I collect the credit card offers that land in my mailbox. You might think that is nuts, but I am always researching the latest come-on that my clients may be tricked into applying for, especially if they are looking for some debt relief.

Here is the latest one, no names mentioned. Just glance quickly at the overall message and get a sense of what you think they are offering. And then answer this question.

Is this offer a trick or treat?

It is designed to look like a spectacular long term 0% interest offer. Most people actively engaged in money management and seeking debt relief automatically assume they can get this 0% deal on a balance transfer from another high interest card.

But look again, read the fine print like I always do, and here is what the offer is really saying.

The 0% is NOT for balances transferred, but is for PURCHASES made on the card which adds to your debt. The interest rate on the balance transfer is 8.99% compounded daily, plus a hefty 3% charge for transferring the balance.

Read even further and you learn that the new debt you are carrying at 0% interest (the new purchases) must be paid off first, before they will apply any portion of the payment to the balance transfer at 8.99%. And of course, they always apply your payment to any finance charges first before applying what is left to reducing the principal. No debt relief there!

My opinion is that this is another cleverly worded offer, presented in a way that makes it appear that you are getting a great interest free, long-term loan. Just another trick to hook the consumer who didn’t bother to understand what is clearly stated in the credit card offer when you read what is actually there.

Successful money management includes understanding the correct actions to take with your money. Educate yourself by reading the fine print on all documents that concern your money so you clearly understand what they mean before taking action.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, has years of experience helping business owners and individuals manage their money to achieve financial freedom. Claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.

It is a little known fact that more millionaires were made during The Great Depression than in any other era in U.S. history. Want to know how that happened so you can cash in on the economic crisis looming on the horizon?

I did a lot of research work to find the real facts, not just the historical data we are spoon-fed by the media about how hard the depression was on the masses and how hard the President worked to turn the U.S. economy around. It takes digging through piles of research documents including the copyright and patent office files and the Library of Congress to find a lot of the data. However, you can also find a lot of information on the internet if you dig deep enough.

There is one golden nugget in this history lesson that can enable you to make tons of money when our country is in a recession (like right now) because a recession is exactly the same thing as a depression except it doesn’t last as long and the damage is not so bad. So bear with me while I give you a short history lesson that contains this golden nugget.

It is important to know that the Great Depression actually started a few years before the 1929 stock market crash and lasted until World War II brought the country out of the Depression.

In the years before 1929, as more and more credit was extended to businesses and individuals the economy was tipping over the edge from available cash to way too much credit debt. When the amount of extended credit reached a critical mass and companies could no longer pay the credit bills, the companies crashed (the 1929 debacle.) When workers lost their jobs they could not pay their credit debts and the housing market and banking industries crashed.

All the business enterprises that were bought and sold during the depression by people with liquid cash are too numerous to mention, but because of the war effort, those with liquid cash who bought land, homes, companies, or invested in the stocks of the companies that made products that were in demand by our government for the war effort made millions. These industries included such products as:

1 – Metals: steel, iron and aluminum
2 – Communications: radios and parts
3 – Transportation: Aircraft, Tanks, boats and vehicles (and their parts)
4 – Armaments: Guns and munitions
5 – Boots, clothing, belts, backpacks, hats, blankets, tents and cots (and the textiles to make them)
6 – Containers
7 – Shipping – Truck Transportation – Railways
8 – Oil and petroleum and stocks in those oil wells (the Texas oil boom was a biggie!)

A few of the well known companies that changed hands during that period were John Deere, Douglas Aircraft, Reynolds Metals, Ericsson, and even the Goudy Gum Company – they were the first gum company to issue baseball cards with gum.

Some of the oppressive laws that our government passed during the 1930s were an effort to take money from the large number of people who had liquid cash and were using it to buy companies (or stocks in companies) as well as property. The government wanted to take it away from the people who had been smart enough to stash away liquid cash and not get into credit debt, and use it to fund the war effort as well as re-distribute it to the destitute families.

A word of caution here – Be careful to protect your cash. There are many banks that are in trouble, and while some have failed, many are on the government’s “likely to fail” list. How safe is your bank? You owe it to yourself to find out.

While your bank probably won’t reveal their rating if you ask, you can find out for yourself how safe you bank is by signing up to get my FREE Bank Ratings Report right here.

These laws were later ruled unconstitutional, but the point is that the people with liquid cash were spending it in way that made them millions, especially in industries necessary to the war effort. Yes, the stock market crashed, but the stocks could still be bought at undervalued prices and those with cash invested at the bottom of the market.

The tactic to be learned from this is a simple one that the people who use my Money Management Software implement right away. They stash cash. In case you missed it, here is THE GOLDEN NUGGET: When it comes to money, the only thing you have to fear is having no liquid cash to get you through an economic crisis.

