Finance | Finance Professionals

Choosing a Reliable Financial Service

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How do you choose your financial services? If you are not careful, you could be missing out on services offered by trusted banks and financial institutions. Follow along for some tips on choosing these services, and what to look for in the process.

You should always look for banks and institutions that have a good reputation. You can begin with those that are insured by the FDIC. The Better Business Bureau, along with other resources can help you identify trusted sources. Of course, ask around in your community as well. The reliability of any service will be tied to its bank.

Another thing to consider are the terms of the service. For instance, you cannot expect a checking account to serve you well if it has high minimums, a long set of fees, and poor service. When you speak of a payday advance or home loan as well, the terms and rates must be friendly. If they are not, you might not be receiving a reliable service.

Not all financial services are appropriate for the consumer. On an individual basis, the service must serve your needs well. For instance, if you are $20,000 in debt, would you consider a high-risk stock a “reliable” investment or service?

From the bank to the terms and nature of the service itself, there are many items to consider. In the end, all of them must come together to serve you and prove reliable and worthwhile. Approach these and other integral criteria to determine whether that is the case.

Filed Under: Banking, Business, Finance Tagged With: Bank, Better Business Bureau, FinancialServices

Staying Positive — Is it The Key to Abundance?

These are shaky times financially for many people, as the economy continues to reel from the events that began in 2008 as the U.S. stock market crashed and the real estate bubble burst, sending retirement accounts and savings into a long downward slide.

Many people are struggling with mortgage problems and job losses. It’s a situation that can lead to feelings of hopelessness, especially for those who are unable to get their heads above water in this difficult economy. Yet there are those folks who seem to float above financial problems, even as others are sinking. What’s their secret?

Some people see money as an “idea” more than just an actual physical object that rules us. Though it is perhaps an unusual way of seeing wealth, the idea of creative, positive visualization as a key to attaining, or ‘attracting’ wealth has caught on in recent years.

Many of these classic ideas about ‘attraction’ were popularized in the book and DVD, ‘The Secret,’ which was written by Australian television producer Rhonda Byrnes. The book and DVD have become hugely popular bestsellers, all of which speaks to the public’s need for a positive message and a means for attaining a stable life that includes a sense of abundance.

The message of ‘The Secret’ is not new—it builds on ideas put forth by Norman Vincent Peale in his book ‘The Power of Positive Thinking,’ which was published in 1952. What all these books draw on is an attitude of consciousness regarding our outlook on life; a philosophy that says what we think and visualize is what we manifest in reality.

Can all this make us rich? Who knows? Some swear by this philosophy, others are wary. Yet a positive attitude certainly can help us stay energized as we weather job searches and ways to negotiate lower interest rates on our mortgages and credit card bills.

Is staying positive worth it? Why not? It’s free—and it certainly can’t hurt us.

Filed Under: Economic Development, Finance, Personal Tagged With: Norman Vincent Peale, Power of Positive Thinking, Secret

Emotions and McMansions

The population notion about wealth and money in our society is that we all crave it, so much so, apparently, that we all aspire to a celebrity lifestyle. That “only in the movies” lifestyle would include, of course, a huge mansion on a hilltop with at least one pool, a Jacuzzi, several bedrooms and bathrooms, guests rooms and an additional wing to house the “help.” That’s nirvana—what we’ve all been working toward, right?

Maybe, or maybe not. Yes, the idea of wealth is attractive, to be sure. Yet the need for money—and the lack of it—has always been a subject that involves much more than simply earning a wage and putting it in the bank. Money and the “idea” of money reaches us in a place that is not all about the practical matters of paying the rent and putting food on the table.

united states currency eye- IMG_7364_web

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Yes, money involves emotional issues that touch on our feelings of security and our need for status and possessions. Having a home and a refrigerator stocked with enough food to last awhile makes us feel secure, for sure. When is enough enough, though? Can taking on more possessions than we can possibly use really make us feel secure, especially when, ironically, we may find ourselves digging deeper and deeper into debt to pay for this illusory sense of security?

The current economic crisis that is affecting the United States as well as the global economy involves emotional issues about money, as well as some of the very complicated financial dealings that fueled the real estate and stock market bubble. None of this is easy to unravel, but knowing that there may be an emotional component in your spending, if you find yourself in debt today, may be helpful in healing the situation and getting back to a place of stability.

We’ve all got some unraveling and healing to do before our economy gets back on track. Hopefully, we’ll get there.

Filed Under: Business, Finance, Personal Tagged With: Jacuzzi, United States, Wealth

How Debt and Spending Issues Make us Realize Money’s Worth

Many, many people today are dealing with serious financial problems, in the aftermath of the 2008 stock market crash and the ensuing recession and financial crisis. In some ways, the current economic ‘recovery’ is akin to the hangover and feelings of regret following a major New Year’s Eve bender.

Sure, you think, I’ll start over. No more partying. I’ll stop using credit and really start saving. Can you really do it this time?

One of the issues that’s come out of the current economic crisis and hoped-for

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recovery is the issue of financial discipline, at the personal level as well as for corporations and the federal government. The crisis have forced everyone to take a good hard look at their spending patterns and confront the real problem of living beyond our means.

How do we find the discipline to stop overspending and start building up our savings? One of the things to realize is that money is more than simply a coin or piece of paper with numbers printed on it. It seems strange to think it, but money is actually an idea. It’s a concept that symbolizes the amounts we are trading between each other for the goods we want to have. It’s a symbol of value.

This fairly esoteric notion can be helpful if we realize that money, being an “idea” doesn’t rule us. We simply have to start getting more comfortable with the notion of what money really means in our lives, so we can take more control of where it takes us—and exert more discipline over how we use it, for our own sake.

If we can all just get serious about our financial discipline and our notions of what money is, we can get ourselves to a place of greater financial security, with less debt and more savings in place.

Filed Under: Banking, Business, Finance Tagged With: Credit card, Finance, Money

Choosing a Reliable Financial Service

Staying Positive — Is it The Key to Abundance?

Emotions and McMansions

How Debt and Spending Issues Make us Realize Money’s Worth

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