Your Guide To Best Practices In Personal Finance

If you have fallen behind on your mortgage payments and have no hope of becoming current, see if you qualify for a short sale before letting your home go into foreclosure. While a short sale will still negatively affect your credit rating and remain on your credit report for seven years, a foreclosure has a more drastic effect on your credit score and may even cause an employer to reject your job application.

Make sure that you review your investment portfolio periodically to see if your investment mix is still suitable to your life goals. You might need to rebalance your mix if there have been any major life changes. Keep in mind that every time you trade shares in and out of your portfolio, you may incur trading fees, so think carefully before you move any assets around.

Do not assume your income will always be as much as you make now. Save for possible unexpected accidents. The old saying "hope for the best, but plan for the worst" is actually very good advice. Do not carry any more credit than absolutely necessary and try to limit it to a mortgage and a car payment.

If you want to keep your credit score as high as possible, you should have between two and four credit cards in active use. Having at least two cards helps you establish a clear payment history, and if you've been paying them off it raises your score. Holding more than four cards at a time, however, makes it look like you're trying to carry too much debt, and hurts your score.

To make some extra money, you may want to think about renting out your finished basement or unused bedroom. If you do not feel comfortable renting to a complete stranger, see if a friend or family member would be interested. You could end up making a lot of money by doing this.

Concern about matters of personal finance is something that just about everyone shares. The most useful way to combat the fear and uncertainty that financial issues often bring is to gain a thorough understanding of the subject. Keep the preceding tips and concepts handy, and you will be prepared to weather any storm.

Find some more resource here, <business loan categories and their uses , and interesting article <allegorical misinterpretation of bad credit personal loans another phase of content here <want to consolidate a student loan