Name: Dee
Bio: Dee Power holds a Master of Business Administration degree. She is a founding partner of Profit Dynamics Inc., which provides financial advisory services to entrepreneurs looking for capital. She is the co-author of several business books, including "Attracting Capital From Angels," "Inside Secrets to Venture Capital," and several e-books. Dee has been invited as a guest speaker to present on business planning, financing, and venture capital. She has presented at the Small Business Development Centers, Thunderbird International Graduate School of Management, College of Advancing Computer Sciences, Software and High Tech Associations, as well as business groups. She has been interviewed by USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, SmartMoney, and Entrepreneur Magazine as well as Business Journals around the United States. She has also been the guest on radio shows and local TV shows. Dee writes on personal finance for the consumer's covering managing debt, credit cards, home mortgages, home equity loans, savings, and budgeting.
Articles by DeePower:
Freeze Your Communication Costs
December 8th, 2009Most families these days feel like they can barely make ends meet, never mind have anything left in their wallet to invest. The first step toward financial freedom is cutting expenses below your income. In other words your outgo has to be less than your income. Today we’ll look at cutting communication costs. Read the rest of this entry “
What You Need to Know about Home Equity Loans
November 23rd, 2009Many home owners want to pull some equity out of their home (if they were lucky enough to buy before the real estate boom then bust) and use the proceeds to pay off debt or use as a nest egg. Read the rest of this entry “
Pay Day Loans: Life Saver or Death Trap?
November 20th, 2009Pay day loans may sound like the perfect solution when you have an emergency or just need some extra cash. It sounds easy: no credit check, no assets to pledge, and no waiting. But is a pay day loan a life saver or a death trap? Read the rest of this entry “
Auto Based Loans for People With Poor Credit
November 18th, 2009The poor economy, bad real estate conditions, and lackluster job market have forced many families into a precarious financial position. They can’t get a loan based on the value of their house because the house isn’t worth what it’s mortgaged for. Getting a better paying job isn’t an option at the moment. So if money is needed are there loan options for those with poor credit?
An asset based loan is one solution. If you have an auto that is free and clear from liens and has some value it may be possible to get a loan using the car as an asset. The problem is that since you have poor credit that loan isn’t going to be from a traditional lending source.
There are companies that will make the loan. The interest rate will be as high as legally allowed in your state. The amount will be for far less than the book value, even low book value of the car. The title to the car will be signed by you and given to the lending company. If you don’t pay the loan back they automatically take possession of the car.
What’s worse is that if you to continue to drive the car they can and will charge you a lease payment. That payment can be astronomical. There are no state statutes on what the lease payment can be. It’s not unheard of for the company to charge $500 a week. So if you get a $3000 loan (on a car with a value of $10,000) at 24% interest for eight weeks and drive the car for those eight weeks, you’ll end up paying a total of $7,120 dollars.
If you don’t pay the loan back you’ll lose the $7,000 in value of the car over and above the loan. Don’t think that you can refuse to pay the loan back and just keep driving the car. You don’t own it anymore and would be committing grand theft auto, a felony.
It makes more sense to sell your car outright and then buy a much cheaper car until your financial situation improves.
Are Home Values Stabilizing? Well Sort Of.
November 11th, 2009Zillow Real Estate (www.zillow.com) reports that Americans with negative equity in their single-family homes fell to 21% in the third quarter which is 2 percentage points better than the second quarter at 23%. The bad news is that some of that improvement is because more homeowners were forced into foreclosure so the homes were taken out of the negative equity category and landed in the REO (real estate owned) column at the lending institutions. Read the rest of this entry “
Teaching Children What Money is All About
November 4th, 2009Most kids have no conception of money. And why should they? Mom or Dad whips out the credit card or debit card to pay for groceries, writes a check to pay the car payment, and goes online to pay the mortgage. When cash is required it means a trip to the ATM machine and then as if by magic twenty dollar bills come out. There’s no connection between Dad or Mom being at work, getting paid and then using that pay to support the family. Read the rest of this entry “
Keep Those Belts Tightened: The Job Market isn’t Getting Better
November 3rd, 2009While there have been some signs of recovery in real estate and the stock market it seems that the job market is still declining. Online advertised vacancies declined by 83,200 to 3,280,000 in October, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series (HWOL)(TM) released November 2. Of course those jobs are only representative of the national job market and don’t include every available job. Read the rest of this entry “
Not a Pretty Picture: Debt, Divorce, and Bankruptcy
October 30th, 2009Those were the top named service requests reported by Pre-Paid Legal Services (NYSE: PPD) based on input from their participating law firms. Pre-paid legal services provides specified legal services to their members. Read the rest of this entry “
