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Your credit score is one of the most important measures of your financial health. It tells lenders at a glance how responsibly you use credit. The better your score, the easier you will find it to be approved for new loans or lines of credit. A higher credit score can also open the door to the lowest available interest rates when you borrow. If you'd like to improve your credit score, there are a number of simple things you can do. It takes a bit of effort and, of course, some time. Here’s a step-by-step guide to achieving a better credit score.

https://youtu.be/ZQ8PDyt5lVs

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Make sure you pay at least the minimum balance due on time.

Pay down your credit card balances to keep your overall credit use low.

Don’t close old credit card accounts or apply for too many new ones.

1. Review Your Credit Reports

To improve your credit, it helps to know what might be working in your favor (or against you). That’s where checking your credit history comes in.

Pull a copy of your credit report from each of the three major national credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can do that for free once a year through the official AnnualCreditReport.com website. Then review each report to see what’s helping or hurting your score.

Factors that contribute to a higher credit score include a history of on-time payments, low balances on your credit cards, a mix of different credit card and loan accounts, older credit accounts, and minimal inquiries for new credit. Late or missed payments, high credit card balances, collections, and judgments are major credit score detractors.

 Check your credit report for errors that could drag down your score and dispute any you spot so they can be corrected or removed from your file.

2. Get a Handle on Bill Payments

More than 90% of top lenders use FICO credit scores, and they’re determined by five distinct factors:

Payment history (35%)

Credit usage (30%)

Age of credit accounts (15%)

Credit mix (10%)

New credit inquiries (10%)

As you can see, payment history has the biggest impact on your credit score. That is why, for example, it’s better to have paid-off debts, such as your old student loans, remain on your record. If you paid your debts responsibly and on time, it works in your favor.

So a simple way to improve your credit score is to avoid late payments at all costs. Some tips for doing that include:

Creating a filing system, either paper or digital, for keeping track of monthly bills

Setting due-date alerts, so you know when a bill is coming up

Automating bill payments from your bank account

Another option is charging all (or as many as possible) of your monthly bill payments to a credit card. This strategy assumes that you’ll pay the balance in full each month to avoid interest charges. Going this route could simplify bill payments and improve your credit score if it results in a history of on-time payments.

How To Increase Your Credit Score:

https://youtu.be/bYHymMtm66I

Payment history (35%)

Credit usage (30%)

Age of credit accounts (15%)

Credit mix (10%)

New credit inquiries (10%)

As you can see, payment history has the biggest impact on your credit score. That is why, for example, it’s better to have paid-off debts, such as your old student loans, remain on your record. If you paid your debts responsibly and on time, it works in your favor.

So a simple way to improve your credit score is to avoid late payments at all costs. Some tips for doing that include:

Creating a filing system, either paper or digital, for keeping track of monthly bills

Setting due-date alerts, so you know when a bill is coming up

Automating bill payments from your bank account

Another option is charging all (or as many as possible) of your monthly bill payments to a credit card. This strategy assumes that you’ll pay the balance in full each month to avoid interest charges. Going this route could simplify bill payments and improve your credit score if it results in a history of on-time payments.

Many of the best credit monitoring services can also help you prevent identity theft and fraud. For example, if you get an alert that a new credit card account that you don’t remember opening has been reported to your credit file, you can contact the credit card company to report suspected fraud.

https://youtu.be/QAClSzxthRk

Starting your own personal bank, using the infinite banking concept, all WITHOUT Whole Life Insurance!

https://youtu.be/dq-tDEeYJpI

What Is Cash Flow Banking, and How Does It Become Your Own Personal Bank?

Cash flow banking is leveraging cash value in a whole life insurance policy to self-finance, make purchases, make investments, or to create free cash flow. Cash flow banking can provide you access to capital without having to go through the traditional loan process at a bank. Normally when you take out a loan from the bank or another financial institution, you are required to make payments, which include interest and principal, until the loan is paid back in full. Leveraging money against life insurance cash value is similar to a line of credit because it is interest only. All you are required to pay is the interest.  You are never required to pay back the principal.

Cash flow banking gives you options about how you manage your finances. When you have been funding a cash value life insurance policy, you will have access to money that you can borrow on a moment’s notice. The “loan” comes from the insurance company’s general fund and it is fully collateralized by your policy. Because the loan is fully collateralized it gives you lots of flexibility to use the money you’ve borrowed. All you’re required to pay on the loan is the annual loan interest. You have full control as to when and if you make principal repayments. Having a loan out against your policy does not negatively affect the guaranteed growth of the policy.

