blackstoneharness.com

By Lauren Dzuris

A lot of us made the mistake of hurting our credit score. This can easily be done, and when it does it may take years to improve. Credit scores are what help us get a home, a new car, and a loan for the more expensive things we can’t afford all at once. With a bad score, we often find it hard to get what we want, get a good interest rate, and we are often denied a loan from banks.

Although credit scores take a while to turn around, it can be done. With the right help, patience and a lot of discipline, you can have a score that exceeds 800 if you really want!

A problem that you may be facing right now is just getting a credit card. When we have a bad score or no credit history, it can be hard to get a credit card company to accept you when you apply. They will most likely deny your application, and leave you searching still. If you find this happening to you, there are ways to go about getting a credit card. Here are some things you may want to try if you’re looking to get a credit card with bad credit.

Go to your bank: If you’re looking to get a credit card with or for bad credit, you may want to start at your bank. Talk with someone that works there and explain your situation, and exactly what you want. You will find that they can help you find a credit card for your situation, and they may give you details on how to improve your score and get back on track.

Try a secured card: Secured cards are great because they show that you’re disciplined and really trying to improve your score. When you get a secured card, you are giving banks money beforehand so that you can pay your bills no matter what. Also, you won’t be able to dig yourself deeper into the hole with a secured credit card. Instead, they help you turn your score around by making yourself become disciplined and by not allowing yourself to take on more debt.

You can find secured credit cards online. There are several helpful websites out there that provide many different secured cards. Simply search online, and you will be able to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Getting a credit card for and with bad credit isn’t hard to do. You may be limited, and it may be hard to know exactly what to look for, but if you talk to someone either at a bank or get help online searching for one, you will be able to find a credit card very easily.

Now is the time to improve your credit score. Just be paying your bills on time, by avoiding more debt, paying off existing debt, and by having discipline, you can get the score you want. Earning a good credit score isn’t hard to do. It also has several benefits!

About the Author: Find the best Credit Card for Bad Credit as well as more of my work at FindSecuredCards.com.

Source: isnare.com

Permanent Link: isnare.com/?aid=578047&ca=Finances

By Chris E Chamberlain

Stocks with higher dividends, for years, were considered safer investments. Similar to a company that pays higher salaries and gives higher raises over time. A shift occurred in the 1990s, though, as companies with extremely high growth prospects (but little, or no, earnings) came to dominate the landscape. Thats not to say these companies were completely without meritthe internet (and technology, in general) ushered in a new paradigm of truly transformational companies with spectacular growth prospects.

But making a bet on a companys future growth is exactly thata bet on future growth. While, dividends reflect the health of a companys growth right now.

Things are beginning to change. The wild capital appreciation in the 90s allowed investors to bet on tiny internet companies that were little more than ideasand make millions from huge run-ups in the stock when things hit big. Since 2000, however, the story has changed. Capital appreciation is no longer considered an entitlement by participants in the equity market and dividends have now become an increasing source of reliable returns. As John D. Rockefeller once said, Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? Its to see my dividends coming in.

Another important characteristic of dividend returns is their stable nature. A stocks dividend is the less volatile component of its total return and is much more predictable than price appreciation which is a function of a wide array of factors like speculation, market sentiment, macro-economic factors, etc.

From 1989 to 2008, the volatility of the S&P BMI index was 13.96%, while the annual volatility of dividends was only 0.27%!

Of the stocks included in the S&P 500 Index, 256 began or increased their dividends in 2010, compared to only five that stopped or decreased their dividend, according to Standard and Poors. And 42 of those stocks had increased their dividends each year for the past 10 years.

In The Future for Investors, Jeremy Siegel advocates a long term dividend-reinvestment strategy based on research showing that dividend-paying stocks have outperformed non-dividend payers over time. The same can be said of todays dividend payers. The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats have outperformed the S&P 500 Index over the one-, three-, five-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year periods ended Dec. 31, 2010.

Now that weve established that dividend paying stocks are an integral part of building sustained wealth over time, the next step is to narrow our focus on which dividend paying stocks to invest in. Especially if were deciding to invest for the long-haul, its important to remind yourself that youre not just buying a stockyoure actually buying a fractional ownership in a company. And in return for this ownership interest you will be entitled to any cash earnings that management decides to pay out in the form of dividends. Remember, however, that not all dividends are created equal and several factors must be considered before committing your hard-earned cash. Approach this problem as if you were buying the entire companynot just making a few mouse clicks on Etrade.

So, what should you consider when choosing a dividend paying stock?

1. Initial yield what does the stock yield today? This is, after-all, the point of investing in dividend-paying stocksto get the dividend, so it should compare favorably to other dividend-paying instruments, namely bonds & bank CDs. The current environment happens to be extremely favorable for dividend investing but over the years this hasnt necessarily always been the case.

2. The reliability of the dividend this is an important point. Many people get seduced by a super-high dividend only to see the company cut it in order to save cash. A lot of companies did this in 2008 and in many cases, it was actually a prudent deployment of capital.

After all, if a company is facing bankruptcy or cutting its dividend in order to build up its balance sheet, the dividend should gobut thats little consolation if you were an investor counting on that dividend.

About the Author: http://www.DividendInvesting101.com is dedicated to finding the best investment opportunities among

high dividend paying stocks

. Systematically investing in the best dividend paying stocks is absolutely one of the best ways to build real wealth – as well as a powerful passive income stream.

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

isnare.com/?aid=1107316&ca=Finances