Hi all,

At Debtconsolidationcare, we always try to help you win over your financial challenges. As such, we have come up with a financial tool in the “My Debts” section. The purpose of this tool is to help you manage your debts better. It would also help you to find out the best debt relief plan, so that you can save more and get out of debt faster.

How do you use the tool?

You need to be a registered member if you’d like to use this tool. Once you click on the “My debts” tab, you will be taken to the login page, where you need to login with your email id and password. If you are not yet a registered user, you can sign up for free and use the service.

Once you login, you will be directed to the welcome page where you will get a tab – “Click here to start”. When you click on the tab, you’ll be taken to a section which offers 3 steps to update your personal details, outstanding debts and your personal income. On entering these details, the system will automatically help you to find out the debt relief plan which is most suitable for you.

For further details on how to use the tool, you may check out a live demonstration given on the My Debts section.

Question of the Month:
Question of the Month is yet another effort by the debtcc team to enhance the community knowledge bank. It’s a monthly contest and every month a challenging question will be thrown before the members for responses. The best answer will be chosen collectively at the end of the month by the debtcc members and the admin panel of the site. The winner of this contest will receive a handsome reward of a $50.
The purpose behind this idea is to encourage the members to share their real life experiences in dealing with the financial challenges.
Though different financial issues are being discussed across the debtcc board, but it doesn’t leave much scope to the members to share their personal experiences. Here is the place where it can be done, and also that the new members can get the innovative ideas to deal with their debts along with the conventional ones.

Latest Question

Question 9: Experian has stopped providing FICO scores to customers. How do you think it will affect us?

Experian, one of the three major credit reporting agencies, has recently announced that it will discontinue offering FICO scores to customers because the current master agreement with Fair Isaac prohibits them from doing so. We invite you to share your views with us. If your answer is voted as the best, you will win $50.

Winner Post

Answer Posted by |meircats

The other answers worth mentioning are:

Answer 2:     This will have a grave impact on consumers who are interested in knowing their credit worthiness and keeping abreast on any significant changes. If all three bureaus provided the same scoring system it would not affect the consumer at all. It would seem to be it would only be fair to share information that is collectively shared with other sources, i.e. possibly creditors. To ensure that you remain in good standing and I would definitely suggest to anyone to request all three credit bureaus to get a complete picture.

Answer Posted by |V Stubbs

Answer 3:     I dont think that it will have that big of an impact on the customers. You can still get your FICO score from the other two agencies. On annualcreditreport.com you can receive a free credit report from each agency once every twelve months and you can buy your score for under $10. I do that throughout the year to make sure that everything is being reported correctly and keep track of my score. You can estimate what your score from experian is by having the other two, they are usually close to each other. I believe it is important for each person to be aware of their score and what is on their credit report.

Answer Posted by |jojois29

Answer 4:     Its about time, the economy is so bad,People struggle day by day to make ends meet,and we get penalized for everything.At the end you are on you re own, nobody cares.We should not be judged by credit score.We should be judged by criminal history.People live in fear,now its the time to help the hard workers of America, and to preserve the future of our kids.

Answer Posted by |Simona B

Answer 5:     Our FICO scores define us — more than our hair color or height. They show responsibility, or the lack thereof, and credibility. I think the FICO scores provide us with an accurate snapshot of our credit standing. Without them, one may not have the ability to decipher where they rank. In addition, it is taking away the metaphorical scoreboard we use to log the points we accrue during credit repair.

Answer Posted by |elledavis08

Answer 6:     How it will affect us is we the people cant get good interest rates because the score they give out to the banks can be wrong or miss lead to cause the rates to be higher than they should have been. This is how the economy got as bad as it did from the high interest rate causing people not to be able to pay there bills. And high insurance premiums

Answer Posted by |bailey0484

Answer 7:     eXPERIAN HAS STOPED GIVING CONSUMERS CREDIT SCORE:
WELL IT HAS A BIG EFFECT ON US. FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN A CONSUMER APPLYING FOR A MORTGAGE LOAN WITH THE LENDER AND LENDER DECIDES THE INTEREST RATE. THE LENDER CAN CHARGE MORE INTEREST RATE BASED ON THE SCORES FROM EXPERIAN SINCE WE HAVE NO ACCESS TO IT.