It is a great time to buy property, but there are many people who have too much of their money tied up in non-liquid investments. They are worth lots of money on paper, but can hardly pay their bills. And there are those who have lost a lot of their money invested in semi-liquid investments like the stock market and have little liquid cash that they could get their hands on within 30 minutes if an emergency presented itself. The frightening shape our current economy is in today has the same indicators that heralded the depression of the 1930′s. Not enough cash savings, too much corporate and personal credit debt, banks failing and having to be bailed out  and the mortgage crisis / real estate crash.

What should you be doing? My clients are getting rid of their credit debt and stashing liquid cash like crazy. They are sleeping well at night and will make it through whatever comes. As martin Weiss recommends, they are “protecting their cash like a junk yard dog.” Does that mean you should sit on your cash and do nothing to recover the losses you may have sustained? Absolutely not!

I highly recommend you buy and read Martin Weiss’ book:

The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide: Protect Your Savings, Boost Your Income, and Grow Wealthy Even in the Worst of Times
 

The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide

Find out how safe your bank is.

Learn where and how to buy gold and silver, and why you should.

Discover which small companies Martin thinks are the best to invest in and what price you should pay.

Get his book today and look to the future with confidence that you can weather the storm.

What are you doing to protect yourself in the economic recession / depression that is already underway? Leave a comment.

Okay, so you are in debt and your creditors are screaming. How do you handle it and get debt relief without having a nervous breakdown? The best practice is to use a simple debt relief solution tool called Dateline Paying.Dateline paying is a simple method of paying oldest bills first, based on the due date. The dateline tells you how far back in time your past due bills go. And yes, credit card debt should be treated just like any other past due bill. There are a few simple steps to this strategy that anyone can do.

1 – Make a list of all your past due bills and credit card debt. Use a report from your accounting program or a spreadsheet of some kind so you can sort them by due date. Be sure and put in a bill for more than the minimum payment for each credit card or line of credit.Make the credit card bill for the amount you want to try to pay over the few weeks before the payment is actually due. For example, if your minimum payment is running at $400, put a bill in for $600.2 – At the end of each business week, carve off 15% of the income to use to pay past due bills and debt.Use the remaining 85% to pay current operating expenses to keep the doors open, the lights on and the telephone ringing to get in more income. Be sure and use some of the 85% for promoting your products and services to keep customers buying, and set a bit aside as a cushion to handle emergencies.3 – Use the 15% to pay the debt by dateline – oldest bills first.Always use a portion of it to pay suppliers and part to pay credit card debt.

4 – Pay a bit against credit card debt each week using on-line paying.

Why? Because you stop the daily interest compounding on the amount that you paid. This can save you a lot of money in unnecessary interest charges over time. It also keeps you from being late on your payments and avoiding the late payment charges. In addition, it eliminates the scrambling to come up with a big chunk of cash to pay the credit debt on the week the statement says the payment is due.

5 – Pay past due bills from suppliers – oldest bill first.

The only exception is a supplier who refuses to ship more product that you need in order to produce more income, or one who is threatening legal action. Those are dangerous situations that must be handled immediately.

6 – Work out how to raise your income so that you have an increasing amount of money to use to work this debt relief solution strategy.

Systematically working at paying both ends of the dateline, 15% to past due bills and 85% to current operating expenses, gradually moves the dateline forward to present time until you are current on your bills and out of debt.

You can easily see this dateline paying strategy working for you if you make a graph of the total debt you owe and plot the figure each week so you can see the amount of debt coming down. Not only does it help you confront the debt you created, it validates the actions you are taking to get that situation handled.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions has years of experience helping business owners and individuals manage their money to achieve financial freedom. For more information, claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.

Here is a way to get rid of the IRS and never have to file another income tax return; or corporate return for that matter! Every dime you earn would be in your paycheck; no taxes withheld. It’s within your power to make it happen!

There is a tax bill before Congress right now that would abolish the IRS and get rid of income taxes, corporate taxes, death taxes, estate taxes, etc. It is called the FairTax Act and I am here to tell you it is not only fair, it would solve our country’s economic problems overnight. Here’s a snapshot of how it works.

First I do want to say that The FairTax is resisted by a vocal minority precisely because it will do what it claims in eliminating the IRS, the more than $300 billion in tax return filing costs, and the corruption of the current system. Make no mistake, that adjustment will be hard for tax lawyers, special interest groups, lobbyists who make millions from our current tax system and those in Congress who see the current tax code as a way to get your campaign contributions to buy your votes.

What is the FairTax?

The FairTax is a retail consumption tax that is charged when you buy something new. It is a transparent tax. That means that the tax will be on your receipt in plain English so you can see it.

Right now you are paying those taxes when you buy something, but they are hidden in the cost of the item by all of the goods and services that go into making that item from raw materials to packaged product. Those are called embedded taxes because they are hidden from your view. Under the FairTax Act, you would be paying the same price for a loaf of bread but the loaf would have a lower shelf price and the tax would be added at the cash register and printed on your receipt.

Is the FairTax actually fair?

Yes, the FairTax is fair. In fact, it is really much fairer than the current income tax. You can control how much tax you pay simply by deciding what items you are going to buy.

