الثلاثاء، 3 يناير 2017
FTSE continues to rise as 2017 begins but will the 'January Effect' last the year?
Investors will be interested to hear that the close of 2016 heralded a brand new high for the FTSE 100 of 7,142.83 points – far beyond the sub-5,500 levels seen in February.
This momentum has continued into 2017, with the UK’s top index hitting 7,205 on the morning of 3 January: a new year, a new high.
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Pizza Hut Will Slice 50% Off its Price for Online Orders This Week Only
Is your bank account feeling the post-holiday burn? Does the thought of cooking bring about a case of the heavy sighs?
Lucky you: Pizza Hut understands.
The pizza giant (Did you know it’s the world’s largest pizza company?) is hosting an online flash sale: 50% off all pizza. All the pizza!
How to Get 50% Off Your Pizza Hut Order
To reap the cheesy rewards, order any regularly priced pizza online or through the Pizza Hut app. You don’t need a Pizza Hut coupon code, but this is key: Be sure to click on the “50% off” ad to activate the deal first. Select carryout or delivery for your order and voila: discount.
You can even get 50% off personal pan pizzas, if thinking about Pizza Hut makes you wistful for your elementary school Book It! days.
But if you’re going big — and you should, since the largest pizza is always the best value — you can save $5 or $6 per pizza.
Taxes, delivery charges and driver tips are not included. (Be nice to your pizza guy, OK?) As you might suspect, you can’t lump this discount with any other offers.
Your Turn: What will you order during Pizza Hut’s flash sale?
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder, covering mostly pizza-related topics.
The post Pizza Hut Will Slice 50% Off its Price for Online Orders This Week Only appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Love Museums But Hate Their Cost? Here’s How to Get in for Free in 2017
If I could, I would probably live in a museum.
The first museum I ever visited was New York’s Museum of Modern Art when I was 6. My dad took me there for a trip on my birthday, and I’ve been hooked on museums ever since.
The thing about museums, though, is that they’re pricy — I went to a Frida Kahlo exhibit a few weekends ago, and I spent over $50 just to get in and buy a book.
If you’re like me and have a love for the arts — but the strain they put on your wallet makes you want to cut your own ear off (R.I.P. Mr. Van Gogh) — here’s a deal worth getting excited about: Bank of America and Merrill Lynch want you to visit a museum this year for free.
How to Go to a Museum on Bank of America and Merrill Lynch’s Dime
If you’re a Bank of America or Merrill Lynch cardholder, you’re eligible to “visit more than 150 of the most popular cultural institutions in the United States free of charge,” according to Bank of America’s website.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a credit or debit card; as long as it’s with Bank of America or Merrill Lynch, all you have to do is present it at the ticket counter along with a valid photo ID.
The deal will run the first full weekend of every month, so if you don’t have time now or are looking for something cheap to do over the summer, you’re still in luck.
This offer is only good for cardholders — their guests are not eligible for free admission. This deal also excludes special exhibitions, shows that require tickets and fundraising events.
A quick search of the website reveals some big-name museums participating: the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, the Met Fifth Avenue in NYC and The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
For a full list of participating museums near you, just enter your ZIP code on the bottom right side of this page, and choose one that interests you.
Happy museum wandering!
Your Turn: What is your favorite museum? Let us know in the comments below!
Kelly Smith is a junior writer and engagement specialist at The Penny Hoarder and a senior at The University of Tampa. She’s pretty sure nothing will ever top the Louvre Museum.
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Hit With Unexpected Medical Bills? Crowdfunding Them Might Not Work
People have gotten creative in what they ask friends, family and strangers to pay for via crowdfunding.
This particular purpose stands out above the rest, though, and makes up a huge chunk of crowdfunding requests: paying down medical bills.
Unfortunately, crowdfunding is a pretty ineffective way of alleviating medical debt, according to a recent NerdWallet study.
