Personal Finance Guide - A Guide To Finance

It is a known fact that more people then ever are using credit cards to pay for purchases, from meals, to car repairs, food shopping and anything where a credit card is accepted. This increase in the use of credit cards is from a feeling of dis-association with one's money. With a credit card there is no real feeling that you are parting with hard earned cash, as you just hand over the credit card and it seems that you have parted with nothing. This is why we believe that consumer credit spending is at an all time high.

Credit Score
Your credit score is a number associated with each individual in the UK. Your credit value is associated with your name and address and if you hammer credit cards, make small monthly repayments, have many personal or secured loans then you are more likely to have a poor credit score.

One of the lesser known facts is that your credit score could determine where you can live and even what you drive. If you are bad at paying bills and have been turned down for finance than you almost probably have a poor credit score. With this status you will be refused when you apply for a mortgage, a car loan or even a TV. This is because lenders who weigh up whether to grant you a loan or not deem you to be of high risk, for the value you are applying for as you will probably default on payment.

Personal Finance Guide

To help with improving your credit score you need to make sure you make loan repayments on time and strive to pay off more than the minimum monthly payments on your outstanding balances.

If you are one of many people who does not know where to start and feel beleaguered and exhausted at even thinking about sorting your finances out then don't dispair. Tthe answer is that with hard work, time and mental discipline you can get yourself out of credit card and loan debt and away from the need to even think about applying for bad credit personal loans and the need to pay ridiculous APRs.

One common misconception is that you can get out of debt overnight- it just doesn’t work like that. Spending needs tightened, self control needs to be high and monthly incoming and outgoing money's need to be tracked and areas of improvement or saving highlighted. You will almost certainly need to change your spending habits in order to save money to pay more off of your debts and it will be hard but if you believe that you can do it then with time you will if you stick to this strategy.

There are 4 easy ways of getting out of debt with fireal.co.uk's debt management plan:

• Stop spending - Cut out unnecessary buying and spending.
• Monitor your finances - Keep track of incoming and outgoing expenses.
• Set goals - Set targets to achieve such as cutting back on overspending, paying out less on things that aren’t a necessity and generally being more sensible and avoiding impulse purchases etc.
• Seek financial advice – If you are really struggling and don’t know where to start then it will probably be in your interest to contact a financial expert.
  

In order to help yourself and to resist using credit cards and incurring more expense it would be a good idea to keep just one or two cards and close the other accounts down. As i've been there before myself it is probably better that you destroy the credit cards you dont want to use to resist the temptation of using them. I also never went for the magic 'fix all' of bad credit consolidation loans as i found their APRs would have crippled me more than paying my current balances off.

Be Strong. Be aware of your ultimate goals – to pay off your debt, and ask yourself will having another credit card help you to achieve that?

We hope our personal finance guide has helped you to understand what is needed in order for you to improve your credit score and pay off your debt. Remember you need patience, time, effort and determination and stick to your guns in order to achieve your goals.

~Graham | fireal.co.uk