Help Bankruptcy Blog

For many investors, trading in futures and options is considered to be a high risk investment, while others perceive futures and options to be protection against dramatic price changes that take place on a daily basis in the stock market.

Futures and options can be complex because they are derivative, or hybrid investments. In stead of representing ownership, like stocks or the promise of a loan repayment, with bonds. Futures and options are once or twice removed from a real product. A futures contract with a crude oil company, is a bet as to which way the oil prices are going to be moving. what happens to the actual product itself is of little concern to this type of investor.

For some investors, trading in futures and options are a way of reducing their investment risk. For instance farmers that agree to sell their grain at a good price are protected if the price of grain should drop. investors that sell options on stock that they own can offset their losses if the market should collapse. However the majority of investors that dabble in futures and options, do so because the possibility of sustaining a huge loss is balanced by the opportunity of an enormous gain. Individual investors playing in this area of the market are usually small players, because the stakes are high and the returns are unpredictable.

Although futures and options contracts are deals that are made for the future, the future that they are talking about when they make the contract isn’t very far away. Take for instance futures contracts that are made on grains and other food sources usually will expire with-in a year of the contract being made, but investors can find contracts on certain financial futures that will last at least five years.

Most options contracts will expire with-in five months or less, although a few options have been known to last as long as seven months. Although there is an exception to this rule that is known as LEAP options, these are long-term options that can last up to thirty months.

Many people are finding that their debt situations have gotten to a point of no return. Meaning that you cannot any longer continue to pay the minimums, or if you can pay them you have come to the realization that you will be paying them forever. By going through a credit card debt settlement process you can drastically lower the amount of money that you are required to pay back. Even better than that you can get out of debt in as little as 2 years. credit card debt settlement is a process by which you have to fall behind and then your creditors will be in a position where they have to accept less than what you owe.

While this may have an immediate negative impact on your credit score the overall effect will be positive. Once you start settling out your debts and showing zero balances your score will go up. With credit card companies making it more difficult for people to maintain their credit cards debt settlement has become a much much more common practice.

The excerpt below is from a series of articles on living with poor credit:

One way to own a home with poor credit is to go straight to the source. Many homeowners are willing to sell you a home under a selling finance agreement. This agreement provides a “contract” that allows you to make payments to the actual seller instead of making payments to a bank. Another option when buying through a seller, especially if a down payment is not an option, is to find a seller that is offering a lease-to-buy option. When you do a lease option, you will have to work out the math ahead of time to determine how much rent is going for a down payment, and after a certain period of time, how much credit you are going to end up with.

When you own a home there are many ways that your home can make money for you. If you continue to keep up with your payments and send them in a timely fashion you can increase your credit rating. This in turn can help you when you make the choice to refinance your home. Refinancing your mortgage can give you more money to use towards paying off other debts as well. In this way you lower your house payments and erase some of the other debts you may have all in one shot.

Read the full article here: Buy A Home With Bad Credit

The excerpt below is from a series of articles about bankruptcy:

Chapter 7 bankruptcy is not the only bankruptcy alternative for a debtor. Other bankruptcy options, such as Chapter 13 bankruptcy, allow the debtor to repay the debts in a 3-5 year repayment plan set up by the bankruptcy courts. The court’s trustee assesses the debtor’s income and debts and decides on a plan in which the money is taken directly out of the debtor’s income for the purposes of paying the creditors. This option is often settled out of court with the creditors and is often used as a means for debtors to save their home from foreclosure.

Read the full article here: Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Once upon a time there was a man named Jack who was an average kind of guy. He was married, living in the suburbs in a typical 3 bed room house which he was paying off to the bank. He earned a reasonable income and was a reasonably happy man. Because of some medical reasons, Jack and his wife thought that they would never be able to start a family and in a bid to rid themselves of these sad and frustrating feelings, Jack and his wife went out and indulged in “retail therapy”. The therapy helped in taking their minds off things - the chance of getting their hands on a whole new bunch of toys and some really nice things to make their home look great, felt great. And because of retail promotions like “Buy Now, Pay Later with No Deposit, No Interest” there didn’t seem to be that much of an impact on their financial situation. Jack and his wife thought, we’ll definitely be able to save up the money by the time the promotion periods end, and we’ll not have to pay any interest and we’ll be fine
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Then, in a very surprising turn of events, a great blessing was bestowed upon them, and Jack’s wife fell pregnant. Of course they were naturally delighted but from a financial viewpoint, this blessing had a huge dark side. Naturally, since they didn’t think this would happen, they hadn’t bothered to get the right health insurance and so the costs for the birth and related doctor’s appointments quickly added up as well as all the new requirements that babies need to survive.

It wasn’t long before Jack and his wife fell into a bit of trouble as their Unsecured Credit Card Debt mounted and mounted and mounted. Jack and his wife had 5 credit cards between them as well as a few store credit cards and a few of these were maxed out! It soon got to the stage whereby they were just only meeting their minimum monthly payments, especially when Jack’s wife had to leave her job to look after the baby. The interest amounts started to add up and unfortunately they also missed and/or were late with several payments. They made it a priority to pay the mortgage each month as the alternative, was out of the question. All the while, proud Jack thought, this is something that he could handle and in time, they would be out of the rut and back in control again of his Credit . He didn’t need help, he had a good job and only the weak seek help.

Jack soon fell into despair. The debt beast seemed to have his claws well & truly on him and there didn’t seem to be any way to shake it. The debt beast grew even larger with bigger teeth when the interest free periods of some of their new toys from their retail therapy sessions expired. The stress on Jack and his wife grew and grew. Their baby was a joy but also a constant source of expenses. Their family life suffered greatly.

One day, after a whole week of his wife not talking to him, Jack finally woke up to himself and decided to seek help to get rid of the Credit beast. He spent time investigating different debt help programs and researched on the internet as to the best methods to get him back into control of his debt. It wasn’t long before he learnt about the benefits of debt consolidation. He sucked up his pride & sought help from a credit counsellor who advised him of the different types of debt consolidation loans. Jack soon discovered the ability to use the equity in one’s home to consolidate debts.

It made perfect sense. The interest rate he was paying on his mortgage was far lower than most of his credit cards. He was told that he could refinance his mortgage and any equity that had built up on the property from capital growth as well as the amount they had already paid off, could go towards creating a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). The HELOC is like cash, he was told, you can draw checks against it to pay off your other debts and then you will only be charged the interest on the HELOC. Jack was delighted. He calculated that the savings on interest alone would amount into the thousands of dollars. He also realized that he would only have one repayment each month which meant the headache of having to remember each due date on each credit card was gone! No more harassing phone calls from creditors about late payments either!

Jack researched the best HELOC providers and found one that offered him a great interest rate and no upfront application fees. Once the HELOC came through he was able to pay out all his credit card debts and store credit! It was a thing that he thought would never happen! He then cut up all his credit cards except for the one that he used for emergency payments and expenses that need to be on credit.

A couple of years later, with some changes in their spending habits, and some work on repairing their credit file, Jack and his wife are back on track financially. They are able to pay the full amount on their Unsecured Credit Card Debt each month and their HELOC repayments are down to a level that is easily manageable.

Jack says “please learn from my experience - I am sure you too can beat the Consumer Debt beast”.
About the Author:
For more information on how Jack was able to clear his debt, visit Jack’s Blog - ClearDebt4Ever. The blog was created to share Jack’s experiences and provide a resource of information, handy hints, articles and practical advice about clearing your Unsecured Debt and repairing your Credit Card Debt file.