In an analysis of five platforms, only 11% of campaigns with this purpose were fully funded in 2015.
If you’ve never run a crowdfunding campaign for medical debt, but have seen dozens of friends sharing them on social media, you might think, “Duh.”
But if your family’s been hit with unexpected medical expenses and has no way to pay for them, you may have considered crowdfunding the money. Sometimes it seems like the only option.
Surprising Facts About Crowdfunding Medical Bills
NerdWallet’s study analyzed data from five crowdfunding sites that allow campaigns for medical bills:
- General-purpose personal fundraising site FundRazr
- GiveForward, a site with a focus on raising money for others and on medical fundraising
- General-purpose fundraiser GoFundMe
- Plumfund, by the creators of Honeyfund, with a focus on gift-giving
- Red Basket, a fee-free site for individuals and community groups
It found a shocking average of 41% of all crowdfunding campaigns on these sites in 2015 were for medical debt.
Think of all the odd things you can crowdfund!
Weddings, honeymoons, creative projects, vacations, scholarships, adopting a baby, charitable giving… all these (and more) combined to make up the other 60% of campaigns. They’re all dwarfed by medical crowdfunding.
The average goal per medical campaign in 2015 was $15,721.
Given that many Americans gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, why are we turning to strangers to pay the bills?
The number seems staggering, until you break it down.
Serious illnesses and diseases are the most common reasons for medical crowdfunding. These ailments come with tons of charges for doctor visits, costly treatments and prescription drugs.
On top of that, most of these campaigns seek funds to help cover the cost of living for the patient or caretaker, GiveForward CEO Josh Chapman told NerdWallet. Families need to cover lost wages, unusual transportation and child care as they cope with illness.
GiveForward says about 70% of medical fundraisers are for people recently diagnosed with cancer.
What Makes a Medical Crowdfunding Campaign Successful?
If you find yourself running a crowdfunding campaign to cover unexpected medical bills, the study reveals a few helpful tips.
First, fully funded medical campaigns saw an average of nearly 55 contributors.
Do the math: That would mean contributors giving about $285 on average. Those $5 and $10 contributions from well-meaning Facebook friends are helpful, but you’d need to appeal to a ton of people to hit your goal with those.
Fifty-five is a doable number… as long as you know that many people with a few hundred dollars to spare.
Second, most platforms charge processing fees, so consider those when setting your goal. On top of that, FundRazr, GiveForward and GoFundMe also keep 5% of donations.
Third: Typically, a friend or family starts a campaign on the patient’s behalf.
“They tend to be more successful because it’s not someone asking for money for themselves,” Plumfund co-founder and CEO Sara Margulis told NerdWallet. “Something about that dynamic moves people to want to give.”
Crowdfunding Alternatives
Even with the best advice, the odds are stacked against a successful campaign. So what do you do about that remaining medical debt?
It may not eliminate all of it, but try these tips for saving money on your medical bills.
We also talked with experts to give you the best ways to stay on top of your medical debt, and what to do if you receive a bill in error.
If you’re a caregiver who has to cut hours or leave your job altogether, look into these nine ways to make money while caring for a family member.
Your Turn: Have you ever crowdfunded to pay medical bills?
Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).
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Work From Home This Year: 3 Open Customer Service Jobs Hiring Now
Looking to kick off 2017 with a new job? We know a majority of workers want to make some kind of move in their careers this year.
If you want to ditch the cubicle and work remotely, we found three companies with open work-from-home jobs right now.
And, if you’re looking to make a major move this year but don’t see what you’re looking for, stay tuned! Like The Penny Hoarder Jobs on Facebook to be the first to know about other fun and interesting job opportunities.
Customer Service/Sales With GlassesEtc.com
This online prescription glasses retailer is hiring a work-from-home customer service/sales associate to work part time in the evenings. Applicants must be local to New York City.
Pay is $15 an hour for 25 hours a week.