Answer Posted by |karnail sindher

Answer 8:     I honestly believe this is another way for corporations to screw us Americans over, as we can all tell from our economy, the corporations dont mind sticking it to us "little people" as they refer to us as. Experian is not the best credit agency source for us, and this so called Fair Issac is s crock of bull and they know it.

Answer Posted by |Zelma Robinette

Reaching a Financial Independence at the age of 30 is a great achievement for Jacob Holmes of Earlyretirementextreme. He is a man who is right now focusing on his “retirement” and for that reason he has come up with his blog on the same theme. A very different person, unlike others, he does all unusual things. Let us find out what are his unusual views on Personal Finances from the interview below.

 

Jason: From where did you get the idea of blogging ?

Jacob: I started “blogging” on myspace several years ago. At that time I did not even know what a (we)b-log was, so I simply used the profile blog to write opinion pieces on this and that. A couple of years ago, I realized that there were “real” blogs on the internet that were accessible by search engines and not just limited to my small circle of friends on myspace, so I started a real blog to reach more people. And it seems to have worked!

 

Jason: In your entire blog you have given importance to retirement. Why is that so?

Jacob: Even though I write about many different things, successful blogs seem to have at least one focus area. Also, obviously, you need to have some material, something you did, something you’re doing, or something you thought or know a lot about. I, therefore, decided to focus on early retirement, where by early I mean extremely early: People, who retire in their 30s or before. If you want to retire in your 40s you can easily find examples in the money and finance magazines, but retiring in your 20s or 30s is rare. This also meant very little competition, which always helps.

 

Jason: What do you do in real life and how’d you get started?

Jacob: I set my own schedule and do whatever interests me. Some things, I get paid to do, most things I do for free, there are few things I pay to do, like sports. Most of the things I do thus started as hobbies or projects that developed into something bigger. For instance, I have had an interest in geopolitics and strategic resource depletion for a long time—I even wrote a chapter for a book—and at some point an opportunity presented itself to couple this with my interest in sustainability, extreme early retirement is really about sustainability in many ways when you think about it, and so we started a non-profit to bring some of these things together.

 

I also work for a scientific publisher for half an hour a day on average editing papers; I guess this started when I was editing papers for my friends in high school. It’s like doing crosswords except I get paid. I don’t think I could do it full time though, my head would explode.

 

I usually have 4-5 big projects going on at the same time; I’m also writing a book, working on a facebook app, and joining a blogging network. Then there are projects currently on the back burner, like financial analysis, watch making, and bicycle repair. It seems that if you stick with something for 1000 hours or more it serendipitously turns into an opportunity eventually as long as you keep your eyes open

 

Jason: Whom do you think is responsible for the bankruptcy of General Motors? Do you really think it is a death of an American Icon?

Jacob: Think of it this way: Suppose someone dies of diabetes. Who is responsible? Did the deceased mismanage his insulin? Did the doctor not explain the disease well enough? Was it a lack of treatment? Insufficient insurance? Did he eat too much sugar? Was it a culture that emphasized sweet foods made from corn syrup and starch? Did he exercise too little? Was it genetic?
In a complex collapse, you can never pin down one cause since the collapse has multiple interdependent causes. Sometimes, you can see the problem coming from a mile away.

 

The problem is that when it’s a mile away it gets ignored because you think it will change course and mostly it does. Smaller problems get solved with band-aids and duck tape. In GM’s case, it failed to adjust to the new reality of higher oil prices quickly enough; this could have been misfortune. A more secular problem was the lack of quality and later lack of perceived quality when car buyers wanted quality. Also add the cost of past promises, like pension benefits, unionization, which could no longer be afforded. Always be careful about making promises 30 years into the future. GM died a death by a thousand nibbling ducks!