Wealthy people spend more money on more expensive items than other individuals. The FairTax taxes them on these purchases. Tourists and illegal aliens, who pay no taxes now, would be paying their fair share every time they buy something. Someone who deals in cash and never reports it on an income tax return would now pay taxes on their income when they spend it at the cash register.

And yes, the government would still get as much tax revenue as they do now, but it would cost us a lot less to run the government. In addition your Congressional Representatives who spend millions of your tax dollars to buy the votes of special interest groups by voting for insane programs, like studying the mating habits of wooly wingas, would stop. (A wooly winga is a made up name for an animal in case you were wondering.)

The FairTax would have a positive effect on the U.S. economy.

With the penalty for working harder and producing more removed, American businesses will experience a new era of economic growth and business expansion. Hidden taxes are history, Americans are able to save more, and businesses invest more. The FairTax, as proposed, would bring U.S. companies back home as it would no longer be an advantage to have U.S. companies in foreign countries hiring workers for low wages that Americans should be doing here at home for a fair wage. In addition, other international investors will want to invest here to avoid taxes on income in their own countries, which would further spur the growth of our own economy.

The FairTax would have a positive effect on wages and prices.

Americans who produce goods and earn wages are currently required to pay significant tax and compliance costs under the current federal income tax. These taxes and costs both reduce after-tax wages and profits and are then passed on to the consumers of those goods and services in the form of price increases.

When the FairTax removes income, capital gains, payroll, and estate and gift taxes, the pre-FairTax prices of these goods and services will fall. The removal of these hidden taxes may also allow wages to rise. Exactly how much prices will fall and wages will rise depends on market forces. For example, in a profession with many jobs and too few to fill them, wages will likely increase more than in fields where there are too many employees and not enough jobs.

Workers would bring home what they earn.

It would put more money in the pockets of every U.S citizen by eliminating the income tax. There would be no deductions from what you earn to pay federal taxes, Social Security or Medicare. If you earned $100 you would get paid $100. Business would no longer be burdened with paying additional taxes on employee wages for Social Security/Medicare.

The FairTax has a positive effect on Social Security/Medicare.

Under the FairTax Act there would be plenty of money available for both these programs. Like all federal spending programs, Social Security would operate exactly as it does today, except that its funds come from a broad, progressive sales tax, rather than a narrow, regressive payroll tax.

Employers would continue to report the wages they pay to each employee to the Social Security Administration simply for the determination of benefits. The move to a reformed Social Security system is eased while ensuring there is sufficient funding to continue promised benefits.

In the meantime, Social Security/Medicare funds are no longer triple-taxed like they are under the current tax system: 1) when payroll taxes are initially withheld; 2) when those withheld payroll taxes are counted as part of the taxable base for income tax purposes; and 3) when the promised benefits are finally received.

The FairTax protects low-income and lower-middle-income families and individuals.

Under the FairTax Plan, poor people pay no net FairTax at all up to the poverty level! Every household receives a monthly prebate check that is equal to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services [groceries and medicine], and all wage earners are no longer subject to the most burdensome tax of all, the payroll tax.

The FairTax protects senior citizens.

Seniors do very well under the FairTax. Low-income seniors are much better off under the FairTax than under the current income tax system. Some people incorrectly believe that people who live exclusively on Social Security pay no taxes. They may not know it, but they are paying hidden corporate income taxes and employer payroll taxes whenever they buy anything. Under the FairTax, seniors pay $0.23 out of every dollar they choose to spend on new goods and services. Plus, seniors, like everyone else, receive the monthly prebate check, in advance of purchases, for taxes paid on the cost of necessities.

Yes, The FairTax CAN really be passed into law!

Do you have the right to vote in this country? Passing the original 16th Amendment and the income tax wasn’t easy, and repealing the income tax and the 16th Amendment won’t be easy either. That is why the FairTax has undertaken to build a grassroots movement and grassroots alliances to support the effort. But this will only happen when the American people rally behind the effort, throw off the yoke, and demand that their congressional representatives correct 90 years of wrongs done by the income tax.

What you can do RIGHT NOW to make sure this bill gets passed.

First, go to the website www.FairTax.org and sign the petition to let Congress and the President know that you want this bill passed into law.

Second, while you are on the website, look at the congressional scorecard to see whether your state congressional representatives support this bill. If they don’t, write them a letter and tell them that you think they should vote for it and that you will be watching this scorecard to see how they stand come election time.

Third, buy The FairTax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder. Read it so you understand what this bill actually says. The book is easy to understand. Then give it to a friend to read and ask them to pass it on.

Fourth, if you hear anyone, especially a politician, saying that the FairTax Bill will hurt the poor, or help the rich, or hurt senior citizens, then politely tell them that they either (A) have not read the FairTax Bill and understood it, or (B) they are intentionally misleading the public, so they must have a personal vested financial interest in keeping the current tax code in place.

Fifth, pass this article on to everyone you know and encourage them to join the grassroots movement to get this bill passed into law. Remember, our politicians serve us, we don’t serve them.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, specializes in helping business owners and individuals manage their money to acheive financial freedom. Claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.