November 17th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Is 2008 turning out to be the year you expected? Or has it been a total surprise? After making an end of year review, you can make 2009 a better year by listing your goals, making a plan and starting on that plan now.
Why plan now?
You have better perspective. Plans should be made ahead [...]
Related StoresOctober 28th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Continuing with our series on vacation planning on a budget, here are some great resources to help you plan and make the most of your trip.
Planning the Trip
TravelMuse – Use the “Inspire” feature to generate trips and possible costs for associated trips.
Lonely Planet – Research any destination you want to visit, including the countries and [...]
Continue reading → 16 Travel Sites to Save You Time and Money
October 20th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Having gone on many road trips, ranging from one-hour to 36-hour drives, I have picked up a few tips about road trips that might be useful to you on your next trip. Continuing with our vacation series, here are some suggestions:
Rent a car instead of using your car. There are many reasons for renting a [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → Vacation Traveling: Saving Money on Road Trips
October 13th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Continuing our series on saving money while traveling, we will now look at ways you can save money on lodging. Lodging – which can be hotels, motels, hostels, camping facilities, apartments, or guesthouses – can be one of the biggest costs while traveling. This is a fixed cost that is hard to eliminate, because it [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → Vacation Traveling: Saving Money on Lodging
October 9th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Many vacations and trips require flying. With the fuel prices always on the rise and a sluggish economy, air travel costs will only be going up and not down. Here are six tips to help you receive the most value for your money when flying.
Travel during the low season. Most destinations have a [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → Vacation Traveling: Saving Money on Flights
September 29th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Everybody likes to take a vacation. Some people get away on a regular schedule and others only when they are forced to leave work. Either way, if you like to vacation or you have reached a wall and need a break, here are the initial steps in planning a stress-free vacation, along with some budget [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → First Steps in Budget-Friendly and Stress-Free Vacation Planning
August 26th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
There are many ways for you to start saving your money; some work, most don’t. Especially if you come from a family and background where nobody saved and that was not an integral part of dealing with money. One way to force yourself into saving is by having the government help you with it. This [...]
Related StoresAugust 21st, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Upon graduating from college, you find a job and a place to live; it is also a perfect time to learn how to set up an automatic savings plan for life. If you develop the habit of saving now automatically, it is more likely to last for your entire lifetime.
The setup: Most companies [...]
August 16th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Everybody shops, whether online or offline, and here are five tips that will save you money on almost every purchase. These methods will save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year.
1. Make sure that it’s the right product you want to buy
Once you have decided that you want to buy any product, [...]
Continue reading → 5 Tips on How to Save Money on Everything
August 6th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Insurance is one of the things that most people don’t like to think about but need to purchase. For students attending college, most of the insurance is provided or paid for by parents or the college.
Upon graduating, however, it is time to think about and purchase your own insurance since the insurance provided by [...]
Continue reading → What About Insurance for Students After Graduation?
August 1st, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
You have graduated college, the school is booting you out of the dorms, and you can’t move back in with your parents, or don’t want to, so it’s time to find your first apartment. Where to start? Here are some tips to help you along.
Start with pen and paper – define what you need. [...]
Related StoresJuly 29th, 2008 — , CEO announcements, Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Let’s be real. Thinking about bank accounts while actively involved in school is something that very few college students do on a regular basis. So what happens is that most of them end up overdrawing their accounts – not just once, but many times.
Most students that are new to banking are not informed about [...]
Continue reading → Students: One Tip That Will Save You Thousands
June 23rd, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Knowing where you are financially is always important, and more so during big changes in your life. Graduation is one of those times. When you graduate, many things change, including the role money plays in your life. While going to college, your focus was on your education; being out of college, one of your primary [...]
Related StoresJune 19th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Better jobs and brighter futures top the list of reasons that students give for going to college. College is a very important step and should be done with some planning, because not only can it increase your debt for a certain time period, but it can also provide for a lifetime of higher earnings. Obtaining [...]
Related StoresApril 10th, 2008 — , Financial Education from Andre Nosalsky @ Social Lending Blog - Lending Club
What is the one, biggest asset that most people have, which many people including you may not even realize is an asset? If you look at your life as a financial system, with assets causing money to “flow into” your life, you will want to pay attention, as this post will be about your [...]
Related StoresMarch 5th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, System, area, changing, clarified, coffee, hunch, momentum, pastries from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Continuing with our look at financial systems, the next step, after you have clarified and identified where your money is going, is to find the area that needs the most work. This does not have to be an area where you are losing money or getting in debt, but an area that you can see [...]
Related StoresMarch 3rd, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, System, blackberry, emotional, facts, flowing, prolonged, sustain, write from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
In an earlier post in this series, I made the point that personal finance can be viewed as a system, with money flowing into our system and money flowing out. Many times, the money leaving our system exceeds the money coming into our system. That’s called living on credit. Usually a financial system cannot sustain [...]