 

Jason: How do you feel by attaining financial independence at the age of just 30?

Jacob: For one, I’m free to do whatever I want, naturally this does not mean the same as being free to buy whatever I want. There is a difference although for those who are used to solving all their problems with a credit card and a couple of phone calls, this may not be obvious. So yes, there’s this feeling of freedom, like every day is a Friday … or a Saturday, so I sleep a lot better and I’m generally a happier person.

 

Financial independence is, however, just a necessary but not a sufficient requirement for full independence. I spent a long time battling expectations and pressures from traditions that say that you need to work (and shop) until you drop to be a valuable citizen … I think they really mean profitable consumer, and so I kept working for longer than I otherwise would have, merely to meet other people’s expectations.
In that regard, financial independence is easy. True independence is somewhat harder.

 

Jason: What are the three biggest finance mistakes you have ever made?

Jacob: 1) Investing in AIG, I should have seen that one coming from a mile away. 2) Buying a car when I had successfully lived without one for many years. I don’t want to think about how much money that car has already wasted in terms of depreciation, insurance, repairs, and gas.
3) Not learning about investing until I was 28-29, if I had known what I know now when I was 18, I could have been a lot further today.

 

Jason: Where do you see yourself in 10 years down the lane?

Jacob: This is a difficult question to answer correctly, because if you had asked 10 years ago, I would have gotten it very wrong. One way to see it is to say that if you could really tell, it would mean that you are not developing as a person. A lot can happen in 10 years. You can get a PhD. You can move to another country. You can get married. You can change your career. I did all that. If I may venture a guess, in 10 years, maybe I’m an associate at Wall Street, maybe I’m a diesel mechanic on a yacht in the Caribbean, maybe I work for a watch company, maybe I run a dojo, or maybe I got run over by a bus. You never know.

 

Jason: Do you think blogging has changed your life in some way or the other?

Jacob: I don’t know if it has specifically impacted my life but it has changed the way I see traditional careers and employment as a way of “making a difference”. For instance, blogging might just be the most meaningful I have ever done in terms of benefiting other people. A few people have told me that they have sold their toys, cars, dusty jet skis, and electric fly swatters, and moved into places with fewer bathrooms to be more free to do what they want. Others make fewer changes and that is good too. Conversely, in my career, I would write papers that would be read by maybe about 50 total, and I would get an inquiry every other month or so, and I think this is normal.

 

Yet for the blog I get about 10 comments on average for each post and I have more than 40000 page views from more than 18000 visitors a month coming from many different places to read what I have to say: Exxon, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Raytheon, Center of Disease Control and other agencies, (I have yet to see whitehouse.gov on the list of inbounds yet though ), different countries, and so on. Sometimes when I write a post, somebody will tell me that the person I just talked about is his neighbor’s grandfather, say, it’s a small world. I think blogs tend to form their own little (or big) communities; I probably have more in common with my readers than with my colleagues and neighbors for obvious reasons, and the readers I have met in real life seem to confirm that.

 

Jason: Please advice our readers how to pay off the debt?

Jacob: Aside from catastrophes like medical events, debt happens much like gaining weight. It creeps up on you as you eat too much and move too little over a long span of time. There is only one thing to get back to normal. You must move more than you eat to “pay off” the excess fat. Similarly, with debt, you must spend significantly less, that is, not even just what you earn now, but what you spent but did not earn before plus the interest. You can try to earn more, that is good. However, a much stronger effect comes from decreasing the interest either by renegotiating the rate or much more effectively, by making payments that are as large as possible and make them as fast as possible.