Your job would be to take orders and offer customer support via phone, email and live chat, plus preparing orders for Monday. Shifts are 6:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. EST Monday through Thursday and Sunday.
You should have great customer service, phone and computer skills and be able to work independently. A bachelor’s degree and/or optical sales experience are a plus.
As this is over-the-phone work, you should have a quiet, distraction-free space to work and high-speed internet access. The company will provide a VOIP phone.
To apply: Send your resume to the email listed here.
Telephone Research With Knowland
Knowland is a market research company providing insight into group event trends for companies in the hospitality industry.
It’s hiring a telephone research analyst to help build Knowland’s meetings industry database through internet research and by contacting event and meeting planners to gather feedback, contact information and event information.
This is a remote position for anyone in the Eastern time zone in the U.S.
Past experience working from home is a bonus. You should also have experience making outbound calls and at least one year of customer service experience that includes telephone research.
Pay is competitive, and benefits include:
- Health, dental and vision insurance
- 401(k) with employer contribution
- Disability and life insurance
- Reimbursement for gym memberships, tuition and childcare
- Paid holidays and time off
To apply: Fill out the online application here.
Writer’s note: We contacted Knowland for more detailed pay information, but haven’t heard back yet. We’ll update if we learn more!
Customer Support With TaskRabbit
If you like flexible work, you’ve probably heard of TaskRabbit, an app that connects you with people in your area who need help with things like cleaning and repairs.
The company is hiring employees to work behind the scenes, too!
TaskRabbit is hiring a full-time, remote customer support associate within the greater Austin, Texas area for a six-month contract position.
You’ll support users via phone, email and live chat, so you should have access to a quiet, distraction-free workspace.
Pay starts at $17 an hour for 40 hours a week. Shifts include early mornings, nights, weekends and holidays.
Plus, a representative from the company told TPH you’d enjoy TaskRabbit’s employee benefits, including:
- Task stipend — Use the product to outsource tasks you don’t want to do!
- Health coverage with dental and vision
- Flexible spending account
- 401(k)
- Lots of paid time off
Applicants should have previous customer service or call center experience and previous experience working remotely (bonus if it was with a startup). You should also be excited about the sharing economy.
To apply: Fill out the online application here.
If you’re not in the Austin area, TaskRabbit is also hiring in-house customer support associates in San Francisco and London.
Your Turn: Have you found any interesting work-from-home jobs lately?
Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).
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Why You Should Reduce Media Costs and 12 Strategies for Doing So
Recently, I spent a large portion of a day with an acquaintance who left his television on all of the time, tuned almost exclusively to a cable news channel. This channel often seemed to grab his attention, even in the midst of conversation with me.
I don’t watch cable news at all, so I watched it for a while along with him, and I couldn’t help but notice a few things.
First of all, a lot of the stories seemed the same. They either reported on a very current disaster or on an off-the-cuff comment someone had made recently or on the passing of a media celebrity. These same types of stories cycled over and over and over. Often, the same story was repeated again and again. I understand the value in doing this so that a viewer who is freshly tuning in can catch the latest batch of stories, but if you watch for more than a few minutes, it ends up being a repeating cycle of the same stuff most of the time.
At the same time, the perspectives were all the same. The particular network I was watching did offer token viewpoints from another perspective, but one particular perspective was given heavy credence in almost every single discussion panel, often to the point of not even allowing another set of ideas to be expressed or else portraying a “stunted” version of those ideas. Rather than informing, the point seemed to be to reinforce the idea that the side promoted as dominant was “right” and other viewpoints were “wrong.” I didn’t understand how you could become well-informed about anything from watching it, though you could become versed in a particular perspective.
More than anything, I walked away from it feeling like I got nothing whatsoever out of it. I wasn’t told about anything that could improve my life. I wasn’t informed on current events other than one side of it. There was no depth offered on any issue. On the one “opinion” program I watched, the entire point seemed to be to make certain people and ideas seem like fools without explaining why any other viewpoint was right.
