401(k) plans are popular with employers because they are less expensive than other types of retirement plans. Contributions constitute the biggest expense for an employer. But in the case of a 401(k) plan, the bulk of the contribution is typically made by the employee — through salary reductions. The employee diverts into the plan a portion of the salary he or she would otherwise receive in cash.
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Do you cringe when you open your credit-card bill? Get debt under control with these ten expert tips.
Check out your wallet. Tucked among the pictures of your kids, the grocery-store lists, and the crumpled receipts, there are probably more than a few pieces of plastic. In fact, the average household with credit cards has more than 16 plastic rectangles that family members swipe, dip, or flash when they don’t have the cash. The typical family carries a $9,205 balance, and about 20 percent of all cards are maxed out-but that doesn’t stop people from collecting more. Every year, credit-card companies issue about 150 million new cards.
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Who out there needs a financial adviser? There are thousands of financial crisis tips and secrets out there to scare away anyone just trying to find a basic debt cure. Especially in a financial crisis, finding a debt cure along with having the right insurance protection will assure anyone long-term financial peace. Follow The Quick Financial Crisis Financial Adviser: A 5 Step Debt Cure below to simplify your household finances:
1. Protect Your Assets: Step one in your financial crisis debt cure is to make sure you have the basics of insurance which includes homeowners/renter’s (including flood insurance), auto, health, life, and umbrella. After you have followed the remaining steps below then look into adding long term care and disability insurance. It only takes one disaster to disable your financial situation so don’t skimp on the insurance.
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1. What exactly is a mutual fund?
A mutual fund pools money from hundreds and thousands of investors to construct a portfolio of stocks, bonds, real estate, or other securities, according to its charter. Each investor in the fund gets a slice of the total pie.
2. Mutual funds make it easy to diversify.
Most funds require only moderate minimum investments, from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, enabling investors to construct a diversified portfolio much more cheaply than they could on their own.
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While included in the term “financial aid” higher education loans differ from scholarships and grants in that they must be paid back. They come in several varieties in the United States:
Unsecured loans are monetary loans that are not secured against the borrower’s assets. These may be available from financial institutions under many different guises or marketing packages:
The interest rates applicable to these different forms may vary depending on the lender and the borrower. These may or may not be regulated by law. In the United Kingdom, when applied to individuals, these may come under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
A loan is a type of debt. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower.
In a loan, the borrower initially receives or borrows an amount of money, called the principal, from the lender, and is obligated to pay back or repay an equal amount of money to the lender at a later time. Typically, the money is paid back in regular installments, or partial repayments; in an annuity, each installment is the same amount. The loan is generally provided at a cost, referred to as interest on the debt, which provides an incentive for the lender to engage in the loan. In a legal loan, each of these obligations and restrictions is enforced by contract, which can also place the borrower under additional restrictions known as loan covenants. Although this article focuses on monetary loans, in practice any material object might be lent.
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The market meltdown unmoored many a financial plan. With the portfolios of countless baby boomers a shadow of what they once were, BusinessWeek asked five top investment advisers to draft a plan that would enable a hypothetical couple to meet all of their financial obligations.
To create the profile of our couple, we picked a scenario that describes at least a portion of our readership: a husband and wife, ages 51 and 49 respectively, with two kids in college and a third headed that way. The pair earn a seemingly comfortable $210,000, but college costs and high state taxes claim a large share of their income. Making matters worse, their taxable and retirement investment accounts were ravaged in the downturn. So they’re worried about having enough money when they’re ready for retirement — and they’re wondering whether they’ll have to endure sharp cutbacks in their lifestyle.
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Debt can become secured by a contractual agreement, statutory lien, or judgment lien. Contractual agreements can be secured by either a Purchase Money Security Interest (PMSI) loan, where the creditor takes a security interest in the items purchased (i.e. vehicle, furniture, electronics); or, a Non-Purchase Money Security Interest (NPMSI) loan, where the creditor takes a security interest in items that the debtor already owns.
In the case of real estate, the most common form of secured debt is the lien. Liens may either be voluntarily created, as with a mortgage, or involuntarily created, such as a mechanics lien. A mortgage may only be created with the express consent of the title owner, without regard to other facts of the situation. In contrast, the primary condition required to create a mechanics lien is that real estate is somehow improved through the work or materials provided by the person filing a mechanics lien. Although the rules are complex, consent of the title owner to the mechanics lien itself is not required.
In the case of personal property, the most common procedure for securing the debt is described through the Uniform Commercial Code or UCC. This statute provides a system of forms and public filing of documents by which the creditor’s interest in the property is made known.
In the event that the underlying debt is not properly paid, the creditor may decide to foreclose the interest in order to take the property. Generally, the law that allows the secured debt to be made also provides a procedure whereby the property will be sold at public auction, or through some other means of sale. The law commonly also provides a right of redemption, whereby a debtor may arrange for late payment of the debt but keep the property.
A mortgage loan is a secured loan in which the collateral is property, such as a home.
A nonrecourse loan is a secured loan where the collateral is the only security or claim the creditor has against the borrower, and the creditor has no further recourse against the borrower for any deficiency remaining after foreclosure against the property.
A foreclosure is a legal process in which mortgaged property is sold to pay the debt of the defaulting borrower.
A repossession is a process in which property, such as a car, is taken back by the creditor when the borrower does not make payments due on the property. Depending on the jurisdiction, it may or may not require a court order.
There are two purposes for a loan secured by debt. In the first purpose, by extending the loan through securing the debt, the creditor is relieved of most of the financial risks involved because it allows the creditor to take the property in the event that the debt is not properly repaid. In exchange, this permits the second purpose where the debtors may receive loans on more favorable terms than that available for unsecured debt, or to be extended credit under circumstances when credit under terms of unsecured debt would not be extended at all. The creditor may offer a loan with attractive interest rates and repayment periods for the secured debt.
A secured loan is a loan in which the borrower pledges some asset (e.g. a car or property) as collateral for the loan, which then becomes a secured debt owed to the creditor who gives the loan. The debt is thus secured against the collateral — in the event that the borrower defaults, the creditor takes possession of the asset used as collateral and may sell it to satisfy the debt by regaining the amount originally lent to the borrower. From the creditor’s perspective this is a category of debt in which a lender has been granted a portion of the bundle of rights to specified property. The opposite of secured debt/loan is unsecured debt, which is not connected to any specific piece of property and instead the creditor may satisfy the debt against the borrower rather than just the borrower’s collateral.