Credit Cards Tips for You

Credit card companies want your business. After all, lending money to people is profitable. Besides the interest fees that you’ll be charged, the credit card company also collects a fee from merchants who accept their credit cards. In order to get your business, most credit card companies are willing to offer you some great incentives – not only to apply for one of their cards, but to use it for everything from car rentals to weekly groceries.

Among the incentives that you might be offered for using a particular credit card are frequent flyer miles, phone call minutes, rebates and cash-back on purchases, insurance on your purchases and more. Here’s a list of some of the most popular incentives. Check around to find a card that offers incentives that make sense for the way you use your card.

Rebates

One of the most common incentives for using your credit card is a cash-back or rebate offer. Generally, you’ll get 1-5% back on various purchases. Depending on the credit card, you may get 1% back on most purchases, and 5% back on purchases made at convenience stores, gas stations, grocery stores and ‘member merchants’. The rebate

Read more…

The Verdict: The Northwest Visa Platinum card offers a number of benefits to cardholders. There is no annual fee and no cost for balance transfers and cash advances. It also features a generous credit limit and an APR as low as 7.0%. Still, this credit card has no rewards and the APR may be as high as 18.00% for members who do not have excellent credit. In general, this card is best for individuals who don’t carry a balance and want a simple credit card to finance large purchases or transfer a balance from a higher rate card.

Overview: Northwest Federal Credit Union offers three credit cards to members: the Visa Platinum card, the First Card Visa Platinum card and the Member Rewards Mastercard. The Platinum card has no rewards, although it does offer a generous spending limit with an APR as low as 7.00%. This credit card can appeal to many consumers, especially those who want a free to carry card for emergencies.

How These Cards Work: The Visa Platinum card is accepted worldwide. Cardholders have access to ATMs across the world with a PIN for cash advances. T

Read more…

Time flies when youre having fun, or just getting busy with your life, and suddenly its the holiday season again!

Kids are excited about their Christmas break, parents are frantically preppin the house with holiday décor, students are eager to go home for some eggnog and family fun, etc. But one thing everybody starts to stress about is all the holiday shopping they need to get done.

During these ongoing rough economic times, its important to do some smart shopping and protect yourself against credit card fraud and many other things that can negatively affect your holiday season.

That is why we have compiled a list of the top four holiday tips to ensure you have a merry good ol time with family and friends, no matter where you are or what your financial constraints may be.

Youll come across some “amazing” offers that will seem really hard, or sometimes almost impossible, to pass up. But just as the devil on your shoulder may try to tempt you to buy, buy, buy the angel on the other side trying to knock some sense into you shouldnt go unnoticed either.

Set aside a budget of how much you can afford to spend this holiday season and heres the catch: STICK TO IT. That

Read more…

The key measure of financial stress in the British banking system has hit its highest level for more than two years.

The three-month London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor) – the interest rate that reflects banks’ willingness to lend to each other – reached 1% for the first time since July 2009 on Wednesday. It means that banks are now charging each other almost twice as much as the Bank of England’s base rate of 0.5% to borrow money. In normal conditions, the gap between base rate and Libor is typically 0.15-0.2%; the rise to 0.5% indicates growing alarm about the safety of the financial system.

The bad news for consumers is that Libor is one of the key elements in mortgage pricing, and a sustained rise in Libor soon feeds through to higher mortgage rates. Ray Boulger from brokers John Charcol said: “Libor at 1% is a key psychological level. It has been slowly but remorselessly rising throughout the past few weeks, and it means that lenders will be much more cautious about offering good tracker rates.

“The banks got caught out last time when they were offering loans at base rate plus 0.5% or less, which were in reality funded through Libor. We’

Read more…

We’re all aware of the importance of having great credit scores, but sometimes figuring out how to get that stellar credit score is like cracking the code to the secret sauce at your favorite burger joint.

The result is that over the years, dozens of credit scoring myths and misunderstandings have popped up as people have attempted to get their financial lives in order. Here are my top five in descending order.

5. “Canceling credit cards will improve my credit score.” FICO is all about your past – 15 percent of your score includes the age of your oldest account, along with the average age of your credit accounts. Closing down old accounts essentially wipes out all of the hard work you’ve done to establish a long, trusting relationship with a lender.

Even more, closing old credit cards can cripple your credit utilization ratio, which is 30 percent of your overall score. If you throw away available credit that has been offered to you, your utilization rate will rise and lenders may think you’re too strapped for new credit. You want to

Read more…