banking. credit union

Changes In The VantageScore System

/ destinationscreditunion / 5 Comments

The VantageScore system is getting an overhaul. Many people wonder what kind ofa1522-credit2breport changes are being made and how will this affect the way their score is calculated.

The VantageScore, which dictates the way credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion and Equifax — determine your credit score, is going through a shake-up this fall. The company is looking deeper into specific circumstances and what they say about your financial responsibility.

Having a favorable credit score comes into play when you need to qualify for financing on a new car, if you’re opening a new credit card, or you want to take out a loan. In each of these scenarios, your credit score is the most important deciding factor for your approval, and will also influence your terms and interest rates.

It’s important to note that the new system will not impact mortgage loans. This is because few mortgage lenders use VantageScore; most use FICO scores to verify eligibility.

The changes will affect the credit scores of many people, though, for better or for worse. It’s wise to learn all you can about these changes so you can make the necessary adjustments to your credit behavior.

Lucky for you, we’ve made it easy! We’ve broken the changes down into the three main areas they impact, and then we’ve simplified it by telling you what these changes mean for you.

Read on to learn all about it!

1.) Trended data and trajectories

What it means:

Under the modified system, VantageScore won’t just check if you’re meeting your minimum monthly payments; it will consider trended data, too. This means the company will analyze the trajectory of your debts on a month-to-month basis. They want to know the direction in which your finances are going. Are you gradually paying down debt, or are you scraping by with the minimum payments as your balance slowly grows?

What it means for you:

In the past, your score wasn’t affected by growing debt as long as you were making the minimum payments on your cards. Now, if you’re careful about making the monthly payment but your balance is increasing each month, your credit score will take a hit.

Conversely, if you’re working toward actually paying down your debt, your score will likely get a boost. If you don’t fall into this category, it’s time to get serious about doing away with your debt for good. Even small steps toward this goal will be recognized and rewarded.

2.) Large credit lines

What it means:

Having lots of available credit was once considered a mark of good credit. After all, if the companies deemed you responsible enough to merit all that credit, it’s gotta be a good thing, right? Well, not anymore.

With the new system in place, VantageScore will mark a borrower negatively for having excessively large credit card limits. The theory behind this rationale is simple: lots of open credit means the borrower can quickly rack up a huge bill.

What it means for you:

If you enjoy an excellent credit score, you likely have a large line of credit available and will be negatively impacted by this change unless you take action. This change also upends the old advice that the more credit cards you have open, the better. The rationalization behind that maxim was to build your available credit, and thus, improve your score. With the modified system, though, the opposite is true.

Let’s say Bob has $4,000 in credit card debt with a $40,000 limit across several cards. He’s only using 10% of his available credit. In the past, this would net him a higher credit score. Bill, on the other hand, has $1,500 in debt out of an $8,000 limit. In the past, this modest credit limit would lower his score.

With the new changes in place, the realities are shifting. Bob, who has a lot more available credit, will likely score lower than Bill, who only has $6,500 available to borrow.

Aside from those who enjoy prime credit scores and have several open cards, this change will also affect people who enjoy playing the credit card rewards-and-points game.

Whichever category you fall into, it’s best to use less than 30% of your available credit. Also, if you have a large credit line open across several cards, consider closing some of your cards to lower that number. Finally, if you’re thinking of opening a new card in the near future, ask for a smaller credit limit over a larger one.

3.) Medical debt, tax liens and civil judgments

What it means:

Medical debt, tax liens and civil judgments will no longer be factors at play when determining your credit score. These elements are being removed with the rationale that they often harm a credit score prematurely and are later proven erroneous. Civil judgments and tax liens are often inaccurate, and can significantly lower one’s score before the error is corrected. Similarly, medical debt can hurt credit scores before insurance can reimburse the borrower for the payments.

What it means for you:

If you’ve had any of the above dragging down your credit score, you have cause to celebrate. In fact, you might even see a jump of as much as 20 points to your score! On the flip side, if you have negative marks from things like delinquencies and debts that have gone to collection agencies, this new rule won’t help you much.

If you are looking for a way to track your credit score for free, take a look at WalletHub.*

*Please note: WalletHub gives you TransUnion and VantageScore credit scores.  Not all lenders use TransUnion, so your score when you apply for a loan may be different.

