FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Your complete guide to achieve financial freedom. Proven tips, tools and tactics for you to achieve financial freedom. Make money, save money and effectively manage your money.

Child support

Written by Dian Herdiana on 8:40 AM

Child support is a high priority debt that you must pay no matter how difficult your financial position might appear to be.

There are a number of reasons why you need to make child support payments top priority. Quite apart from the fact that your children shouldn't have to suffer for your financial dilemma and the necessity for you to provide them with the necessary support to ensure their welfare is looked after, you also need to be aware of the consequences of not paying child support.

Any child support court order that was written or modified after the 31st of December 1993 will automatically be deducted from your wages if you are employed. If you are self-employed or unemployed you are still legally required to make the necessary payments.

Your failure to do so can result in various different actions being taken against you including debt collectors coming to retrieve the necessary funds, getting issued with a court order to recover the outstanding money or in some circumstances you can be put in jail until you make your past due child support payments.

You can see now why Child support is a high priority debt that needs to be paid before many other debts.

There are State Departments that have wide reaching powers to collect the past due money.

If you can't pay this money then contact them as soon as possible and work out an arrangement where you can pay off the outstanding amount by installments and then include this into your budget and prioritize it accordingly.

There are so many other areas that are affected by non-payment of child support that can impact on your ability to clear the rest of your debt including the sale of your assets to cover the cost and liens on your assets to stop you borrowing against them to clear debt.

Once your past due amount exceeds $1000 the debt will be reported to the credit reporting agencies and anyone who accesses your credit reports such as creditors, insurance companies, landlords and so on will see that you have fallen behind in your payments and this certainly doesn't help your cause when trying to sort out your debt problems.

Make it your priority and make your life easier in the process.

Gain Control With Budget

Written by Dian Herdiana on 6:43 AM

Once you have calculated precisely how much money you owe then it's time to make a budget that is going to assist you to use your income more efficiently by covering all your necessary expenditure and working towards the elimination of your debt.

A budget can be prepared in a book or more effectively online using a program such as Excel.

Now when you prepare your budget you need to take into account everything that you can think of relating to income and expenditure and this budget will need to be updated on a regular basis as more things come to mind when there are changes in your financial position.

This is why it makes it a lot easier to use a program such as Excel where totals can be added quickly and you will be able to see in a matter of seconds which direction you are going in and whether the steps that you have made have resulted in positive changes towards your financial well-being.

Where you are unsure about specific parts of the budget such as how much money you spend per week on food and other essential items, you will have to make an estimate initially until you are able to take notes the next time you go to the shops and see precisely how much you spend.

Once you get some of these figures you will be able to determine whether you are overspending in particular areas and what you can do about reducing such expense.
Your food shopping is one area where you can save a considerable amount of money because most people don't have any strict limits on their food spending.

Once again changes can only be made if you know precisely what you've been doing in the past and where you can make the changes in the future.
It might mean that you have to completely change the types of foods that you are buying and often the benefit of doing this is you improve your health along the way by buying food that is better for you.

Budgeting is your way to gain control over your finances once again. In fact it is the only way for you to gain control. It is a lot easier than you might expect and once you begin to use a budget you will wonder how you ever managed your finances in the past without having a budget.

Borrowing from Friends and Family

Written by Dian Herdiana on 6:40 AM

There are many factors that you need to consider before borrowing from friends and family.

First and foremost you have to discuss, with whoever you are borrowing from, your financial situation so they are able to make a decision whether or not to lend you money based on whether they are comfortable that you are able to repay them.

There is no quicker way to lose friends or cause family strife than to get in a situation where you have borrowed money from them and cannot pay it back when they need it.

It is also recommended that you only borrow money from people who have excess funds that they have invested elsewhere and where you can pay them interest for the use of those funds so that they aren't losing out on the deal.

In situations like this you will be able to borrow money at a lower rate than you could get from any of the financial lending institutions and the person lending you the money could also get a better return than they would get by investing their money in those same institutions or at the bank.

So it is quite possible it could be beneficial to both parties in the deal but once again I need to stress the importance of total disclosure of your financial position as they need to know that to determine whether they are happy that you are a safe investment or not.

Friends or family should not feel obliged to lend you money no matter how bad your financial position is because it could put them in a similar situation.

It is better fair you to leave the risk with financial lending institutions if you have any doubts whatsoever of paying back the money borrowed from those close to you.

Some people are only too willing to take advantage of the opportunity to earn a little more interest and if that's the case then well and good - they have decided that you are a worthwhile investment. Let them have a look at all your books and your budget and possibly even get them to help you work through your budget and to sort out a plan of repayment for their loan to you.

Borrowing Against Your House

Written by Dian Herdiana on 4:05 AM

There are pro's and con's for borrowing against your home and they all need to be taken into consideration before you proceed with any additional borrowing.

On the one hand the money you can borrow on your home will be of a lower interest rate than most other forms of loans and this can help you to reduce your monthly repayments by using the house money for clearing more expensive debt. With the ability to spread the term of repayment over a much longer period you can generally make quite an impact on reducing your monthly outgoings.

Use your budget to determine how much you are paying on all your outstanding debt and then calculate what the payments would be if they were all consolidated under the one loan against your house. This will show whether that is the best decision to make to help you manage your finances more easily.

Where house prices are rising, you will have increasing equity in the home that will allow you to borrow more against it since the time you originally arranged your mortgage.

The downside of borrowing against your home is where you are already struggling to make your home mortgage payments and by borrowing more you will be putting your house on the line and risk losing it. You certainly don't want the banks to foreclose on your loan and if that looks eminent then it would be unwise to increase your borrowings.

If you calculate that you will not be able to make the additional mortgage payments then it is better to sell off other items that you have borrowed against to reduce debt elsewhere rather than risk losing your home.

It might also be necessary to consider downsizing on your home and buying something of a lower value so you can reduce your mortgage accordingly until you get your feet back on the ground.

Your home is your most valuable asset and you should always do all you possibly can to retain ownership of it.

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