 

Depending on how large the debts are, consider living in something smaller, getting around on foot, bicycle, or public transportation, cooking your own dinner, entertaining yourself with other means than a cable TV subscription, and not “shopping for fun”, in short, live like you did when you were a student. All things being equal you probably aren’t much happier now than you were then and yet if you’re in debt, you probably spend and spent way more than then.

 

Jason: Lastly, How you do feel about becoming a part of world’s largest debt consolidation community now?

Jacob: Well, I hope that after paying off the debt some will consider saving enough money to retire early. You could do it in say 10 years—5 years for the retirement part—if you really wanted to.

 

Jacob has given us an excellent advice on how to pay off debts. If you have anything else to add on his advices then please leave a comment.

In his twenty’s, working in one of the largest banks of the United States. He doesn’t need to promote his company’s name because as per him we are all aware of it. He was in love with finance at an academic level and then migrated his way into personal finances. A blogger from weakonomics, Philip, is a person to talk about. Let us know more about him from the interview below.

 

Jason: Are you sure you are 20? Because a person at the age of 20 working in a bank without a name sounds strange to us.

Philip: No I’m not sure I’m 20, because I’m not. My website says I’m in my 20s, which means I’m somewhere between the ages of 20 and 29. On Twitter and mentioned randomly around my blog I often point out I’m a few years out of college. While that doesn’t necessarily give away my age, it does validate my working at a bank.

 

Jason: There are so many topics on which you can blog. But why Personal Finance and economics?

Philip: You blog what you know. I majored in finance and money has always been important to me. I started the blog to keep myself informed about the goings on in the finance and economics community. Cars and electronics are also of interest to me, but both of those are more hands on activities and so I don’t believe I could write a decent blog on those subjects.

 

Jason: You consider yourself to be very smart and talented, smarter than any other financial adviser. What great things you have achieved in your life that can signify this statements of yours?

Philip: I don’t think I’ve ever claimed to be smarter than any other financial advisor. Though I don’t say it in the words you’ve phrased in the question, I do think highly of myself. My grades in college and the positive feedback I’ve received for advice provided have lead to a high self-esteem when it comes to finance. I don’t know everything about. Taxes are my weakest point, I know little about estate planning, and considering I’ve never purchased a home I don’t know squat about mortgages.

 

What I have claimed is that most financial advisors don’t have your best interests in mind. This isn’t their fault because in their hearts they might have an interest in helping you. However the companies they represent often incent these advisors in a method that may encourage them to not provide you with the best product for you, but what will pad their pockets. I know enough about money and this industry to know who to trust and who not to trust. When it comes to investments and budgeting, I don’t need help but can certainly help just about anyone find their proper portfolio balances. So I don’t claim to know more, I do claim to be smart and that many folks in financial services may not be your best friend.

 

Jason: You said you started working at the age of 15. Where did you work and how did you manage to come out of debt so soon? Please share your experience in brief with our readers.

Philip: I did what many teenagers do where I come from, I was a lifeguard. I worked for a few years as one in the summers. The work was good and the experience was great. Not so much the time sitting in a chair next to the pool, but the time I spent with the patrons of the pool. I didn’t work at a country club, this was a public pool in a rough part of town. As for getting out of debt. I’ve only ever had a car loan. I paid it off in 11 months by simply putting every spare buck I had into paying it off.

 

Jason: We just noticed the tagline on your blog is, “30% Personal, 60% Finance, 20% Stupid.” What does this signifies?

Philip: There are a two messages in this tagline. The most obvious is my blog is more about money than it is about you. It’s about economics, finance, government spending, and investing. It’s not teaching you about the proper asset allocation for your circumstances, it’s not advice on budgeting, and Weakonomics does not exist to help you save money. The other message of the tagline is that a lot of what you see out there is ridiculous. Economists are almost useless yet we live and die on their words. Financial advisors rip you off. Guys rob banks using their own ATM receipts for their demands. Conservatives spend freely.