Your Turn: Do you think the new system encourages responsible use of credit? Why or why not? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

SOURCES:
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2017/04/19/credit-score-changes-2017/  
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/19/major-changes-coming-to-how-your-credit-score-is-calculated.html   
https://amp-usatoday-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/amp.usatoday.com/story/100653342/   
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/04/24/changes-coming-in-the-fall-to-how-major-credit-score-is-calculated/
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/changes-might-raise-your-credit-score/
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/vantagescore-fico-score-the-difference/
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/04/changes-credit-score-calculations/ 

Investing In Your Career

/ destinationscreditunion / 1 Comment


When you think of your investment portfolio, you probably think of stocks, savings and maybe a few other financial products you own or things you’re planning to use for buying a house, fund retirement, or to keep yourself protected.  What you might overlook is the investment you’ve made in your career. You’ve invested time in your career, and if you’re still paying off student loans, you definitely know you’ve spent money on it as well.  Just like any other investment, your career has risk and return.  If you want to get the best return on your investment in your career, then here are a few tips that can help: 

Get a degree.  If you haven’t finished college, you might have found yourself bumping up against a glass ceiling.  You can finish your degree online, often in a short amount of time and without spending a ton of money.  If you’d rather go back to school in person, talk to us about student loan options.  

Get an advanced degree.  It’s no surprise that the average income goes up with each advanced degree that individuals earn.  If you’re looking to advance your career, consider using one of our loansto finance an MBA, which is useful in virtually every field. 
Build your brand.  More and more, career changes and advancement can be built through the Internet and social media.  You can work on building your personal online brand or get training and a certification in all sorts of software and design to help others build their brand, making money in the process.
Learn another language or another culture.  There are very few job skills as portable as language and communication.  If you find yourself out of a job, knowing another language can help you get that next one lined up. Understanding different cultures makes it easy to move if the next job is across the country or even elsewhere in the world.
There are a lot of ways to invest in your future, but the one we tend to overlook is spending money to develop our jobs.  Unless you got in on the ground floor of investing in Google, you’re probably never going to find an investment that pays you more over the course of your life than the one you’ve made in your career. Don’t neglect it.

High Yield Investment Fraud

/ destinationscreditunion / Leave a comment


Whenever the stock market takes a hit, unscrupulous individuals will try to find a way to use the misfortune of worried investors to make a quick profit.  In light of this year’s problems on Wall Street, it’s no surprise that old scams are coming back, and like all of the classic scams, this one is based on the oldest premise there is:  make a lot of money, really fast, with no work.

High yield investment fraud is most commonly found on the Internet, where it’s much easier to put together a website that appears trustworthy and professional than it is to create the same appearance in person.  Such sites claim to provide amazing returns, sometimes as much as 40 or 50% per month, and are supported by dubious charts and testimonials from people who may not actually exist. Between a quality website, impressive charts, and some meaningless investment buzzwords describing a “magic pill” of an investing philosophy, unwary consumers can be easily fooled into forking over a chunk of their savings to an investment broker who is not licensed by the SEC and makes claims the SEC would call illegal.

The clearest warning signs of these scams are easy to remember, just like avoiding them should be simple to do: don’t trust anyone who offers to-good-to-be-true returns, dismiss cutting-edge investment opportunities if they come from anyone but an investment professional with whom you’ve worked before, and ignore any evidence of success that can’t be verified by an outside party.
Big returns are appealing.  You want to retire someday, send your kids to college, or start a business to get away from the morning commute, and the more money your investments make, the quicker you can do so.  But it’s important to trust the process.  Return on investment is tied to the risk involved in spending money on that investment.  The stock market offers better returns than treasury notes because it’s far riskier to bet on United Airlines than on the United States.  High-yield investment scams are successful because we want to believe that someone can beat the market so well and that we can have returns that are better than the stock market with risks that are lower than treasury bonds.  It just doesn’t happen that way.
At Destinations Credit Union, we believe we’ve created a nice sweet spot with our savings products. No matter what your preferences are, we can fit into your investment portfolio. In times that the market does well, the money you have with us will keep you moving towards retirement, but when the market slows down, you don’t have to worry about losing your financial security because the money your entrust us with is safe.
To put it another way, the U.S. economy has traditionally done three things very well:  lower prices, create jobs, and price risk.  The last recession was caused by doing a poor job of pricing risk, and that hurt our ability to do the other two.  But that’s exactly the point.  As an economy, we are so good at pricing risk that when we screw it up, it’s an enormous, world-altering event.  If you find someone who can price risk so much differently than every other investment professional in the world, you need to also be ready to bet that the economy is going to take a radical shift in an entirely new direction, because that’s what happens when we do a bad job pricing risk.
Finally, if you want to avoid all kinds of investment scams – and the SEC, FTC, and USA.gov all have many pages listing the variety and creativity of these scams – the best thing to do is remember why you bank with us.  We’re part of your community, not a giant multinational corporation.  We share our revenue with our members, not shareholders who may not even be connected to our local community. Our kids go to school with your kids and you can always come in to talk to us for helpful advice. 

