and it isn’t easy. It takes careful planning, hard work and patience to find your way out of debt.

Most financial advisors out there like to separate debt into two categories: good debt vs. bad debt. While I agree that a mortgage is a good debt, you must keep in mind that ANY debt that you can’t afford is bad debt. A reasonable mortgage within your budget capabilities is a good investment. And often, vehicle loans are necessary. You simply have to be wise, choose a vehicle that you can afford and pay it off as quickly as possible.

Debt that you cannot afford, no matter your budget, includes credit card debt, debt on luxury items, pay day loans and any other debt that takes more than the item gives. If the item you are taking credit out for will depreciate in value while you pay interest on it, you are taking on bad debt.

What do you do with your bad debt? You pay it off as quickly as possible. The faster you pay it off, the less it will cost you.

Start by cutting up your store cards, the interest rate is too high on them anyway. Put your credit cards in a safe deposit box at the bank. This will ensure that you only use them in the case of a real emergency. List your debts from highest interest rate to lowest interest rate. Start paying them off, starting at the top of the list and working your way down.

Find money to start paying off your debts even faster. If you are only making the minimum payment on your credit cards, you will pay almost four times as much for the original charge. You will be paying these cards off for decades if you stick with the minimum payment. Try to at least double your payment. Start with the first card, putting as much extra as you can towards it. Then as you pay off your card, move down the list to the next one.

You may have to sell something, take on a second job or cut back on your spending. Chances are that you are in this situation because you spend too much anyway. You have to change the way you think about your money. Consider how much you would have in a retirement fund if your debt was actually savings. Run an investment calculator to see what the true value of your dollar is if you were to invest it in a moderate growth investment for the next 20 to 30 years. Then consider that each dollar you spend today is costing you hundreds, even thousands, of dollars tomorrow.

Debt is so easy to get into. Watch television and you are told to buy now and pay later. However, 95% of consumers feel buyer’s remorse after buying nonessential items. This says that deep down we know that this isn’t a good path to be on. But what can you do about it?

Take a hard look at your debt situation. See what it is costing you today and in the future. Then take action. The sooner you are out of debt, the sooner you can start using your money for the things you really want in life. No more finance charges paid to the bank. Let the bank pay you interest instead.

Martin Lukac
http://www.articlesbase.com/debt-consolidation-articles/what-everyone-should-know-about-debt-83318.html

>This Home Equity Loan Calculator for Canadian Mortgage Payments by iMortgageCalculator.ca (http://www.home-equity-loan-strategies.com) will help you calculate mortgage payments based on Canadian mortgage payment calculations. The Home Purchase section will also calculate the high ratio insurance premiums. This is not a free mortgage calculator, but it’s well worth the 99cents!

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3SpphveYGM8

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It had been a particularly daunting day as a new trainee customer service representative of a company with a bad product and lots of vocal complaints. Many asked to talk to the supervisor and after the turn over, the supervisor chided Lucile about being stronger on the phone. Lucille Marie collected a stow of cash she had set aside at home so that she could stop after work and get a cake, party favors, gift and food for her five year old daughter’s birthday celebration with ten invited guests. With this all flashing through Lucile Marie she said out loud “Hell No!” and stomped on the assailant’s foot with her left high heel. Simultaneously, she and spun while striking with her left elbow catching the would be thief in the face to free herself but then felt a sharp pain in her left side stomach area. She began screaming at the top of her lungs and her attacker fled and limped away without her purse. Lucille Marie grabbed her side with the realization that she had been stabbed and had a lot of blood covering her clothes and hands. A passerby had heard the blood curdling screams and rushed over to see what was going on. Lucile Marie told him what had happened and that she needed immediate attention. Using his cell phone he called 911 and soon the police and an ambulance arrived. The attack had lasted all of 15 seconds.

Rushing by ambulance to a hospital the paramedics had stabilized the bleeding through temporary compression but surgery would be needed. Lucille Marie was awake and inquired where she was being taken. The paramedics mentioned that they were taking her to a nearby hospital. Lucille Marie shared that due to her short term on her new job she had no insurance and needed to go to the County Hospital. The ambulance made a U-turn and headed for the other hospital. Reality raises its head. This took another 10 minutes to arrive at the County Hospital, which would take in “indigent” care patients with taxpayer support. Going right into emergency surgery, Lucille Marie was operated on to repair the knife wound, which missed a lot of vital areas. Lucille Marie spent two hours in recovery stitches and sutures on her left side and tubes and such coming out from under the sheet. Lucille Marie was admitted to a two-bed hospital room for treatment, monitoring and care. Lucile Marie, still a little groggy, was able to get her hands on a phone and speak with her daughter. Her daughter told her, sans cake, she was coming to the hospital with group to see her. A tear welled up in her eye. This was not the birthday party Lucile Marie had envisioned for her daughter. Before the daughter, Tammy, arrived the police took a statement and a description of the assailant and filed a police report. The police shared that resisting an attack can lead to such an injury. It was also discussed that there had been a man who was working the area using strong-armed robbery tactics and they were diligently looking to capture this dude. This was the first life threatening assault among all the victims. The police emphasized it was important to get this perpetrator off the streets and soon.

