Learn about FDIC

Dear Readers, 

I am sure most of us want to protect our hand earned money, But if we look at today economic situation  around the world its very unstable and no one know what's going to happen & which financial institution is going to collapse. I am sure most of us know that central banks provide insurance to deposits. 

• In USA FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). Credit unions are not covered by FDIC insurance. Instead they have NCUSIF protection.
• In India DICGC (Deposit insurance and credit guarantee corporation)

There are many more more deposit insurance provider in different countries. for more information about these please look into WIKI. If you want to check weather bank covered under FDIC or not please visit the following URL (this URL is from FDIC office website) http://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/main_bankfind.asp

But there are some restrictions on the amount of deposit they cover. For example in India DICGC will provide the protection for 100K (1,00,000) Rs/-, In USA FDIC provide protection for $100,000/depositor & $250,000 in certain retirement accounts per depositor. Lets look into details what is covered & what not by FDIC. 

What is Covered

FDIC insurance applies to all deposits at covered banks. This includes:

• Checking accounts
• Savings accounts
• CDs
• Money market accounts (but not money market funds, don't get confused with Money market account & funds)

FDIC insurance does not cover:

• Safety deposit box contents
• Investments such as mutual funds or stocks
• Insurance products such as annuities

How this works: deposits done by USA citizen or any USA resident in any FDIC insured bank will be covered. For more details visit FDIC website. In Next article i will write more about NCUSIF & Credit unions.  

I am sure this information will be very helpful for all of you, if you think this information will be help full to your friends please share this URL with your friends. please add your comments so that i can improve and share better information with all of you. 

Total Money Makeover videos

Dear Readers,

I know most of you are busy with lots of work around you, that is the reason we are happy to show you over the of the book Total Money Makeover in videos. please visit the Video resource page of click here. After watching if you want to start know more information you can read the book. i am sure this is going to help you a lot. In this book author really put together the steps in easy form these steps are help full for low income group also. they are generic but best for every one. 

feel free to write your feedback in comments section. 


video URL: http://personalfinancehelp.blogspot.com/p/resource.html

Powerful statement

Dear Readers, 
               Lot of time we hear that "Knowledge is wealth", recently i me & my wife started reading a nice book related to financial management which is very nice. i know you are curies to know about that book, me and my wife we both thank the Other Dave Ramsey for this nice book. We both took some very good decisions about our finances after reading this book. Even i am professional financial planner, i highly recommend this book to all my clients. 

               In this book author wrote few Myth Vs Truth statements i would like to share one out of so many which i feel most of the times its correct, professionally i saw so many people saying these words. Most of the times we hear this statement from lot of our firends also when it come to financial planning. "I don't have time to work on a budget, retirement plan, or esate plan." but the truth is "They don't have time not to". Same words Dave Ramsey explained very nicely in this book "The Total Money Makeover". 

In this book Ramsey discusses about words from Leadership guru Johan Maxwell satements as well as words by Dr.Stephen Covey's book "The Seven Habits of highly effective people". If we think in financial prospective of these statement they have a powerful impact on us. 

Covey says to divide activities into four quadrants.  Two of the quadrants are important/urgent and important/not urgent/ The other two are any way not important so we are not highlighting them. The author in this books says that The Total Money Makeover falls in Important/Not Urgent category. lets say if we stop paying our electricity bill we will be sitting in darkness so this comes under Important/Urgent, but if we don't to a monthly spending plan, there is no apparent immediate damage. so that is the reason most of us are not doing that. Prevention is always better than cure. 

Johan Maxwell quote on budgeting "A budget is people telling their money where to go instead of wondering where it went." this same is applicable in time management also. 
Personally me and my wife we monthly track our expense as well as before starting the month we will do our budget of the month. personally i highly recommend every body to read this book at least once. There are so many topics every one of us must know. 
Wanted to buy this book to read click here to goto Barnes & Noble website. 
feel free to write your feedback and comments in comments section, i am sure i will come-up with new article which can help you in lot of way in personal finance and planning area.. check out this page for regular updates about personal finance related topics. 

Tips for improving your credit score

Dear Friends,

If you are staying in United States your credit score is very important it plays very important role in your financial life so i would like to share some information about how to improve credit score.. When i come to USA my couple of my friends told me that we need to have credit card to build the credit score (that is partially true) and we should not use full balance on our credit card to get better credit score. Let look into the some tips how you can improve your credit score.

Improve your payment history:

• Pay your bills on time. Delinquent payments have a major negative impact on your score.
• If you missed payments, get current and stay current. The longer you pay bills on time, the better your score. But even if you pay off a delinquent account, it stays on your report at least for 7 years. so try to be on time.

Recommendation: try to pay your bills online using auto Clarence system (also called ECS) Which will pay your bills automatically on the day which you scheduled so this will avoid paying late payments and bad credit history.

Lower the amounts your owe:

• Keep your balances low on credit cards and other revolving credits. High outstanding debt can affect a score. lot of people have myth in about this if we use credit card more we will build more credit history, this is not always true. We should not exceed 10% of our credit limit to build fast credit score. if your credit limit is very low you can apply for multiple cards to use the them and build credit score.
• Pay off debt. Don't just move it around. The best way to improve your score is by paying down your revolving credit. try to avoid balance transfer from one card to other card.
• Don't close unused credit cards to rise your score. Owing the same amount, but having fewer open account may lower your score.
• Don't open new credit cards your don't need. This approach could backfire and lower your score.

Establish your credit history slowly:

       

• Don't open a lot of new accounts too fast. If you've been managing credit for a short time, rapid account buildup can look risky.

Get new credit:

• Re-establish your credit history. Even if you'd had problems in the past, opening new accounts responsibly and paying them off on time will raise your score in the long term.

These are the few point which i recently came across while analyzing about credit scores, so i thought of share with you. if you have any relative or friends in USA whom you think this information is help full please pass it on to them. Please write your comments in the comments section so that we can improve. In next article we are writing about how your credit score is calculated.

We welcome your feedback and questions.

Understanding Financial Crisis

Dear Friends,
Hope you are enjoying the articles posted, every one of us know that there is financial crisis around us but even some of us know what happend or few people are not able to explain to other or there kids, so i thought of sharing this information using a video. Enjoy this video to learn how this financail crisis started and explain your kids about that's happending around us. I feel we need to teach our kids from childwhood on wards about the financial education, in todays information age the financial cyclic process become very frequent, if the next generation don't undestand what's happending and how to avoide or how to face them they will be in truble, so its very impotant to have financial education also along with other activites as a port of there life.

feel free to post your comments in the comments section, this video creation is not my idea but i feel this is a good information to share that is the reason i am sharing with all of you.

Regards,

Venkat