Sources: 
http://investor.gov/investing-basics/avoiding-fraud/types-fraud/high-yield-investment-programs
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/high-yield-investment-program.asp\\
http://www.ncpw.gov/blog/dont-get-scammed-investment-fraud-internet
http://www.dfr.vermont.gov/securities/top-ten-investor-scams

What School Doesn’t Teach You About Money

/ destinationscreditunion / Leave a comment


With the new school year either here or just around the corner, it’s time to fill your shopping carts with #2 pencils, protractors and all the goodies the kids will lose by the second day of school.  If they’re headed off to college, it can be even more exciting. But, instead of needing you to replace their pens on day two, your college-aged child will probably be calling to ask for money by then. 

It’s such a ritual that, at this point, many of us don’t really question it. But how much do our kids actually know about money?  You might want to only include the lessons you taught them, because their school probably didn’t teach them much at all.

Common core and other national guidelines don’t include requirements for teaching budgeting skills, how to balance a checkbook, or even explanations of basic concepts such as credit, loans, or mortgages. Basically, the last time your children learned about money at school, it probably involved finding out how many apples and oranges they could buy in some middle school math word problem.

We talked to some credit union members about the lessons they want to pass onto their kids, and below you’ll find some of our favorite lessons to teach your kids. 

  • Pay yourself first.  No one else is going to make you a financial priority, so don’t make them your financial priority.  
  • If you want to know if you can afford something, check your budget. If you have to check your checking account, you can’t afford it.  If you reconcile your accounts every month, you’ll have a pretty good idea how much is actually in each account.  But having enough money isn’t the same thing has having enough money.  Plan ahead. Make a budget. Execute the plan by sticking to that budget.
  • Take risks while you’re young.  You can afford to be more aggressive with your retirement and college funds while you have plenty of time to make it back up, so don’t be afraid to push those funds a little bit.  That said, not saving for retirement is not a risk. It’s just a bad idea.   
  • Make sure the Joneses are keeping up with you.  It’s easy to get lost trying to compete with your peers and almost as easy to ignore those consumer pressures entirely.  But what about the third option?  Instead of ignoring their financial situation, check in every now and then to see if they need help.  Our communities are better when we care about each other.

Whether your kids are in diapers or their kids are wearing them, it’s never too early or too late to teach financial literacy.  Make sure you’re instilling the right lessons, and check back in with Destinations Credit Union, because we’ve always got plenty of resources for young people to learn the lessons they aren’t getting in math class.

Car Buying Tips

/ destinationscreditunion / 7 Comments

If you have great credit, getting a car loan at a great rate is no problem. In tight credit markets, some buyers with less than stellar credit may have trouble getting a loan at a reasonable rate.

There are lots of ways to finance your car, even without the best credit, but be careful — these may cost you a lot of money in the long run.

Check your Credit Union’s rates first!

No matter what your credit score, chances are we can offer you a better rate because we are not-for-profit and owned by you, our members.

Do your research

You will most likely pay more for your vehicle if you go into a dealer not armed with information about the vehicle you are interested in purchasing. Make sure you do the research and know how much you should be paying for your new or used vehicle. The internet has made it easy to get this information — just go to the AutoSmart section of our website to get started.

Get Pre-Approved

Apply for your loan to see exactly how much you can afford before you go shopping for your car.  You’ll know exactly what your credit score is and what rate you qualify for through this process. You can then make your best cash deal. Apply online and simply leave the make and model information
blank or write in “pre-approval.”  If you already have your financing in place, beware of a dealer scam involving getting you to fill out a credit application, even though you are not applying for credit. They claim it is required by the “Patriot Act,” but it is not. This is an attempt to run your credit to try and get you into the dealer financing.

Beware of “Choose Your Payment”

Many dealers are now offering to let you choose your payment. While this may seem like a good idea on the surface, all it really does is extend the term of your loan, costing you thousands in extra interest and leaving you with a car that is worth far less than you owe on the loan. As an example, a $20,000 car financed at 7% APR for 5 years will run you $396 per month and you will have paid at total of $3,763 in interest by the time it is paid off. Taking that same loan, and choosing a payment of $250, you will be paying the loan for 9 years and will have paid over $7,000 in interest! If you can only afford a payment of $250, choose a car that fits your budget, instead of choosing a payment on a more expensive car.