Several months had now passed. Lucille Marie was back working after missing a week of work and was learning all the nuances of the customer service business with the daily interactions with her supervisor. She was getting better at handling the calls without intervention. Management was now more willing to settle issues with cash rebates and credit which made the job a lot easier while offering a much-improved product.

As Lucile Marie checked her mailbox after work, she had a stack of letters with medical related notations on the return address. Lucille Marie knew the shoe was going to drop. She was very surprised that it took this long. Slowly opening each one and carefully stacking up the hospital medical bills all centered on the knife attack; Lucille Marie put her head down and sighed. Using a small calculator, the bills were totaled and it came up to just under $24,000.00. From the $500 ambulance ride to $5.00 bandages. It was overwhelming.

The phone started ringing with collection calls two weeks later. The stress was rising on a daily basis. It was bad enough to get stabbed and lose work, but now this with a mountain of medical bills was almost too much for Lucille Marie to handle. Before the stabbing, Lucille Marie had been attending home buying seminars offered by the local Community Development program. She had been working on some credit issues to raise her credit scores to qualify for a First Time Homebuyer Program which would involve getting a push for closing costs and down payment. The new job was thought to be a continuation of the same line of work so that her new employment would qualify her for the loan. She had been getting close to owning her own home. Lucille Marie had been avoiding the phone with all the “gut” calls coming in from collection agencies but this time as she was listening to her answering machine it was Gail from Community Development following up to check progress on her quest to buy a home. Lucille Marie shared her recent story with Gail. Gail asked if a police report had been filed. Lucille Marie told that it had and she had a copy of it. Gail asked if she could bring in the police report and all the outstanding medical bills. Gail was well acquainted with all the ins and outs of credit matters. Many of her applicants had to deal with credit challenges by getting them handled by paying in full or settling for less than owned before qualifying for a mortgage loan. Gail was on a first name basis with one of the local credit bureaus that acted for one of the big three credit reporting agencies. Sue hearing Gail’s shared story mentioned the existence of the Special Violent Crime Victim’s Recovery Fund, which would pay up to $25,000.00 for losses. A few states have this program while many do not. The paper work alone is daunting for the average citizen. It takes a lot of time and effort to even cut through the maze. Fortunately, Sue was keenly aware of all the shortcuts necessary to successfully file an application and it proved yet another way to collect money for the credit bureau’s clients. Armed with the police report of the stabbing and all the owed bills Sue filed the required application and completed all the paper work.

It took about 45 days, but Sue was successful in getting an award sufficient to pay all the medical bills and not only that, she negotiated the expunging the entire collection record as if it never happened. Lucille Marie’s credit record was made whole again. The collection calls stopped and they were looking at houses to buy with Gail’s help and counsel. The Realtor negotiated an affordable home with the seller paying most of the closing cost and prepaids with Community Development contributing a $15,000 second mortgage with low interest only payments which would be forgiven if Lucille Marie stayed in the home for five years. It was a life interrupted but now was back on track. Tammy’s next birthday party gave Lucille Marie an opportunity to celebrate life and for a moment think about what happened to change her life in fifteen seconds. Tammy’s birthday would always have a double meaning. Lucille Marie felt blessed.

A week later, Lucille Marie received a call from the officer who had taken the police report of her stabbing indicating at long last they had stopped the perpetrator in yet another in progress strong arm robbery attempt. In this instance, an undercover cop returned fire and shot him dead when he resisted arrest while holding a pistol. It seemed he had moved up to a more lethal weapon while trying to support a big drug habit. He had a long prison record and had violated parole. Lucille Marie considered herself lucky once again and blessed at the same time as she peered out the window of her new home. Tammy was close by and she received an unexpected hug from her mom.