 

Liberals blame conservatives but do nothing to fix the spending. Insurance companies invest in home loans and at the same time offer insurance on the default of those loans, doubling their losses in a down market. It’s my goal to highlight these people and businesses for my readers so that they too can avoid them at all costs. The sum of the percentages is 110%, which points out there you might find a little humor behind an otherwise serious set of subjects.

 

Jason: What are the three biggest finance mistakes you have ever made?

Philip: Thanks to supportive parents in college, hundreds of hours listening to Dave Ramsey callers, and smart use of my own money I’ve never really had the chance to make many mistakes. I bought a penny stock and lost a few hundred bucks once, that’s about it. I am still young and may make many mistakes, but I’m doing my best not to. I rely on stories of others mistakes for motivation, and I always enjoy hearing of the successes.

 

Jason: Where do you see yourself in 10 years down the lane?

Philip: I’m getting married this fall. I expect in 10 years I’ll be gearing up for a 10-year anniversary. It wouldn’t be out of the question to have an MBA at that point. The future wife and I will probably have a couple of kids running around a house that I would hope to be paying down on a somewhat aggressive scale. Overall, I would like to have a net worth of $1 million by then (including the house), but that goal is somewhat lofty.

 

Jason: Are you afraid of disclosing any identities of your as in your workplace name or your college name?

Philip: I’m not afraid of anything. I don’t disclose this information because I don’t want to be bogged down with talking about my employer on my blog all the time. It’s not important, but I did feel the need to disclose I am an insider to the industry I discuss. I don’t share where I went to college because it would provide additional clues into who I am and where I’m from. In previous interviews and on Weakonomics I’ve said I have spent most of my life in the same state, this includes college and where I work now. I’ve also said I went to public school because I believe there is little to be gained from going to a private school. In state tuition is just too good.

 

Jason: Do you think blogging has changed your life in some way or the other?

Philip: I spend more time on my blog now than I do reading Digg, or watching TV. My Nintendo Wii gets lonely sometimes, and I annoy my fiance when I check on something while we’re out together. No significant change has occurred, but I feel like I’m accomplishing something and have something to show for what I’ve done in my free time.

 

Jason: How long do you think this current economic situation will last and what do you think the answer to it is?

Philip: That’s a difficult question. There are two “theories” out there right now. The first is that we did bottom out sometime in the winter of 2009 and we’re on the road to recovery. This could mean the “end” of the recession in the fall of this year. However that doesn’t mean it’s all roses and candy, unemployment will probably still rise and things won’t be easy.

 

But we’ll at least be on track to a longer term recovery. The other idea is that we’re scratching the surface of a depression. This could happen of government debt gets out of hand or if the commercial loans on the books of banks start to go bad. Remember much of the problems we’ve seen have been with residential credit and debt, not business debt. If that becomes a problem we’ll likely dip down again and go deeper in the hole. I can’t place odds on which is more likely, however most economists seem to feel more and more optimistic every day.

 

Jason: What was your best personal finance decision?

Philip: Getting married. By hitching up with The Sheconomist we will be able to leverage our skills and become more productive. I am seriously deficient in the common-sense department and my future wife will fill that void for me. This frees up my cognitive baggage to focus more on finance and my career. Most of my day to day expenses over the last few years have been associated with spending time with a girlfriend instead of a wife. Once married many of these expenses will come down. There’s more to my marriage than a business relationship, but I have to say it’s the smartest thing I’ve ever done and will ever do for my personal finances.

 

Jason: How do feel by becoming a part of world’s largest debt consolidation community now?

Philip: I wasn’t really aware I was joining a debt consolidation community. At the moment I’m kind of hungry and somewhat chilly, but I don’t think those are feelings associated with Debt Consolidation Care. I suppose if I ever needed to consolidate my debts, I’d feel pretty good right now. I guess I need to get some debt.

 

I really enjoyed interviewing Philip on his views on personal finance. If you have really enjoyed the interview too then please leave your valuable comments.