Low Rate Financing vs. Taking a Rebate

It is generally better to negotiate the best cash price, take the rebate, apply it to the principal balance of your loan and finance at the best possible rate outside of the dealer. If you run the numbers, you’ll usually find you save money this way.

Purchasing GAP Insurance

If you put less than 20% down on your new vehicle, you may want to consider GAP insurance. The minute you drive a new car off of the lot, the value depreciates significantly. If your car is stolen or totaled in an accident, you may find you owe more on the car than the insurance is willing to pay you.
Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) insurance makes up the difference.  Don’t just take what the dealer offers you though! Check around because you can usually get the policy less expensively elsewhere (such as your credit union).

Extended Warranties

You may want an extended warranty on your vehicle, especially if you have trouble coming up with the funds to repair it on your own. However, beware of the dealer “requiring” the warranty in order to get the loan. Some unscrupulous dealers will tell you that in order to sell the product. Most likely, you will pay less for a warranty if you purchase it through the Credit Union. It’s a choice, not a requirement!

If you have questions throughout the car buying process, call Destinations Credit Union.  We’re here to help you get the best possible deal.

Involvement In Finances

/ destinationscreditunion / Leave a comment


In many relationships, one partner handles all of the financial arrangements.  If your partner is the one who handles everything, but you want to be more involved, how can you start that conversation?

You’re not alone. A recent study by Fidelity Investments showed many people want to be more involved with their finances. Among women, 92% wanted to learn more about their finances, while 86% wanted to take a more active role in managing them. It’s very easy to get caught in a routine with bill paying, checking and spending. The person who was doing so when you started cohabiting just continues to do so exactly the same way they always have.

What’s more, those conversations are really difficult to initiate. Even with close friends, 56% of survey respondents say finances are “too personal” to discuss. Of those survey respondents, 43% were willing to talk about their health issues, but only 17% would talk about investments. About half of respondents would willingly talk about the strange things their bodies are doing, but talking about where they save their money is considered “too personal.”

Intimate partner relationships aren’t a safer space for conversations about money, either. Only 66% of respondents talk about investments or salary with their spouses or partners. In one out of every three relationships, finances are not a common topic of conversation between people who likely share a checking account!

If you’d like to change that dynamic in your relationship, there are a couple of approaches you might consider. No matter what you do, make sure you’re approaching this sensitive topic from a place of love. Fights over money occur when one partner feels put on the defensive about budgeting or spending. Take care and try these three techniques!

1.) Talk about a common goal

If you and your partner have been trying to plan a summer getaway, save for a new car or put a down payment on a house, this can be an excellent place to start a conversation. It’s best to begin on broad notes. Ask about hotel choice or means of transportation. From there, it can be easy to talk about making a budget for the occasion. Once you and your partner are talking about dollar amounts, it can spill over into a more general conversation about finance.

If you ask about saving for this project, it’s important to have suggestions or ideas. Come to the conversation prepared to make a small sacrifice to contribute to saving for the project or have some cost-saving strategy to make the process easier. This encourages a feeling of joint struggle as opposed to you “checking up on” or “managing” your partner.

2.) Set guidelines for spending

Spending is the biggest cause of fights between couples. In general, people tend to see their decisions as rational and the choices they disagree with as irrational or impulsive. In relationships, it’s tempting and gratifying to think of yourself as the sensible one and your partner as the reckless one.

Your partner likely feels the same way. For instance, you may enjoy a daily coffee drink while your partner might consider that to be frivolous spending because they don’t know the joy and satisfaction you derive from that little indulgence. Conversely, your partner’s enthusiasm for home electronics might make you see a top-of-the-line stereo system as an extravagance, while your partner sees it as a way for the two of you to spend more time together at home.

The best way to avoid resentment while still keeping your spending under control is to set personal allowances for you and your partner. You can spend so much each week or month without consulting your partner. Major purchases that go over that limit require consultation. Try to avoid bringing up recent or specific purchases and focus on planning for the future rather than placing blame for the past. This will keep the conversation from feeling accusatory.

3.) Dream about the future

Retirement planning is a difficult subject to broach. Many people don’t want to do it on their own because the prospect of saving that much money is frightening. Add in the stress of talking about money in a relationship and this can be a conversation filled with dread.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Many couples find retirement to be a time of great relationship strength and bonding. If you and your partner didn’t have to work, you could spend a lot more time together, enjoying your mutual interests and each others’ company. Instead of beginning a retirement planning conversation with a dollar amount, begin it with a dream.