It was all just… valueless. I wasn’t improved or didn’t learn anything or didn’t think or didn’t even feel anything from watching it. I spent several hours in that room with that television on and walked out having not learned anything other than a vague viewpoint on a few stories and a sense of being emotionally drained.
Looking back, what I see is a lot of cost and not a lot of benefit. Let’s walk through some of those costs.
The Costs of Media Consumption
Before I get into this, let me be clear exactly what I’m talking about.
Whenever you watch television or watch a movie or read a book or a magazine or listen to the radio or visit a website or check out social media, you’re consuming media of some kind. You’re seeing a display of text and pictures and sound and video created for you by someone else.
Whenever you do that, there’s a cost, even if you don’t immediately see it. That cost shows up in a variety of ways.
First of all, media itself is often expensive. People pay for cable subscriptions, books, magazines, an internet connection, a cell phone data plan, and so on. They also have to have equipment to view the media on – tablets, computers, cell phones, televisions, and so on. Beyond that, there’s also the cost of the electricity to run most of those devices.
Even if you go elsewhere to watch a movie or a television show, there’s still cost involved much of the time – buying a ticket, for example, or buying snacks at the bar or paying for coffee at the coffee shop.
Those costs add up. The average American spends about $103 per month on cable television and about $47 per month on a cable bill. The average American also spends about $20 a year on magazine subscriptions and about $6 on newspaper subscriptions. The average American cell phone bill is about $71 a month, with a notable portion of that going to data. We’re not even getting into the cost of subscription services like Netflix or Hulu, movie tickets, or the surprisingly large energy cost of running all of this stuff. You’re talking thousands of dollars a year in media spending per person.
That money could have been used elsewhere to pay off debt, save for retirement, build an emergency fund, or pay for other life experiences. The amount of money that an average family spends on media in a year adds up well into the thousands; that’s a very nice annual vacation or a lot of getaway weekends, for example.
Not only is there a financial cost, media consumption comes with an opportunity cost, too. The time invested in media is tremendous. The average American watches television for 4.3 hours a day. The average American’s internet time is almost the same. In total, the average American spends more than eight hours a day consuming media.
That’s a lot of time, no matter how you slice it. I’m absolutely in favor of some media consumption – it can be very good for the mind, body, and soul – but more than a third of an average American’s life is spent consuming media. If you strip away just two or three hours a day from media consumption, you have tons and tons of time for other things in your life.
Not only is there an opportunity cost in terms of using your time for other things, there’s also an opportunity cost within media choices itself. If you spend two hours watching something that isn’t very good, that’s two hours you could have spent watching something much better or reading a book or, well, anything else.
Another problem is that most media comes from a relatively small handful of sources which present only the ideas they want to present and make a lot of money from repeating the same stuff. That’s why cable news channels often seem to endlessly repeat the same stories and same types of stories from the same perspective and with more or less the same style, with little variation. That’s why so many television shows are repeated endlessly in syndication and reruns. That’s why so many movies seem so similar, why there are so many sequels, why there are so many of the same types of movies, and so on. It’s easier for them to just sell the same type of story over and over again.
There’s nothing wrong with rewatching or rereading some of your favorite things on occasion, but every time you repeat something, there’s a little less value involved. You know the plot. You know that particular perspective. Find new plots and new perspectives.
Fourth, most media is laden with advertisements, both around and within the content. There are tons of print ads all over magazines and billboards and commercials between television shows, during ad breaks, and before movies. All of those ads serve to encourage your desire to buy something, which means that you’re encouraged to spend even more of your money on something that you don’t need or didn’t even want before you saw it. Even beyond that, there are often ads right within the programming – “news” that’s merely more than a press release for a new product, for example, or an obvious use of a “great” product within a show that makes you more aware of that product.