Related StoresFebruary 22nd, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, financially, forced, prepare, prepared, reacting, reaction, response, wrong from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
One of the big benefits of thinking of your financial life as a system is that you will respond instead of reacting to everything that happens to you financially. What is the difference? It can mean a lot to you financially.
A reaction is an action based on [...]
February 18th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, asset, assetallocwizard, assets, brings, liabilities, liability, liquid, rental from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
One way to think of assets and liabilities is as vehicles or containers. They are either positive or negative. The positives are the assets, where you can build them up and they will bring more money into your life, while the negatives, which are the liabilities, require you to pay them and thus they are [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → What’s Part of Every Financial System? – Part Two
February 5th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, generating, inflow, liabilities, limited, ongoing, outflow, outflows, processes from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
In my first post, we determined that your financial life is in fact a system. Maybe a system in disarray, but we’ll look at that in the future. For now, let’s look at what makes up an “average” financial system. Here is what I’m assuming as a backdrop to this discussion: generating income of around [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → What’s Part of Every Financial System? – Part One
January 26th, 2008 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, System, elements, forming, interacting, interrelated, manage, overwhelmed, responsibilities from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
When we were children, our responsibilities were nonexistent. The only thing that concerned us was when our next meal was and how much play time we could get away with before our parents made us do homework or go to bed.
Now, as adults, everything is different. We hold all of the responsibilities, and for [...]
Continue reading → How to Manage the Complexities of Finance
December 31st, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Psychology, behavior, bigger, marathon, positive, reinforcement, reward, task from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
According to researchers in psychology, when a person does something that is not pleasant but receives some positive reinforcement afterwards, he will keep doing the task and go through the negative to experience the positive. This phenomenon can be seen in many areas of life. In running, it’s usually the natural high feeling from endorphins [...]
Related StoresDecember 28th, 2007 — Financial Education, Groups, Lending Club, Series, coaches, marathon, marathoners, professionals, sharing, support, training from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
There are support programs for everything in life. They are there for a reason, and the reason is that it is much easier to accomplish something when somebody is there with you who has gone through it, understands what you are going through and wants to you to pull through it and win.
In sports, [...]
Continue reading → The Money Marathon – Support Will Carry You Through
December 27th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, compete, competing, competition, investments_x, krantz, marathon, personalfinancebudgeting, scored from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
In any competition, there are always ways to measure competitors. You could look at the time it takes them to finish, the distance they compete in, and the level of difficulty, just to name a few. The world’s best athletes set their first priority as competing against themselves and trying to better what they scored [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → The Money Marathon – Compete Against Yourself Only
December 21st, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, automatic, clothes, emergency, forgot, marathon, throw, training, transfers from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
When I first started exercising on a regular basis, there were many things that could throw me off of my training routine. It could be that the weather was wrong, or I forgot my clothes, or my friend canceled or a number of other reasons.
Then one day I decided to sit down and [...]
December 12th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, craigslist, desire, fund, marathon, redirect, reenergize, train, training from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Continuing with our Money Marathon series, today we’ll go over something that is more fun instead of more work.
When training for a race, it is essential to maintain at least 100% desire to go out there and train. One of the experts once said that if you ever feel yourself falling below this threshold [...]
December 11th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, activities, brian, definite, knowing, marathon, question, tracy, training from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
I learned this technique from Brian Tracy. It applies to a lot of decisions that we have made in the past and it’s especially applicable to your Money Marathon. Zero-based thinking is not about changing your mind after you have made a decision that you’re having some second thoughts about. It’s about learning from [...]
Related StoresDecember 10th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, binary, breaking, daily, focus, marathon, steps, training, unit from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
In order to achieve any big goal, such as running a marathon, or winning at your Money Marathon, the actions have to be broken down into small steps – the smaller the steps the better. Breaking the goal down into daily action items is better than having weekly or monthly steps.
When I was training for [...]
December 5th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, bigger, casual, dedicate, marathon, progressive, race, runs, ultra from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Once you have figured out where you are starting from and what resources you have to work with, the next step is to figure out where you want to be. In real running races, you would pick your next race to be a stretch from what you have done before, and have bigger goals for [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → The Money Marathon: Where Do I Want To Be?
December 4th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, exhausting, goals, marathon, meter, overly, physical, racing, wise from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
In my previous article, I talked about defining and setting goals when undertaking your Money Marathon. Another key aspect of preparing for your Money Marathon involves understanding your starting point.
When getting ready to train for a marathon it is wise advice to visit your doctor for a checkup and receive an assessment from a [...]
December 3rd, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, goal, marathon, marathons, mastered, overload, pick, stick, training from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Listening to the radio and watching TV reports on the stock market, we often hear market and business reports. This news has become more of an entertainment than actual meaningful information. It can be mind-boggling to listen to everything that is going on in the financial world. Sometimes this overwhelming feeling sets in because of [...]
