Money and Bills Blog

Empowerment For Financial Literacy and Awareness - Make Money, Save Money, Pay Your Bills!

Credit Cards & Fixed Loans Can Build Up Your Credit Score!

Opening a new Credit Card, Revolving Line of Credit or a Fixed Loan is one of the easiest ways you can rebuild or establish new credit for yourself. Doing so allows you to build up a history of payments on your credit report, which will help you to build up a high credit score.

In this article, we’re going to review some KEY differences between the options that are available to you.

Quick Tip: Also, it’s always a good idea to maintain at least 2 – 3 credit accounts, so that if you ever decide to close one out, your credit score won’t take a big hit because you’ll have some other credit accounts still reporting to the credit bureaus. This will help sustain your credit score!

Credit Cards

Below we’ll discuss three popular credit card options that most banks offer and let people apply for.

1) Prepaid Credit Cards (no advantage for rebuilding credit)

Prepaid credit cards work more like gift cards or debit cards. They have high fees and are usually offered by big companies like WalMart, GreenDot, and NetSpend. They don’t provide any advantages for rebuilding credit. The big reason for this is that … READ MORE

My 10 Step Plan For QUICKLY Launching A New Blog

There’s more to launching and setting up a new blog than just choosing a name or a theme. Starting your first blog can be frustrating and a drawn-out process, without the right plan.

Reviewing the below steps will save you tons of mental energy and frustration while getting your new blog launched. You won’t have to bang your head against the computer screen over and over again as I did with launching this blog.

Below, I provide you with a fast-track plan to launch your new blog. Enjoy!

MY 10 STEP PLAN EXPLAINED

1) You Need To Start Thinking Like A Blogger

You need to start thinking like a blogger. To be a successful blogger and writer, you have to realize it’s a mental game and will require lots of motivation, passion, and commitment.

When you feel burned out or stuck, online resources are a big help to get through it.

To help stay motivated, it helps to start socializing with other bloggers that share your same topics and interests via social media and other online communities such as Reddit. (we’ll cover more on this later!)

If you live in a big city, the local blogging community … READ MORE

My Top List Of Finance Movies From The Last 40 Years!

Watching movies about finance (and money) are an excellent way to learn about the history of how money, investments, and various scandals have impacted the different economies around the world. Primarily, in the United States of America.

The first finance movie I ever watched was in my 12th-grade Economics class; it was Wall Street by Oliver Stone.

At the time I thought; A movie about the stock market? How Boring!

Now almost 20 years later, I’ve really learned to appreciate what my teacher was trying to actually teach me at the time. Finance and Money matter when your an adult!

Below, I’ve handpicked my favorite finance and business movies from over the last 40 years. I highly recommend these titles for anyone who wants to learn more about:

  • Cash Money & The Dollar
  • Investing in Stocks, Mutual Funds, or any kind of Business
  • How to avoid being scammed or swindled
  • How powerful positive thinking can attract more money
  • The history of past Recessions and Scandals

I’ll be adding more titles to this movie list over time.

Get some popcorn and enjoy!

My Top 13 Finance Movie Picks

wall street movie

1) Wall Street – This one of my favorite movies about trading in … READ MORE

When To Hire A Professional Writer For Your Blog

When you’re starting a new blog it can be a challenge writing and creating content for it. Especially if you’re not already a writer or passionate about writing.

Below I’ll share a few thoughts to help you decide whether you should hire a professional writer, or do the writing yourself.

Related Posts:

6 Easy Steps For Writing & Creating A Blog Post [short and long form]

The Small Business Professional

The value of your blog will serve as a lead generation tool and an educational resource for your existing customer base. If you’re a natural at writing and you can do it effectively, I highly encourage you to do it yourself.

HOWEVER… At some point, you might discover that your time is better spent doing the day to day operations of your business.

Hiring A Professional Writer

Hiring the most qualified professional writer will be the only option if you have no interest or time to do the writing yourself.

In the long run, you’ll save the most money by hiring not the cheapest writer, but the one that knows your industry and subject matter the best.

If your blog or business is in a niche industry, you may need … READ MORE

The Top Common Blogging Questions Answered

Starting a blog can be a frustrating process when you have a lot of questions unanswered. If you’re starting your first blog, sometimes you don’t even know the questions need answering until your halfway into the process! You end up wasting a lot of time and energy trying to figure things out.

Below, I will share with you the most common questions people ask me about starting a blog. I’ll provide answers to each question as well.

Note: As we go through each question and answer below, it would help to make some notes for yourself. Think about how each question and answer will impact your plan for starting a blog.

Let’s Begin!

1) What Is A Blog And How Did Blogging Start?

BLOG is short for Web Log; it was initially used for publishing news, tutorials, magazine articles, pictures, and digital art. Today millions of blogs are used by small businesses, personal brands, and news sites to publish all sorts of digital content.

WordPress (which is a pure CMS or Content Management System) is the leading blogging platform that is used, powering about 25% of all the websites on the Internet.