A final thing to consider is that most media has almost no positive impact in terms of improving your life. Sure, a comedy can lift your mood when you’re down, but a lot of media has no positive impact on your mood and a fair amount of it actually makes you needlessly sad or, even worse, needlessly angry. Much of it doesn’t leave you with a new perspective on the world or new ideas to think about or tools with which to improve your life or anything like that. Even “informative” shows are just a bundle of factoids that don’t increase your understanding of anything in any real way, or else presents useless information as though it were urgent and important.
Let me make it clear: I am not saying that people should throw away their televisions and delete their internet service. What I am saying is that if you’re making such a huge investment of time and money in your life, you deserve to be getting the most value from it that you can.
Strategies for Reducing Media Costs and Maximizing the Value of Your Media Dollars and Time
What follows are seven great strategies for reducing the actual financial cost of your media use while also increasing the value of what you get out of it.
Do more, consume less Almost all media becomes more valuable when you combine it with your own set of rich life experiences. The more people you meet, the more places you go, the more conversations you have, the more environments you experience, the more foods you taste, the better media becomes because it can directly reference all of those experiences that you have.
So step away from the media and do things. Find a group on Meetup doing something interesting or something you never thought you’d do and go “meet up” with them. Go on a hike in the woods. Volunteer at your local food pantry or soup kitchen or Habitat for Humanity group. Make a cool meal, something outside of your norm, and eat it with some friends. Have a dinner party. Play an abstract board game, like chess or go. Wander through your town and watch people go about their business. The more you discover in other aspects of life, the less you feel the need to use media for entertainment and the richer the media you do choose to consume becomes.
Consume less “urgent” media and more “important” media A lot of media is sold as being “urgent.” Cable news is loaded with “urgent” things – the headlines, in other words. Celebrity news is always “urgent.” The latest TV show or the latest movie is always “urgent.”
But urgent often doesn’t mean good.
I would far rather spend an hour watching a television show from five years ago that’s critically acclaimed and that people are still talking about than watch a forgettable hour of cable news or the latest episode of a mediocre show. Give me an hour of The West Wing over any current drama or Arrested Development over any current comedy. Good stuff lasts and it’s talked about forever.
I would far rather spend an hour reading a book on a topic, particularly an award-winning book or a book from a respected author, than watching an hour of cable news. The book took a lot of time to prepare, with a lot of research involved, and is likely to dig deep into an issue, challenge my thinking, and present different perspectives. The news on television won’t do that at all. I’d far rather read a long piece on a self-improvement topic that will positively impact my life than five pieces of headline news that have no impact on my life and will be immediately forgotten. I’ll let the filter of time inform me and stick to long-form journalism that reports in detail on a story with lots of sources than a quickly-written response that’s likely half-wrong anyway.
In other words, my media diet these days is mostly books, long-form journalism that took time to research and write, and well-regarded movies and television shows (I’ll usually binge-watch the shows). I watch almost no current news and only a bit of sports (I find baseball weirdly comforting and it raises my spirits, so I watch or listen to that sometimes). I’ve seen about two movies made in the last year and maybe one season of a television series, but I did watch some older stuff.
Those things make me think. They usually have a powerful impact on my mood. They leave me actually understanding an idea or event a little better rather than just repeating facts. In short, they have a valuable impact on my life, something I can’t say about most “urgent” media.
(You’ll notice that I differentiate between media sources using the groupings of “important” and “urgent.” This is borrowed from Stephen Covey, the author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, who uses the same “important” versus “urgent” comparison to decide how a person should spend their time and energy. I’m basically just applying that idea to the media I consume.)
Use the library to get free books, movies, magazines, and audiobooks The library is my primary source for “important” rather than “urgent” media. A local library can provide you with endless books to read, movies to watch, magazines to read, and audiobooks to listen to. With such an abundance of options, I’m able to filter through them however I’d like. The best part? All of it is free.
