You want to control your spending. Spouse, kids, buy that Starbucks mocha for stress relief, lots of demands on your pocketbook. Practice. Even if you need to spend the money, your kid needs the new shoes, start by saying: “No.” Maybe you want to look like you are keeping up with the Joneses, maybe you…
As banks tighten lending standards, or, should I say, go back to having standards, they turn down more borrowers. Over the last 20 years, a new industry has sprouted in between traditional lenders and traditional oan sharks a la Tony Soprano. Payday lending. Some states, not Michigan, have gotten rid of these parasites. They get…
Render unto God that which is God’s, and unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. So said Jesus when the elite of the time tried to trip him up with a question about a Roman coin. I cannot find anything in the New Testament that says God will give us every material good we desire. Some…
Financial problems can be consuming and distracting. A client included, among the understandable issues of IRS tax liens, and not enough income to pay expenses, four children who will be disappointed at Christmas. This set me pondering. As a parent, I never considered it my duty or obligation, and certainly not, my goal, to avoid…
Reaffirming is the only way to remain liable on a debt that is otherwise dischargeable in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. At least in Michigan, signing a reaffirmation agreement is never a good idea, unless the bank is changing the terms to your advantage. If you keep up the taxes and insurance, and make the payments,…
OK, not exactly a Christmas season image, but we continue our discussion of zombie debt, a/k/a junk debt. How to fight back? Have your credit report. The zombies have used a tactic called: re-aging. Yeah, I know, aging is bad enough, why do it again? Because, debt has to be taken off your credit report…
The bailout cost for the “too big to fail” banks and mortgage companies has not even peaked. Taxpayers, like Joe Inhoch, our new fictional blog character, are on the hook hundreds of billions more, counting only the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans that go south. Our politicians already already bailed out those companies, with Joe’s…
How does a company you never even heard of, sue you? It might say, somewhere in the court papers, an old debt you may have owed was assigned to the company suing you. Or, to some other company you never heard of, and then to the one suing you. A buyer of junk debt. Here…
You are sued by a company you never heard of. Somewhere in the papers, it says some debt you may have owed was assigned to the company suing you. A junk debt buyer. A Michigan resident called me last week. He had made a deal with a collection agency to settle a debt on a…
