SELKO FINANCIAL
SERVICES
Investments
A budget can help you have more control over your finances so you can save for your goals. First, know how much money you have coming in. When you look at your salary, remember to subtract your employer deductions for Social Security, taxes, 401(k) and flexible spending account allocations.
Next, divide your take-home pay into:
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Fixed expenses like a mortgage, car payment and utilities, which stay the same each month
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Variable expenses like entertainment, shopping and travel, which change from month to month
Keep track of your spending and at the end of each month, see how it stacks up against your budget. Make adjustments if your actual differs significantly from your original estimates.
Credit Cards
Financial News
The Fed may still wait for gross domestic product growth to improve and inflation to move closer to its 2 percent target before pulling the trigger on a rate hike.
Business Planning
Your business plan is your compass. It will help you map out a new course, and navigate through unchartered territory. Whether you're writing a business plan for the first time or the fifth time, it doesn't have to be hard. In fact, if you write a lean plan or a one-page pitch first, you may find you actually enjoy it.
Interests
How to Reduce Interest Paid
There are ways to reduce the amount of interest to be repaid.
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Make payments when not required (e.g., during in-school, deferment, or periods that postpone payments). Doing this can avoid interest capitalization, which reduces the overall amount to be repaid.
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Enroll in Auto Pay, which often times reduces the interest rate charged.
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Pay more than the minimum monthly payment. Doing this may cover the accrued interest amount, and directly reduce the principal balance.
It's going to get more expensive – and possibly a lot more expensive – to carry credit card debt in 2017.
Of course, credit card debt is never cheap. Those 15 percent and higher interest rates make sure of that. However, those rates are likely to climb even higher in the next year. That's because many experts predict that the Federal Reserve will raise its interest rates three to four times in 2017, and every time the Fed's rates go up, your credit card's rates typically go up by the same amount.
While it's no big deal if that happens every once in a while, a flurry of rate increases within a year or so can have a real impact on your credit card bills – to the tune of hundreds of extra dollars. Call it Reason No. 2017 to make this the year you conquer your credit card debt.