I challenge you to stop at your local library sometime soon, see what they have to offer, sign up for a card, and take a book and/or a well-regarded movie home with you. Make time for those things by choosing to read instead of watching Sportscenter or watch that movie instead of watching a new episode of a mediocre sitcom. See if you’re not glad that you did so afterward.
Install a roof or wall antenna for free television Watching television is a perfectly fine recreation in moderation, plus there’s value in having local television for things like local weather updates, EBS notices, and other things. Of course, you can get all of these things for free with over-the-air signals using a roof antenna or a wall antenna that plugs either directly into your television or into a converter box which then attaches to your television.
An over-the-air antenna can pick up anywhere from ten to forty channels almost anywhere in the United States, though the channel count is lower in rural areas and you’ll probably need a roof antenna. The channels have a surprising amount of variety – we get a children’s channel (from PBS), an all-news channel, a channel that’s primarily documentaries, all of the broadcast networks (PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox), an all-weather channel, and a few other odds and ends. It’s all free – no subscription, no additional cost. All that’s needed is an over-the-air antenna.
Explore other hobbies away from a screen or a page This kind of goes hand in hand with the “do more, consume less” suggestion above, but it addresses a more specific point. Many people – myself included – have at least one major hobby that’s centered around media consumption, something that they enjoy doing that fulfills their time. If you can simply find another hobby that is not related to media consumption, then you’re naturally reducing your time consuming media because you have a little less free time for it.
Pick up a hobby. Learn to knit or crochet. Make a goal of walking the trails at every state park in your state. Learn to play the guitar. Start a vegetable garden in the back. Learn how to carve chess pieces out of wood and finish them. Learn how to make jewelry. Learn how to play the harmonica. Teach yourself how to sketch well. Learn how to brew your own beer. Write a novel. I can list inexpensive hobbies all day long.
Choose one that sounds fun. Dig into it. Even better, if you can find a Meetup group that’s into the same hobby, you can quickly make it social.
Turn off your phone and put it away for large portions of the day Smartphones are wonderful devices that are insanely useful, but they also make media consumption a constant thing in some people’s lives. Not only does all of that data really add up, most of the media consumed on smartphones is pretty empty because of the brevity of it, bringing little lasting value to the table.
A better approach is to turn off your smartphone sometimes, put it aside, and focus on something else. Spend time with your children. Go on a hike. Read a book. Cook a meal. Do it without your smartphone on so that you’re drawn more into the moment and can focus on it and appreciate it.
Take “breaks” from specific media sources – television, internet, video games, etc. Can you spend a weekend without watching television? Can you spend a week without video games? What would those things even be like? Are you reliant on those things, and if so, is that healthy?
Taking a break from a media source can show you a lot about how you live your life. You can begin to see how routine-oriented that your television watching or your video gaming really is and you can also begin to evaluate whether it’s really bringing value into your life.
Take a weeklong break from television. Take a break from social media or from a particular celebrity gossip site or from cable news or from news in general. See what you notice about yourself, how you spend your time, whether you’re drawn to that media source. Find other things to do.
When something starts to fall in importance to you, unsubscribe from it. If you follow these practices for a while, you’ll start to naturally notice that you miss some things and you’re completely happy without other things. It’s completely fine to bring back things that you miss, but when you realize that your life is just fine without something that was previously gobbling up your money and your time and your attention and your mindspace, you’re better off without it. You’ll find that just cutting that subscription saves you money and gives you one less thing intruding into your life, and that the average quality of things in your life has gone up. That’s a benefit all across the board.
Good luck in wherever your media adventures take you.
Related Articles:
- CHow to Cut the Cable Cord and Save a Ton of Money Each Month
- Cord Cutting: How and Why Millennials Are Ditching Cable to Save Money
- The Broken Rules of Mass Media – and Better Ones to Live By
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Commuters hit by New Year rail fare hike
Rail users and commuters across Great Britain have been hit with an increase in rail fares this week, as new ticket prices come into effect.