That’s a lot of websites!

2) Is It

… READ MORE

Why Does The Credit Repair Industry Exist?

We’ve all been there before; you get denied on a credit application because you don’t have enough credit history. Or worse, you have too many bad marks on your credit report such as missed payments or written off accounts (which will eventually roll over to a collections agency.)

A common problem I hear about the most happens when a collections agency picks up a charged off account; then they make a new account for it. This could cause a duplicate record on your credit report. Making a single late payment now show up as two, one for the original account you had with the lender and the second for the new account opened at the collections agency.

There should only be one active account reporting late payments!

This is just one example of many of the oversights companies have when reporting information to your credit report.

On top of that.

Most collections agencies will use very questionable tactics for conducting business and collecting debts from consumers.

This is why the Credit Repair industry exists: to combat the shady practices of Collection Agencies, Credit Bureaus, and Lenders.

Charge-offs, late payments, and disputing mistakes are the most common and simplest issues to … READ MORE

How Delivering NewsPapers Teaches You About Making Money

Having a paper route (delivering newspapers) as a teenager was a great way to make extra money! It’s how I started learning the basics of business. The basics of buying something low and then selling it at a higher price for a profit.

It’s amazing how a job like delivering newspapers can boost your confidence as a young kid. I remember my first-day delivering papers and thought: How am I ever going to get all of these newspapers delivered in time?

Then you do it a second day, a third day, and you do it again and again. You work out a system to get the work done faster. You learn, adapt, and come up with solutions to make the job easier and efficient. Later you take those skills to an even higher paying job or opportunity. You grow in life as it should be.

Delivering NewsPapers Teaches You About The Following Business & Money Concepts…

Buying Low & Selling High; As A Reseller

When you have a paper route, you are a reseller of the newspapers. Every morning a bundle of newspapers was delivered on my porch. These are the papers that I bought and the expenses were automatically billed … READ MORE

Keeping An Old Car Drains Your Wallet – The Story Of My Toyota Tacoma Truck!

In this article, I tell you about the hidden costs of keeping a new automobile for more than 10 years. I kept my last vehicle for almost 18 years, and some people might think I got scammed maintaining and repairing a car with over 200k miles. Maybe I did, but in all honesty, I wanted to see how far I could push it and at one point I thought I was going to get my truck up to one million miles.

Boy, was I wrong!

READ ON to hear about my opinion and story of owning a Toyota Tacoma for almost 18 years! The wisdom in this article will apply to any old car.

Buying My First New Car; A Toyota Tacoma Pick-Up Truck!

Whether it’s a car or pick-up truck. Whether it’s a Ford, Dodge, Honda, Toyota or even a Jaguar. At some point, every vehicle becomes a money pit and a scam to your wallet.

Before I bought my first brand new car, I had lots of questions I wanted to know the answer too. It was the year 2000, and luckily the Internet was pretty well established so doing the research was easy.

I searched for questions … READ MORE

6 Easy Steps For Writing & Creating A Blog Post [short and long form]

So you started your blog, and now you need to write (create) some content for it! Depending on your existing experiences as a writer, this will be easy or hard for you. If you’re like me, I had to practice and learn how to become a better writer with lots of patience and time.

I emphasize patience and time too!

In this guide, I’m going to offer you some very practical advice and share everything I’ve learned thus far in regards to writing blog posts (or anything for that matter.) These tips will help you discover and develop a tone, voice, and writing style that is sure to become perfected over time.

So get your mind in writing mode and let’s begin!

The Hardest Lesson I Learned About Writing

After I wrote and published my first 10,000 words of content (roommate articles), I realized something very important after requesting some feedback from my friends on Facebook. My writing sucked.

One of my best friends actually said to me “Dude, have you tried reading your words out loud? The words don’t read right, plus they sound incomplete and flat.”

Hearing that my writing sounded boring and flat was some of the … READ MORE

How To Setup A WordPress Blog On SiteGround

I’m going to walk you through how easy it is to set up a new WordPress blog using the web hosting provider SiteGround (which hosts this website.)

The best part is that you don’t have to be a computer whiz either! There’s a nicely designed web interface to help walk you through the process.

Before you can start, you need to open up an account with the web-hosting provider Site Ground (affiliate link)

Site Ground offers a special START-UP plan which is the cheapest plan for a few bucks a month. I recently upgraded to the GROW BIG plan which is a bit more expensive.

(The START-UP Plan is good for one website that will not exceed 10,000 monthly visits.)

Setting Up WordPress On Siteground In 3 Easy Steps!

After you get your domain name registered and an account set up you’ll see an option for the Quickstart and Setup Wizard.

1) FIRST, Select “Start a new website.” Then select the “WordPress” software option. Then you’ll create your WordPress login information (e-mail, username, and password.) Then click “Confirm.”

2) THEN, On the next screen, you’ll confirm the setup and terms of service by checking the confirmation box, … READ MORE

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