When you’re in your 20s, you feel like your whole life is ahead of you, you may have just got out of college, so you feel like you owe it to yourself to relax for a while and take everything in your stride. However, the issue for a lot of people in their 20s is that they don’t put money aside. A GO Banking Rates survey found that 44% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 have no money in their savings accounts or don’t even have a savings account! And while it’s important to make the most of life when you’re young and exuberant, but there are some things to begin thinking about now.

Start An Emergency Fund

The fact of the matter is that there will be financial issues that crop up from time to time that you are ill-equipped to deal with. You may end up having an accident and are faced with a medical bill you are unable to pay straight away. And there could be many potential issues that arise that could affect your ability to work, and while making an injury claim is all well and good, it’s not something you can bank on to get you a huge pile of cash. So make sure you start to find ways to stockpile money from your existing earnings. The best way to do it is to set up a transfer, so the funds out of your bank accounts on the same day every month to go into a savings account. That way you don’t need to think about it. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be a huge amount of money either, whatever little amount you can put away will be of some benefit.

Prepare For Retirement Now

If you started saving for your retirement in your 20s, as opposed to later in life, you would end up saving more in the long term, but you can also put away less money during your 30s, 40s, and 50s because you tend to have less financial obligations. Let’s do the math, someone who is 25 and saves at $700 every year will have saved $28,000 by the time they are 65. Compare this to someone who is 35 and just started saving, they will have only saved $21,000 and will need to save that bit more to catch up.

Go For The High-Interest Bank Accounts

Common sense prevails in this, the more interest in a bank account, the more money you will be able to save. And not just this, but there are savings accounts you can take advantage of, such as Certificates of Deposit (CD) accounts, money market accounts, as well as traditional savings accounts.

Get Investing

The final point to make when saving money in your 20s is that it can be very difficult, especially if you work a low paid job and are barely making ends meet. You may want to think about a type of investment that can pay out on a regular basis. While savings bonds, peer to peer investments, as well as real estate are common methods, you may want to start thinking about other approaches to investments, such as gold bullion, or even Bitcoin. Having a decent amount of knowledge in terms of investments will give you that extra bit of money you will need to set yourself up for a life without financial struggle.

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Debt management is more personal than you might think.

Put simply: there is no “tried and true” method of fixing a debt problem you might have. Everyone is different; different ways of coping work for different people. What helps one person to clear their debts in a short amount of time can leave another flailing and confused. Understanding that you have to find your way to debt management is key to understanding how to unpick the tangle of your personal finances.

Below, we’ll discuss four different ways you can tackle your debt problems. Read through them and see which might work well for you.

1. Redirecting Your Income

If you feel you are able to cut back on luxuries — such as entertainment costs — in your monthly budget and redirect your income to debt repayment, then you should be able to make a significant dent into your debt. When you have paid all essential bills and allowed yourself a small amount to live on, all your other finances should be directed toward debt repayment. It’s tough, but if you can embrace the necessary frugality, then it will work. You can find some tips about living more frugally on morningchores.com to help you along the way.

2. Debt Consolidation

Debt consolidation as discussed on consolidatingdebt.co is a rather simple process, which may be worth undertaking if you are struggling with managing various different credit accounts. The process tends to involve taking out a loan, with which you then pay off all your existing debts — leaving you with one, manageable monthly payment instead. This can also save you money spent on interest repayments, too. If you struggle to keep a handle on all the different payments you have to make, this might be the best choice for you.

3. Negotiating With Creditors

If you want to stave off bankruptcy, then negotiating with creditors is an absolute must. This means making phone calls or writing letters, explaining your situation and asking for their assistance in putting together a management plan that can help you pay off your debts quicker. There’s no doubt that talking to creditors is nerve-wracking, but you will likely find they are more understanding than you might otherwise expect.

4. Making Minimum Payments

Making minimum payments to your debts and nothing more might not sound like a debt management strategy, but it can be if you do it right. If you just make minimum payments and spend the rest of your income on whatever you please, then no, that’s not the best idea in the world. However, if you use the money you save to build an emergency fund — and thus reduce your reliance on credit in the future — then this could be a sound financial move. Just ensure that when you have got a decent emergency fund built up, you then begin paying back more than minimum payments on your debts.

When you find the strategy that works for you, then your way to a clearer financial future should become much more obvious.

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If you’re wanting to purchase a home, but have missed paying a few mobile phone bills or have been bankrupt, you may think that you’ve got no chance. Although it’s certainly difficult to get a loan when you have a bad credit score, it’s definitely not impossible. Getting a mortgage with bad credit isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean you should just give up. Here are a few options for you to consider before throwing in the towel.

Increase Your Credit Score

If you have a bit of time before you actually want to put down a down payment, then you should definitely consider trying to raise your credit score. This will mean that not only will you find it much easier to secure a mortgage, but you will also generally have to pay less money in the long run, as the interest won’t be as high. Checking your credit report for mistakes is one possible way to do this, as you could have been a victim of fraud in the past. Ensuring that you’re on the electoral roll is also important, as you are unlikely to be accepted for any kind of credit unless you have this as proof that you are who you claim to be and live where you claim to live.