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'NIMBYs will fight new garden village plans'
The government has backed a scheme that will see 14 new garden villages being built across England, but not everyone will welcome these new homes in their back yard.
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First-time buyers to get 20% discount on new 'Starter Homes'
New homes will be offered at a discount of at least 20% to first-time buyers, Housing Minister Gavin Barwell confirmed today.
The ‘Starter Homes’ to be built on brownfield sites nationwide – but not in London – will be available to first-time buyers aged between 23 and 40.
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Is a 700 Credit Score the Magic Number?
The two most popular credit scoring brands, FICO and VantageScore, both feature a current credit score range of 300 to 850. It’s common knowledge that the higher your credit score, the better. Yet, if you are like most consumers, you probably wonder what score you need to qualify for the best interest rates and the best terms on a mortgage or car loan.
So where is that threshold? Is a 700 credit score the magic number? Or is the target higher or lower? What score does it actually take to make you a lock for the best deals and interest rates?
Important Credit Score Thresholds
You already know that working to earn higher credit scores is a wise use of your time and efforts. Goal oriented individuals often like to have a specific number to shoot for as they work to improve their credit scores. Unfortunately, there is no uniform answer to the question “What’s considered a great credit score?” The reason why there’s no uniform answer is because lending is subjective.
For one lender, a 700 credit score might be considered great and could qualify you for financing at the lender’s most attractive rates and terms. However, another lender might consider a 700 credit score still a bit of a risk. Each individual lender will select their own credit score thresholds based on a variety of factors, including the company’s past experiences with previous borrowers.
Although there’s no uniform standard used by lenders to determine which scores will be considered “bad,” “fair,” “good,” and “great,” there are some general guidelines. If you like to set specific goals for yourself as you work to improve your credit score, then these are good benchmarks to keep in mind:
Terrible Credit Scores: 300 to 619
If your credit scores fall in this range, then you may have difficulty getting approved for a loan at all. When you do manage to receive an approval it will likely be much more costly, as you’ll almost certainly be subject to higher interest rates and fees. Consider yourself lucky if you get approved, and look carefully at the fees and interest rates you’re agreeing to.
Below-Average Credit Scores: 620 to 699
In this range you’ll generally find that getting approved becomes an easier process. However, this shouldn’t be your end game. While you probably won’t be denied outright for most types of financing, you may still be faced with higher costs (and some loan options may still be unobtainable).
Above Average Credit Scores: 700 to 749
With a 700 credit score or better, you’re going to get approved and you’re going to get a pretty decent deal. In fact, you may get the best deal the lender has to offer. But, there are some lenders that will not give you their best rates until you score even higher. So, continue to attempt to improve your scores, because a 700 credit score is not the magic number.
Great Credit Scores: 750 and Above
When you finally reach the upper echelon of credit scoring the odds are high that you will finally be able to enjoy the very best deals that lenders have to offer — those super-low rates you see advertised. Rather than trying to improve a credit score in this range, you should take more of a “defend and protect” strategy and just continue to do the things that got you here in the first place, such as paying your bills on time.
Remember, it’s the lender that will ultimately make the decision about whether your credit score is considered bad, fair, good, or great. The lender will also determine which rate and terms they wish to offer you based upon a variety of factors, especially the condition your credit.
Related Articles:
- Here’s How Much Your Credit Score Impacts Your Mortgage and Auto Loan Rates
- How Often Does Your Credit Score Change?
- You Can Improve This Part of Your Credit Score Almost Immediately
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20 Ways to Make Money Whenever You Want
By Holly Reisem Hanna Wouldn’t it be great to find ways to make money whenever and wherever you want? Think of all those times you’ve needed some extra cash to make it through the month. Maybe you’re hoping to earn extra money but you have an unconventional schedule (or a newborn). Wouldn’t it be great […]
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