Maybe you’d like to travel the world together and see exotic sights. Maybe you want to build furniture out of your home. Maybe you want to become active in the leadership of your church. Beginning with such dreams in mind, as opposed to how much they’re going to cost, can help you and your partner better share the stress involved in saving and planning.

However you broach the conversation about money, it’s important to do so. Secrets about finances in a relationship can lead to stress, interfere with honest communication and produce relationship-ending fights. On the other hand, couples who talk openly and honestly about their financial situation can use that transparency to build stronger, more straightforward communication strategies about other topics. As many people have found, the couple who saves together, stays together!

SOURCES:
http://www.benefitspro.com/2015/02/13/women-find-personal-finance-too-personal https://www.key.com/html/couples-financial-planning-articles.html

Q & A: Anthem’s Data Breach And What You Need To Know

/ destinationscreditunion / 1 Comment



Q: I keep hearing about Anthem being a hacking target. What happened and am I at risk?

A: Anthem Inc., the second-largest health insurer in America, was targeted in a major security breach over the last month. New reports suggest hackers have been trying to compromise the company’s systems for months and may have been inside their system since December. According to the company, 80 million Anthem customers may have had their names, Social Security numbers and addresses compromised.

This is a unique event in the recent history of cybersecurity. Previous hacks, like those affecting Home Depot or Target, were attacking hardware. Hackers were exploiting vulnerabilities in computer hardware and software to gain access to confidential data. Here, the company is reporting that hackers had a different target: company employees.

Anthem reports that, beginning in December, hackers acquired login credentials of five employees. The employees could have been victimized by malware or social engineering scams. The hackers trying to beat Anthem didn’t need to find a flaw in the computer infrastructure. Instead, they just had to find a weakness in the people operating those systems.

Once they had these credentials, hackers used their access to do two things. First, they breached the company databases. Once inside, they exposed addresses, dates of birth, employment history, employment information, income data, medical ID’s, names and Social Security numbers. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that payment information was not compromised. That means there’s no need to cancel credit cards that were used to pay Anthem bills yet. Second, hackers created a number of phony email accounts with Anthem domains.

There are two ways victims might be affected by this scam. First, they might have their personal information stolen. This group exclusively consists of current and former Anthem customers. Given the timing of the hack, this will likely result in a fraudulent tax returns and possibly other instances of identity theft.
The second wave of victims is only just now emerging. The fake email accounts have been used to send wave after wave of “phishing” attacks to Anthem customers. These attacks take the form of an email apology with an offer for a year of free credit monitoring. Recipients of the email are redirected to another website to enter their Social Security number and other personally identifying information. This information is then used to commit any of a smorgasboard of identity theft crimes.

Anthem is currently being sued in several states. One lawsuit alleges current and former Anthem subscribers were misled about the security of their personal information and is seeking unspecified damages from the provider in overpaid premiums. Another pending lawsuit is seeking damages resulting from the frauds themselves. Until these lawsuits are settled, Anthem will likely not make any public statement of responsibility or apology, as this could be viewed by the courts as an admission of guilt. At this time, Anthem is offering no free credit monitoring service nor has it made any statement to members outside the press.

If you’re an Anthem subscriber, there are a few steps you should take as soon as possible. To find out if you’re an Anthem subscriber, check your insurance card. If you’re part of a group plan at work, you may need to ask your HR representative if your plan is administered through Anthem. In the meantime, take these three steps.

1.) File your taxes.

This will be one way to check if your Social Security number has been compromised. The state of Connecticut is encouraging their citizens to file early if they’re Anthem customers so hackers using stolen Social Security numbers will be easier to detect.

2.) Put a fraud alert on your credit report.

Contact any one of the three major reporting bureaus (Experian, Equifax, or Transunion) and explain your worries. A fraud report on one account will create a fraud report on all three, so there’s no need to duplicate your efforts. This report will notify you if anyone attempts to open an account in your name during the next 90 days. If you’re absolutely sure your number has been compromised, it might be worth putting a freeze on your credit history. This will prevent anyone from checking your credit or from opening up any account in your name, including you. While drastic, this measure is a sure-fire way to keep yourself safe.

3.) Get proactive with government services.

