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Do your personal finances leave you with that sinking feeling?  Or is all full speed ahead, on to great success, and all that?

Perhaps a few personal finance New Year’s resolutions will get you headed in the right direction.  But before you go around making resolutions willy nilly, be sure to take a few minutes to analyze what will really help.  Knowing your end result — your goal — will let you enjoy looking forward to that result, and help you to stick to the resolution.

What is it that you want to accomplish this year?

Is it to reduce or get rid of your debt?  Is it to stop relying on your credit cards to get through the month?  Is it to buy a new home, car, or vacation property?  Speaking of vacations, how would you like to be able to go on vacation when YOU want, and go where YOU would like to go?  What about savings — are your savings growing at a decent rate?  Or maybe you would just like to have some of that “expendable income”…

Whatever your personal finance goals are for 2008, we have some tips to help you accomplish them.  Throughout the next few weeks, we will be posting articles about:

Making A Budget
Sticking To Your Budget
Reducing Reliance On Credit Cards
How To Use Credit Cards To Improve Your Credit Without Increasing Your Debt
Eliminating Your Debt
Growing Your Savings
Paying for Major Purchases
How To Get “Expendable Income”
And Much More

These tips will help you to get your 2008 off to a great start with your personal finances, and enjoy greater success throughout the year.

Have A Happy New Year,
Kathryn

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We’ve added a new Squidoo Lens for Credit Debt Workshop to bring you even more benefits.

Now you’ll be able to:

• participate in credit/debt related polls,
• converse with the squidoo crowd about credit, debt, loans, and mortgages,
• and discover more related resources and information.

You can find it at:

www.squidoo.com/creditdebtworkshop/

Enjoy,
Kathryn

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Now you can keep up with the latest news in the mortgage and personal finance worlds right here at Credit Debt Workshop! These financial news headlines are updated throughout the day as new information becomes available.

Your news headlines are located over in the far right hand column.  Just click on any headline to see the article.

In today’s economy, there are a lot of things happening in the financial world which can affect you personally.  For example, the current mortgage crisis is having far-reaching consequences.  Even the Bush administration and Congress are stepping in to help.

Stay informed.  Be knowledgeable.  Read the news.

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It is critical for you to check your credit report every so often.  If you don’t, you could end up a victim of identity theft without even knowing it, or you could even end up homeless, without a job or a car, or be declined for insurance.

See how, in this revealing article:

5 Essential Reasons To Check Your Credit Report

Don’t take a chance on any of this happening to you!  Be sure to check your credit report regularly.

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By law, you have the right to receive a free credit report every 12 months from each of the 3 major credit reporting agencies:  Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

These 3 agencies created the website AnnualCreditReport.com to make it easy for you to request your free annual credit reports, and are the only service authorized by them.  You can request your report online, by phone, or by mail.  If you request your report online at AnnualCreditReport.com, you will be able to see it immediately upon verifying your identity.   If you request it by phone or mail, it will take about 15 days.

There are other services, also, which offer you a free credit report.  However, you will find that most of these companies require you to sign up for their credit monitoring service in order to get your free report.  So, in that case, your credit report isn’t really free, is it?  Even if you get a free trial of their service, and cancel before the trial is over, you still had to give them your credit card info.

Now I’m not saying that these credit monitoring services are a bad thing.  In fact, monitoring your credit reports on a frequent basis can be very valuable indeed.  However, if you’re just wanting to get your free credit report, then AnnualCreditReport.com is where you can get it without having to sign up for extra services.

You can choose whether you want to get your report from all three credit reporting agencies at the same time, or spread it out over the year.  If you get all three at the same time, then you can do that once every 12 months.  If you want to spread it out, then request your credit report from one of the three agencies every four months.  Which way is best?  It’s really up to you.  Although all 3 have a lot of the same data, you’ll find that there are differences, too.  The agencies don’t share the info with each other to make sure they all have the same info.

There are many reasons why you should get your free credit report each year, and make sure it is accurate.  Doing so could save you thousands of dollars and a lot of time and frustration trying to correct errors long after the fact.

For some stories of what can happen if you don’t, be sure to see my next post about credit report errors and how they can affect your life.

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Just a heads up to let you know your Audio Library on credit and debt is up and running for your listening pleasure.

Tired of reading?  Now you can listen to an array of essential information about credit, credit card debt, and mortgages.  Discover a wide range of topics from what is a credit score to how to stop annoying debt collector phone calls to choosing the best lenders to how to teach your kids about money and more!

To get to the Audio Library, you can either click on the brown “Audio Library” navigation button at the top of the page, or else look to the right hand side of the page under “Pages” and select a choice from there.

Cheers,
Kathryn

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Welcome to Credit Debt Workshop!  Here at the workshop, you’ll find valuable information and tools to assist you in making informed decisions on your credit and debt matters, so you can build a secure financial future.  Whether you are looking for advice on loans, improving your credit, or ways to reduce your debt, you will find it here at Credit Debt Workshop.

In time, you will find helpful articles, audios, software and calculators on credit, debt, loans, credit cards, mortgages, budgeting, and more. Feel free to bookmark the site, sign up for the rss feed, and visit often to manage your finances wisely.

Enjoy,
Kathryn 

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