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Get the latest credit tips & advice from our hand-picked team of credit experts. Each of them has been in your shoes and can provide you with first hand knowledge on how to take control of your credit.
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This morning in Financial Headlines, there’s a piece about stay-at-home moms re-entering the workforce. This topic has a long tail and we could take this discussion in a million different directions. For now, we’ll stay focused on tips offered by the book: "Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families" edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner. The book offers a number of do’s and don’ts for stay-at-home moms re-entering the workforce. A few of the tips stand out and are definitely worth a mention here.
Tips for Stay-At-Home Moms Returning to Work
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Don’t compare running your household to running a company when applying for jobs. It may very well be true (and then some), but it’s not widely accepted in the workplace and thus inappropriate.
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Do invest in yourself before and after you leave the workplace. It can never hurt you to increase your base of knowledge. Taking online distance learning classes might be a way to learn more; volunteering in a way that challenges and enriches your business acumen is also a good idea.
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Be realistic by staying in same city; stay-at-home moms will fare better when they re-enter the workforce supported by old contacts and utilize existing networks.
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Stay current on trends in your field. Stay-at-home moms re-entering the workforce benefit when they take the time to learn what’s new in their field of expertise.
If you’re a mom and you’re planning to re-enter the workforce, check out online distance learning classes at ClassesUSA.com. The website works with more than 300 accredited institutions so stay-at-home moms can find a wide array of classes, degrees and certifications to help them increase their business value before they return to work. |
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Sometimes there’s nothing better than making an itemized list of what you want to accomplish. Know that phenomenon “The Secret”? I’m not going to talk about if the Secret works one way or the other, but one of the basic precepts of the Secret is you need to write down what you want to accomplish – or have a picture of something you want to achieve, like a new car. When it comes to dealing with money, this isn’t a bad idea. Just thinking “I want to be out of debt,” isn’t quite sufficient. You’ve got to have a determined plan that you can work out in writing.
Think about someone who’s really serious about going on a diet. You could just think about a ball park figure of the number of calories in a particular meal or you could itemize each and every calorie in a spreadsheet. Not only will this lead to faster weight loss, but it will get you in the habit of counting calories. The same thing goes for counting money. If you just have a vague, general idea about how you want to get out of debt, this will not be effective.
Instead, you need to budget down to the dime. Spend a week itemizing all your expenses – making sure that it’s a typical week (no rare payments). Itemize every cup of coffee, every cab ride, every gallon of gas, every dollar for food, and so on. Once you do this, you will have a figure of how much you can spend and still afford a reasonable quality of life. Now you’ve got to think like a calorie counter: add up the money you spend every day and make sure that it never goes over a certain number on any given day. It’s like giving yourself a stipend. If you go over one day, you’ll know how much you have to save on another day.
Remember, it’s crucially important to put some of that money towards aggressive debt repayment and possibly investments. If you’re right out of college, investments may not be on the forefront of your mind. Often, debt comes first – most often student loan debt and credit card debt accrued during school – so this has to be a part of your monthly budget. You shouldn’t just look to see how much you spend every month to just get by, but how much you can afford to pay above the minimum payment on high interest debt.
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There’s a meme building about the subprime mortgage meltdown and the credit crisis that it’s entirely the consumer’s fault. The basic line of reasoning is: these people got into a mortgage that they clearly couldn’t afford, so they’re at fault for any financial hardship. The same thing goes for credit cards: they should have read the fine print on their agreement. In short, it’s a way of blaming the victim.
Except it’s important to see just how people got into both bad mortgages and bad credit card plans. Many homeowners were offered a low introductory interest rate that then ballooned to an unmanageable 11% or more after a few years. What makes lenders veer into “predatory” is that these borrowers were not informed about how the mortgage would change down the line. So while you could argue that these borrowers should have read all of the fine legalese on a mortgage agreement, a lot of people were taking the lenders on their word: lenders who were saying, basically, look at this interest rate, isn’t it great, but failed to stress what interest rates would look like in the future.
If this was mentioned, the lender may have stressed that because the homeowner had built up so much equity due to he low introductory rate that it wouldn’t matter if interest rates eventually went up. What the homeowner didn’t count on was the fact that home values suddenly plunged, making that initial equity much less valuable.
Credit cards have worked in the same way. Credit cards have a similar low introductory rate . Most credit cardholders do realize that the introductory rate will end after a pre-determined period – this information is clearly advertised. What cardholders might not realize is that a credit card company can raise rates “at their own discretion,” regardless of how responsible the cardholder has been. Most every credit card has this clause. Factor in the fact that interest rates can go up exponentially due to one default – even if the bill is one minute late on the due date. Also, factor in the Universal Default clause, in which credit card interest can go up if you default on an unrelated bill.
All of these issues are in the fine print, but their confusing to say the least. So to claim that this is entirely the cardholder or the mortgage borrower’s fault is not entirely accurate. You can be increasingly diligent about reading the fine print, but when the housing market collapses through no fault of your own, and credit card rates go up even if your paying your bills on time, I think borrowers should be given the benefit of the doubt. If there’s one good thing that’s come out of the current credit mess, it’s that people are going to be a lot more careful before signing on the dotted line.
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The best shopping comparison websites have customer service that surpasses a lot of in-store service experiences. For a long time, we’ve been led to believe that websites just don’t offer the service available in stores. But the newest shopping comparison websites go above and beyond in their efforts to win us over. And it’s working.
Shopping Comparison Website Offers Superior Customer Service
PriceGrabber.com is an example of a shopping comparison website with superior customer service. In addition to letting customers quickly browse a wide range of items and services for sale, PriceGrabber.com also allows customers to read unbiased reviews of products, services, merchants and sellers. Those reviews speak strongly to people who enjoy shopping at comparison websites.
PriceGrabber.com Provides Bottom Line Pricing for Your Favorite Items
Pricegrabber.com’s website goes even further in their efforts to offer top-notch customer service. The shopping comparison website offers customers Lists and Alerts, an email notification service. You can get Pricegrabber.com’s BottomLinePrice calculations for items that you specify, in the price range you select, sent right to your email as they become available. The popular BottomLinePrice calculations have the total price for items on your list, including taxes and shipping.
You gotta like that. Compare BottomLinePrices at Pricegrabber.com now. |
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