We have helpful finance management advice on debt, loans and credit cards

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Protect your good credit –Your divorce does not releive you from any joint credit card debt you may have had while you wer married. You are responsible for joint accounts from any credit card s you may have along with car loans and home mortgages. Even if a divorce judge orders your ex spouse to pay a certain credit card bill, you are still legally responsible for making sure that this bill is being paid. If not your credit can be ruined.

The bank, credit card issuer, mortgage company or other credit lending buinesses that you have credit with also has the legal right to report any negative information to a credit bureau if your ex pays late on a joint account that you may have. If your ex decide that he or she does not want to pay the bill at all you will probally have to pay or action can be taken to get the debt paid off.

Until you can seperate your accounts you can not afford to miss a payment on your bills to avoid reporting to the credit bureaus. Send in at least the minimum payments due on all joint bills until they can be seperated. One missed payment can have a negative effect on your credit report at times up to 7 years. Do not try to run up the debts, play by the rules and make all payments with at least the minimum due.

If you’ve recently been through a divorce – or are contemplating one – you may want to look closely at issues involving credit. Understanding the different kinds of credit accounts opened during a marriage may help illuminate the potential benefits and pitfalls of each.

If you’re considering divorce or separation, pay special attention to the status of all the credit accounts that you may have. If you maintain joint accounts during this time, it’s important to make regular payments so your credit will not suffer from the divorce. As long as there’s an outstanding balance on a joint account, you and your spouse are still responsible for this payment.

If you divorce, you may want to close joint accounts or accounts in which your former spouse was an authorized user. Or ask the creditor to convert these accounts to individual accounts.

The easiest way to find out what kind of debts you and your spouse owe is to get a credit report. Credit reports are a little like the weather. Everybody talks about them, but only three companies really do anything to produce them:

Equifax. Equifax Credit Information Services, Wildwood Plaza, Suite 500, Marietta, GA 30067. 800-685-1111.
Experian (formerly TRW). Consumer Assistance Center, P.O. Box 749029, Dallas, TX 75374. 800-392-1122.
Trans Union. 760 Sproul Road, Springfield, PA 19064. 800 916-8800.

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A credit card minimum payment means that you can spend more and pay as little back as the credit card issuer will allow you. Sounds great in theory but it is a system that will turn out to be your worse nightmare. If you stick to it before long you will find that you have reached your limit, have nothing left to spend and all the while your past purchases are totting up interest charges. These sequence of events make your minimum payments so high, that you can only afford to pay back the interest charges and your debt remains the same, with no light at the end of the tunnel as to how you are going to clear it.

This is where the credit card companies have gotten wise and by reducing the minimum payment steadily from 10% on original credit cards to the 2% that most now have set, they have seen a way of making as much profit from you and I as possible. By reducing the minimum payment to such a low level, they have given the customer a false picture on how much they can spend on their credit cards and how much they can really afford. With the minimum payment now sitting at 2%, those who cannot clear their credit cards in full each month, will now see interest charges being added to interest charges, as their balance increases month by month.

To reduce your debt stop using your credit card

This is a position that many find themselves in and by noticing it early on you could be saving yourself a lot of grief and a good bit of money. If you are there at this point, then the best thing that you can do is to stop using the credit card altogether and start to look at ways to reduce your outstanding debt. Even if you find that you have to cut back on other expenditure, you should deal with a debt that is a drain to your finances and by saving now on a few luxuries it will be to your advantage. As you pay off you balance quicker you will save more in interest charges.

Always remember that by paying minimum payments and minimum payments only, you are playing a very dangerous game with your hard earned cash. So why should you work many hours a week just to feed the profits of a bank or credit card issuer, who will be your friend until such a time you cannot afford to pay back the cash that they let you borrow.

Take action today!

Have you started receiving credit card debt settlement notices in the mail? Have you been receiving collection calls? If this is the case, you have probably been in debt and been dealing with financial difficulties for quite some time.

Creditors are sometimes willing to settle the account for a lesser amount if the credit card account is seriously delinquent or has been written off. This creditor will usually accept the settled amount in one payment and the payment has to be made within a short period of time.

Now you may wonder why a creditor would settle for less than what is owed. Your credit card issuer is trying to reduce their losses and they have concerns about you paying this debt. Your credit issuer feels that recovering some of their money is better than not getting any of it back. Keep in mind that accepting a settlement may affect your borrowing ability in the future with this creditor, but it is a better option than bankruptcy or doing nothing at all.

A creditor will not usually settle on an account that is current. Normally, the account has to be at least 90 days delinquent before they will talk settlement and many credit card companies will wait longer than that. Here are a few things you should be aware of before agreeing to a settlement.

1. Your settlement payment may not completely satisfy the debt. There is a possibility that the uncollected portion of the debt could be turned over to another collection agency for further collection activity, but this is not the norm.

2. The IRS considers the amount of the debt that has not been satisfied as income. Any amount that exceeds $600 will be report on a 1099, to the IRS, by your creditors. You will be required to pay taxes on this amount.

3. Know what’s on your credit report. If the debt is not on their at all, it is not recommended that you do anything with this debt. If it is showing as being “charged off,” this is negative note on your credit report. If you settle, it will be noted as “settled for a lesser amount” which as also somewhat negative, but not as bad as doing nothing about it at all.

The best thing to do is to try to deal with the original creditor. Communicate with them in writing. If they will not deal with you, contact the collection agency in writing. If at all possible, try to negotiate a repayment plan on the balance. If you decide to settle the debt, get the terms of the settlement in writing to avoid problems on down the road. Once you have paid the debt, ask for a release of debt as proof that the company has agreed that the debt has been satisfied.

The best thing that you can do for yourself is to examine the curcumstances that caused your debt to get to this point and to put a plan in place that will prevent you from ending up there again.

Prepaid credit cards also called stored value card can be ideal for individuals who are unemployed, have bad credit or difficulty obtaining an unsecured credit card. Prepaid credit cards are also excellent for individuals who have a hard time controlling their spending and prevent the individual from overspending and getting into credit card debt. If your objective is to establish or rebuild you credit over a period of time, make sure the prepaid card issuer reports cardholder transactions to the credit bureaus namely Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union.

It is very easy to obtain a prepaid credit card because there is no credit check or employment verification since the funds you will be using are yours and not that of the prepaid credit card issuer. Prepaid credit card spending limit or credit line is the amount of money you loaded to your prepaid credit card account. Prepaid credit card carries the Visa or MasterCard logo. It can be used anywhere MasterCard and visa is accepted except renting a car at certain car rental companies and setting up automatic recurring payments.

The difference between a prepaid credit card and a debit card is that the spending transactions are deducted from the amount of money you loaded to your account unlike a debit card where the money spent is subtracted from your checking account and could cause Non-Sufficient Funds (NSF) charges. The NSF charges are due to a customer drawing funds from an ATM or making purchases that exceeds the balance in their checking account. With a prepaid card this will never happen since the prepaid card holder is not borrowing any money and can only spend the amount of money loaded to their prepaid account.

With prepaid credit card there are no interest charges because you are using your own money. To obtain a prepaid credit card requires paying a setup or application fee and may charge a fee each time you load more money to your account. Some of the ways prepaid credit card can be funded is with a wire transfer and a cash deposit at certain locations approved by the issuer.