How to Create Cash Flow: Using Life Insurance for Cash Flow Banking

To build your “personal cash flow bank” you’ll start with a whole life insurance policy. Some people are hesitant to opt for whole life insurance policies because the premiums are typically higher than term insurance. However, term insurance doesn’t allow you to build cash value. Plus, these higher premiums are essential to building cash value. Without significant cash value, you can still have a useful life insurance policy. But you won’t have the added benefits of available cash value or building a significant financial legacy for your family. A whole life insurance policy provides you with a death benefit to cover traditional life insurance needs, as well as the increased cash flow that provides the benefits we just covered. 

To start cash flow banking, you’ll need to craft the correct whole life insurance policy. Opting for dividends and a paid-up addition rider are two of the most important insurance features for increasing cash flow. As you pay premiums, you accumulate cash value in your policy that can then be “borrowed” against to fund anything from a house to a college education. Additionally, money from a life insurance policy has tax advantages, which makes whole life insurance a strong policy to start a cash flow bank.

The Advantages of Cash Flow Banking

Using a cash flow bank system allows you to increase, use and enjoy your wealth now and create a financial legacy for your family after you die. Cash flow banking, also known as ‘infinite banking,’ is possible because you can use your policy as collateral similar to the way you can use other assets for collateral—like your home. A personal cash flow bank allows you to create a strategy for your finances that has guaranteed growth with little risk. Here at Life Benefits, we teach how to fully utilize a whole life insurance plan to cultivate a legacy for your family that you can use now and for years to come. 

If you’re deciding whether or not to adopt this strategy, our ebook, “Understanding the Infinite Banking Concept,” answers all the typical questions you probably have.

Stagflation is characterized by slow economic growth and relatively high unemployment—or economic stagnation—which is at the same time accompanied by rising prices (i.e. inflation). Stagflation can also be alternatively defined as a period of inflation combined with a decline in gross domestic product (GDP).

https://youtu.be/FSSagX8mNSo

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Stagflation refers to an economy that is experiencing a simultaneous increase in inflation and stagnation of economic output.

Stagflation was first recognized during the 1970's, where many developed economies experienced rapid inflation and high unemployment as a result of an oil shock.

Prevailing economic theory at the time could not easily explain how stagflation could occur.

Since the 1970's, rising price levels during periods of slow or negative economic growth have become somewhat of the norm rather than an exceptional situation.

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Stagflation

Understanding Stagflation

The term "stagflation" was first used during a time of economic stress in the United Kingdom by politician Iain Macleod in the 1960s while he was speaking in the House of Commons. At the time, he was speaking about inflation on one side and stagnation on the other, calling it a "stagnation situation." It was later used again to describe the recessionary period in the 1970s following the oil crisis, when the U.S. underwent a recession that saw five quarters of negative GDP growth.1 Inflation doubled in 1973 and hit double digits in 1974; unemployment hit 9% by May 1975.2 3

Stagflation led to the emergence of the Misery index. This index, which is the simple sum of the inflation rate and unemployment rate, served as a tool to show just how badly people were feeling when stagflation hit the economy.

Stagflation was long believed to be impossible because the economic theories that dominated academic and policy circles ruled it out of their models by construction. In particular, the economic theory of the Phillips Curve, which developed in the context of Keynesian economics, portrayed macroeconomic policy as a trade-off between unemployment and inflation. As a result of the Great Depression and the ascendance of Keynesian economics in the 20th-century economists became preoccupied with the dangers of deflation and argued that most policies designed to lower inflation tend to make it tougher for the unemployed, and policies designed to ease unemployment raise inflation.

The advent of stagflation across the developed world in the mid-20th century showed that this was actually not the case. As it result, stagflation is a great example of how real-world economic data can sometimes run roughshod over widely accepted economic theories and policy prescriptions.

Since that time, as a rule, inflation persists as a general condition even during periods of slow or negative economic growth. In the past 50 years, every declared recession in the U.S. has seen a continuous, year-over-year rise in the consumer price level.4 The sole, partial exception to this is the lowest point of the 2008 financial crisis—and even then price decline was confined to energy prices while overall consumer prices other than energy continued to rise.

What are the option greeks? Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, Roh

https://youtu.be/a3onOynbh2w