Increase Your Down Payment

Whether you have a bad credit score or not, mortgage lenders are much more likely to approve you for a mortgage if you provide a down payment that is much larger than usual. If you have some extra money saved somewhere, whether this be in a savings account or under your mattress, then you are halfway there. If not, then you need to find a way of securing these funds. Asking family and friends is a possibility, but isn’t always an option. Even if it is possible, you may not want to ask for large amounts of money from your loved ones. Here is when you need to start thinking about a bad credit personal loan. What are personal loans for people with bad credit? Well, they’re exactly what they say on the tin. A bad credit personal loan is there to help people with bad credit secure a personal loan, for things such as making a down payment on a new house.

Have Some HOPE

If you don’t have a large enough income to make a big down payment, then the HOPE program is something you may want to consider. Hope will allow borrowers with bad credit get approved for loans, sometimes with as little as a 0% down payment. This is a great option for someone on a low income, with bad credit, as it will help you to improve your credit history when you start to make your repayments.

Buying your own home, even with a bad credit score, is definitely not impossible. You do need to do a lot more research, and often have to pay more than others with a better credit score, but it will all be worth it when you’re falling asleep in a house that you own.

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In the modern era, just about the entire economy is built around credit. While many people think of credit and debt as inherently scary things, the truth is that most people find them to be incredibly useful. Whether you’re applying for a mortgage, buying a car, or paying for something on your credit card, your credit score is both affected by everything that you do and impacts what you’re able to do. However, a lot of people struggle with how they can go about improving their credit score. For something so important, it’s shocking just how many people don’t actually know how to go about improving it. With that in mind, here are some things that you can do to get your credit rating out of the red and into the black.

Consolidate your debts

Debt isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it comes to your credit rating. After all, being able to borrow money and show that you can pay it back in full and on time is one of the very best ways to building up a decent credit score. However, having a lot of debt from different creditors can have a pretty negative impact on your credit score and can make lenders much less likely to trust you with their money. Sites like consolidated.credit can help you to consolidate your debts and combine them into a single monthly payment. Not only can this improve your credit score but it can potentially help to reduce your monthly outgoings significantly.

Reduce your spending

One of the biggest issues for a lot of people is simply that they fail to pay close enough attention to how much they’re spending. Sure, you might not spend large amounts all at once, but it’s the little purchases here and there that actually make all the difference. It’s incredibly easy for those purchases to add up and before you know it you’re spending far more than you can actually afford. Ending up in your overdraft every month is a surefire way to wreak havoc with your credit rating and leave lenders highly reluctant to do any dealings with you at all.

Speak to the experts

Sometimes your financial situation can be so bad that it feels like you can’t deal with it on your own. If that’s the case, then don’t panic. There are plenty of organisations and debt based charities that can help you to manage your finances better and help to provide you with plans to pull yourself out of debt and improve your credit rating. Remember, no matter how bad things get, there are always ways to pull yourself back out and take back control of your finances.

Improving your credit rating isn’t necessarily going to be something that you can achieve right away. There’s a good chance that it’s going to require a good deal of discipline and patience from you. However, it’s important that you hold onto it because it’s simply too important to ignore. There are so many things in life that you cannot do without decent credit.

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All businesses need to begin with a good idea and a target market that can sustain it. You may very well have those, but you’re still not getting the kind of revenue in return that you hoped for. Was the enterprise just doomed to fail? Most likely not. Instead, you might have to look at the different steps of acquiring revenue a little more closely and make sure you’re maximizing the potential of every one of them.

The source

Your revenue source is going to be the most important part of the question. You might find yourself hitting the cap on the streams you already have and finding you need more. In that event, you must start looking at the opportunities for new business. New product variations, new locations, new additional services. You don’t have to radically change the business to find a source for new business. You can even look into using the brand in new ways, like selling your expertise to other business owners.

The customer

Being competitive with your prices sounds like a realistic tactic for taking on some of your more established competitors. But the truth is that customers are often willing to pay more than we expect them to. They’re willing to pay it when a business truly invests in better customer service and more interactive communication. A study showed that 39% of customers feel that most companies feel to live up to their expectation of customer service and that 73% are willing to pay more for better service.

The payment

As important as the customer service is how the customer actually pays. In many ecommerce platforms, poor user interfaces can confuse the purchasing process, leading to what’s known as shopping cart abandonment. But the actual payment methods can be just as big a sticking point in both ecommerce and brick and mortar business. If you’re not looking at service providers like PayPal and sites like creditcardprocessing.xyz, you might very well be looking at the prospect of losing customers who don’t like having their payment options limited. Make your payment process simpler and more flexible. That’s an easy way to unlock more revenue if you have a happy customer base.

The return

That happy customer base needs a lot more attention, too, not just the new consumers you’re trying to welcome to the business. It takes considerably less investment to retain customers than it does to convert them. Nowadays, services like loyaltylion.com are boasting stats like contributing to 5.3% or 6% of a business’s annual income, which can be a huge boost. A focus on incentivizing customer returns also has the knock-on effect of creating brand fans that then go on to lead to more new customer referrals, too. It can very well hit two birds with one stone.

The more value you provide, the easier it becomes to capitalize on that value, and the more you go on to keep delivering it, the more money the business will make. Keep the tips above in mind the next time you’re thinking of how to start making more money.

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