Dale Rogers

http://www.brokencredit.com

http://www.sellerhelpsbuyer.com

Dale Rogers
http://www.articlesbase.com/credit-articles/violent-crime-on-innocent-victimsadds-to-the-victims-woeswith-mountains-of-unpaid-medical-bills-and-bad-credit-106065.html

As part of an assignment for an online Java class I have to write a mortgage calculator using a class provided by the instructor. Within the code given, the variables for P (principal) i (interst rate) and N (term length) is declared and set to zero. within the code i have written, i have lines to get user input for the three variables. then i have the instantiation code to call in the calc instance of the mortgage calculator class. the program works beautifully until I try to satisfy the last requirement of the assignment which is to "package" the two classes (my main class and the mortgage calculator class provided) into week2. When I package the two together, I being having problems with my variables. I’m not sure how to get around this… ?? I need to be able to input the variables from the user (despite not having a GUI to work with) and still calculate from the mortgage calculator class. as an example my code looks something like this:

1 public class MyMortgageCalculator {
2 public static void main(String [] args) {
3 line to use Scanner loanDetails = new Scanner
4 double P, i;
5 int N;
6 system.out.println (enter principal amount);
7 P= loanDetails.nextDouble()
8 system.out.println (interest rate)
9 i = loanDetails.nextDouble()

10 formatting line goes here

11 //code to instantiate
12 MortgageCalculator calc = new MortgageCalculator(P, i, N*12)
13 print response line here
14 }
15 }

Now, the error directs me to what is shown here as line 12. there are 2 errors at this line. The first points to the left hand side M in MortgageCalculator and the second error points to the right hand side M in MortgageCalculator.

Can anyone please help me fix this??? The code works before packaging but not after…
@McFate, yes, the files are saved in exactly the same folder. and when I leave the statement out and compile I have no errors. Thank you for any assistance. It’s greatly appreciated.

I also have the package statement as the very first thing in both programs. no comments or code present there. :-/

It has to be something related to that however since the program works fine when I put it in netbeans. it works fine. I did get an error that said the main class MyProgram was not found and asked me to choose with the only option being week2.MyProgram. Does this mean that the name of my class in the first line

public class MyPrgram {
public static void main…
}

should actually be

public class week2.MyProgram {
public static void main…
}

no I tried that… it doesn’t work either.
*********

Okay then the problem must lie in the location of the week2 file not being declared? for instance in your example foo.bar.MyClass, would the package line need to be altered to say
package foo.bar
or would that statement be something else within the code after the package line?

Did you put the two classes in the same package? Are they being compiled together? (Remember that package structure AND directory structure must match exactly.)

If you place the classes in a package named week2, then they must also be in a directory named week2. And you should compile from the directory above. (For example, if you reference foo.bar.MyClass, the compiler will look for a directory foo, containing a directory bar, containing MyClass (which must itself be declared as being in package foo.bar.)

NetBeans works because it handles all of this automatically — placing classes in a directory that matches their package declaration, compiling all the classes together, etc. You can do the same from the command-line, you just need to be careful about what directory you are in (the directory containing week2, not week2 itself).

@M

MUST SEE … you won’t believe what’s next !!!

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Most people do not like the idea of having some money deducted from their income whether they earn a lot or not but taxes are something we cannot avoid. It gets even more uncomfortable when you have to calculate just how much you have to part with. Whether it is for medical care, mortgage or anything else you really do not want to know how much the internal revenue service -IRS takes from you.

There are numerous tax preparation softwares out there that will assist you in reducing the many liabilities that accompany tax claims. The most common of them is the Tax deduction calculator which is simply a list of online questions that you can respond to and then based on your residence location. However, In order to get it better, it is easier to have a checklist of your own to use as a guideline:

Understanding deductions: Failure to understand different taxable payment can end up costing you a lot of money at the end. Having a checklist of the various deductions that you are supposed to pay can help you understand the process and easily get at the right figures.

Student Loan interest: Some of us who went to college acquired a student loan to make ends meet in college and as soon as the taxpayer hammer starts pounding away at your salary with monthly deductions, then you need to start jotting down the amounts and make sure that they get cleared and no extra charges are added.

Mortgage payments: If you have entered in a mortgage program and you are paying up for the house, it is important to understand the charges that go with your tax deductions so as to keep your financial affairs well close.

Medical insurance or health payments: Health related tax deductions do not usually have many complexities as compared other deductions. Mostly if you are covered by insurance bodies, then it becomes easier to handle as all the processes that are involved are handled by the insurance body. The procedures involved may be finding out the nature of health cover, computing the deductible amount and submitting it to the taxman.

Spousal changes: Spousal tax deductions can also be part of your tax responsibilities. If you happen to be married or you plan to get married, then it is important to understand the process and deductions that goes with spousal taxes. List out among other deductions in the checklist and work out how much you are supposed to settle and how much you are exempted from. It is also advisable to conduct a joint filling with your spouse.

Dan Ezeife
http://www.articlesbase.com/taxes-articles/know-about-the-tax-deduction-checklist-742095.html