Related StoresNovember 30th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, competing, defining, marathon, race, rough, tough, training, wins from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Recently I was planning my training schedule for a big race that is coming up in six months, and it occurred to me that personal finance is similar to a marathon race. We at Lending Club believe that there are many money lessons that can be learned from a marathon. I have put together some [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → Money Marathon: Personal Finance is a Marathon
November 13th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Series, bargainshoppingtips, gift, giving, holiday, insure, kids, recipients, store from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Here are six more tips to insure that your Holiday spending doesn’t break the bank. The first six tips can be found here.
1. Watch the small expenses – When setting a budget for Holiday spending, make sure to include small expenses, such as postage, shipping, wrapping paper, greetings cards, etc.
2. Avoid spending [...]
November 8th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, compulsive, gifts, holiday, holidays, prices, sentimental, shop, shopping from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
With the holidays, and black Friday, only weeks away, it is a good time to plan out your Holiday spending so that you don’t end up being a compulsive spender or end up with credit card debt you can’t handle.
Here are six tips for Holiday spending:
1. Determine how much money you have and are willing [...]
Related StoresOctober 25th, 2007 — 2002, Financial Education, Investing, Lending Club, barber, expectations, homework, investors, looney, odean from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
With Google shooting through the $600 per-share price, ads on the radio promoting getting rich by investing online, and friends who whisper about others who hit the online investing jackpot, it’s no wonder that many people have started investing online.
For many people, online investing has provided them with more control and access to tools [...]
Continue reading → For Online Investing Use Real World Expectations
October 24th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, apple, branding, guarantee, ipod, lemons, merchants, shopping, unconditional from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
In previous posts on the Lending Club blog, there have been warnings of things to watch out for when shopping online, such as phishing, and suggestions for ways to compare before buying to save money. In this post I want to look at three tips that will help you make better decisions when shopping [...]
Related StoresSeptember 20th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, college, plan, plans, restrictions, state, taxes, tuition, withdrawn from Andre Nosalsky @ Better Rates. Together.
Sometimes you might be looking to invest for a longer term than what Lending Club offers. One of the ways to do so when saving for college is by using the 529 Savings Plan. This plan is named after section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code. It is a savings plan specifically set up to [...]
Related StoresSeptember 8th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, books, cheaper, classes, college, emergencies, semester, semesters, students from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
The new college year is getting started for many students. Since some of you – particularly freshmen – might not know much about money and personal finance, here are some tips to help get the new school year off to a great start:
1. Plan for book costs – many high school students are surprised that [...]
Related StoresAugust 6th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, Retirement, control, defer, dependent, employer, guaranteed, inflation, taxes from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Many people do not feel satisfied with their finances. Even some millionaires are not happy. This unhappiness or lack of satisfaction sometimes comes from not being in control of your finances. You lose control when you become dependent on others. Being dependent allows factors from the outside to control your finances.
Becoming financially [...]
Continue reading → 5 Tips to Taking Control of Your Finances
August 1st, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, bill, checking, checks, leniency, overdraft, protection, student, waived from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
There are many ways to save money with banking. Here are five that you can use today.
1. Get a free checking account – Almost every bank has some type of free checking account. If you are a student, ask for the student checking account. Usually a student ID is all you need to open [...]
Related StoresJuly 31st, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, banking, branch, deposit, fees, largest, manager, managers, overdrawn from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Everybody has a relationship with a bank, but few people take time to understand how their bank works. Here are four things you should know about banking in the USA.
Know the cut-off time for each location – Each banking location, including ATMs where you can deposit money, have cut-off times after which [...]
July 27th, 2007 — 2006, Financial Education, Lending Club, Research, jumpstart, literacy, predictors, researchers, solution, students from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Recently with so much discussion going on about college debt, I wanted to see if there was any scientific research on factors that might affect the amount of debt a person is carrying. I came across a study published in 2006 that sheds some light on this matter. This study was published in the [...]
Related StoresContinue reading → How Your Attitude and Financial Literacy Affect Your Debt Level
July 18th, 2007 — Lending Club, Spending, expenses, friend, knew, real, spreadsheet, track, transactions from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
Two months ago I was talking to a friend who goes out a lot. He is never home. He was saying that all of the money that he makes is gone by the end of the month. Sometimes he even had to put two or three days’ worth of expenses on a credit card. I [...]
Related StoresJuly 16th, 2007 — Financial Education, Lending Club, assuming, cash, changed, earned, iphone, overdraft, perception, real from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
We spend money on things we don’t need ($5 for a Latte). We buy the most premium option when the normal will do. We think that the bank overdraft and other fees are not that much ($25 for an overdraft fee or a late fee).
To top it off, we pay the minimum payment [...]
July 5th, 2007 — Lending Club, benefits, deficient, education, emerging, growing, issues, rules from Andre Nosalsky @ Lending Club
The previous generations didn’t need to know much about money. Their world was simpler. Back then if you worked hard and saved a portion of your money in the bank, you could retire at 65 and be satisfied. The money rules that our parents and grandparents followed are no longer valid. They are lacking and [...]
Related Stores