Debt and Debtor’s Disease

Debtor’s disease is a silent killer. Killer of respect, marriages, self control, and families. There isn’t a part of your life that it won’t touch and destroy with it’s deadly power. Some of you won’t even know you have it for many, many years. It’s a sneaky affliction; creeping into your life and slowly but surely taking control of every part of your existence.

Seems a bit of a dramatic description, doesn’t it? But, the sad part is, it’s all true. Even though we often hate to admit it, debt will control our lives totally. Even when we first realize it, we won’t do anything about it. We will deny it, continue to feed it, and give it all it needs to thrive within our lives. Oh, you’ll have help, no doubt about that. There are many ways we fuel the fever. Falling into the credit card trap is just the beginning. Self justification is your worst enemy. Why, the human mind is masterful at justifying just about any action, or purchase, given the right circumstances.

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Change Your Beliefs About Money or Stay Broke

by Alvin Soon

I was reading Marc Allen’s The Millionaire Course and wondering why I’ve always seemed to have problems with money. Growing up, my family turned from being well-off to struggling and it seemed like I got stuck with this ‘poverty consciousness’ along the way.

Then I got to wondering about difficulties at work. Why was it that something I could have finished in much less time took much longer for me to complete - and why was it such a struggle to get it done?

I decided to turn to Lesson Eight of Allen’s book; ‘Discover Your Core Beliefs and Change Them’. After just 10 minutes of soul-searching, I was shocked to discover what I did.

Change Your Beliefs About Money Or Sabotage Your Financial Wealth

After doing some reflection, I discovered I had these unconscious beliefs about money:

1) The more money I want, the harder I have to work.

2) If I really want to make a lot of money, I must have an immense amount of knowledge and skills.

3) I don’t deserve to make more than I do now.

Writing these beliefs down brought home how they were sabotaging my financial success. It even felt ridiculous because I knew people who worked very little and made very much, who didn’t know more than I did and made much more than I do. And I certainly deserve as much as anyone else to make as much money as I wanted!

It was clear I had to change my beliefs about money or I would never be able to achieve the level of financial wealth I desire. Read more

Social Lending Networks : Loans Without Banks That Change Lives

Wow, so there is a new thing that I just discovered this evening, called Social Lending.

According to Wikipedia:

Person-to-person lending[peer-to-peer lending] is lending done between individuals circumventing the bank’s traditional role in this process.

Community lending had the advantage that people’s interpersonal relationships fostered increased fiscal responsibility. The risk was that without the benefit of diversification, when something went awry the entire community could suffer.

Lending through banks has benefitted from scale and diversity. By pooling the available money supply and lending it out again, the impact of any one default would be trivial in light of the timely payment of the vast majority of the notes. The downside to this model is that it has introduced greater transaction overhead and removed community loyalty from the equation.

New ventures are seeking to blend traditional practices with new scale economies via online marketplaces. The marketplace serves many functions. Most notably it facilitates bringing borrowers and lenders together. Furthermore, it simplifies what might otherwise be a cumbersome process to properly document and service the resulting loans.

It is hoped not only that these new markets will be more efficient by removing the bank as middleman, but that factors leading to default can be mitigated by reintroducing a social component to the mix.

The leader in this industry is the UK’s Zopa.com, which loans to only UK residents that pass a credit rating requirements. But, the company that seems to be the most altruistic is Kiva.org. Kiva community loans money to poor residents of some of the poorest countries in the world. Helping entrepreneurs worldwide. Such a wondrous deal!

There is also Prosper.com, which can loan you up to 25,000 for your personal use, payable back with whatever % you qualify for.

So, now more than ever, if you have a good idea, in which you wish to cultivate greatness, you may do so by finding people to help you finance your dreams!

Why You Should Check and Monitor Your Credit Report

Identity Theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States occurring at a rate of once every 79 seconds. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that Identity Theft alone, accounted for over 42 percent of all frauds reported to federal authorities. Statistics show that the victims that suffer the most significant financial impact are those that the thief has opened new accounts in their name and that the theft had went undetected longer than 6 months.

There are known instances where an individual had been monitoring their credit report, noted suspicious activity and was able to put a kabash to the efforts of a criminal attempting to steal their identity.

With these things in mind, it is easy to understand why checking and monitoring your credit report should be an important part of your Identity Theft prevention strategy.
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