Notify the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service of the possible fraud to ensure that no one attempts to file a change of address form in your name. The US Postal Service also maintains a similar service. These steps will ensure that you’ll at least get a paper trail if someone makes an attempt to steal your identity.

Anthem is maintaining a toll-free question line.  Customers with concerns or fears should call 877-263-7995.  They have also created a website – www.AthemFacts.com – with up-to-date information about he scope and severity of the breach.  They have made it clear that future contact with customers affected by the breach will be made by mail. 
 
SOURCES:

Finance In The Classroom: Tools For Talking To Kids About Money

/ destinationscreditunion / Leave a comment

Getting kids interested and involved in finance can be a real challenge. There’s a gap between what they may want to know and what they have the experience to understand. Finding age-appropriate reading materials, activities, and discussion topics to keep them engaged is a complex problem. Whether you’re a teacher, a church leader, a baby-sitter, aunt, uncle or a parent, being able to engage kids in these conversations is an important skill.
  
Fortunately, the Utah Department of Education has created a set of resources for all of these groups. The website, Finance in the Classroom, can be found at financeintheclassroom.org. It’s a solid collection of resources for kids of all ages.
  
For younger children, the site features a wide range of fun flash games that help them get used to counting money, saving and budgeting. Most of them will respond well to mobile devices and touch screens, meaning that kids can learn valuable lessons on their devices instead of playing mindless games that teach very little in the process. Some games are slightly more advanced and tackle topics like credit card management, investing and even macro-economic policy making! The interactivity is a great way to keep kids entertained and serves as a starting point for financial conversations.
  
Older children may be interested in the various calculators on the site. These include applets that help kids see how much college might cost, how much they should save, and how inflation might affect them in the future. There are also a list of book recommendations for further reading and education.
  
The site also features some tools for adults, like mortgage calculators and credit checklists. There are also quizzes and other tools designed to test adult financial literacy. More than that, though, the site offers discussion-starters and in-home activities designed for parents and children to undertake together. The activities are broken down by grade level and organized around themes like “scarcity” and “supply and demand.” Most of the activities don’t need much in the way of supplies or planning and can help solve the rainy Saturday afternoon problem of what to do.
  
This site is not without its flaws, though. The amount of information can be overwhelming and it doesn’t appear to get regular updates. Some of the information is specific to Utah laws, like specific college savings programs. Still, as a collection of free tools and games, Finance in the Classroom is a great place to start.  

For teens and young adults, Destinations Credit Union offers “On Your Way” – a social network for those interested in learning how to manage their money.  There are interesting blog posts, contests and videos to help this group better cope with new financial responsibilities.

America Saves Week – Saving For The Future Can Save The Day

/ destinationscreditunion / Leave a comment


The week of February 23-28 is America Saves Week. The event, put together by the American Savings Education Council, began in 2007 as a way for organizations and individuals to talk about one of the most serious problems facing American consumers: the lack of savings. While American consumers are in a better position than they were at the height of the economic crisis in 2007, we still have a long way to go.

Only 64% of households have sufficient emergency funds to cover temporary crises like car repairs, medical bills, job loss or some other serious life change. That number is down 7% from 2010. 68% say they are saving more than they are spending, down from 73% in 2010. It seems as though the lessons of the great recession have been forgotten.

This lack of savings puts individuals at risk of financial ruin, but it also places the economy itself in jeopardy. Declines affecting one industry are bad news for the economy, but they don’t trigger a credit crunch without a number of other problems. Low rates of consumer savings and high lifestyle maintenance debt can make job loss a vicious cycle. Consumers with high debt loads find themselves unable to spend, which slows growth in the rest of the economy. This leads to job loss in other sectors, snowballing throughout the economy.

Savings and low debt represent a way to fight back against this cycle. Reducing debt and increasing savings provides a way for consumers to maintain their lifestyles through career setbacks, which prevents the worst parts of economic crises. That’s right: You can save the day with your savings.

If you’re interested in participating in America Saves week, here are three great ways to do so.

1.) Make a pledge and set a goal

By making a commitment to spend less, save more and get out of debt, you can motivate yourself to do just that. The America Saves week website, www.americasavesweek.org, has a pre-written pledge you can sign. It’s a great first step toward building personal wealth and making yourself a backstop against recession.

The site also lets you set a monthly savings goal. If you’re just starting out in trying to get your finances under control, you might set a small goal – such as save $40 a month for 3 months. The website has a calculator that lets you see how much small savings add up over time. If you’re a veteran saver looking for a way to keep yourself on track toward a goal, the tool will let you work backward from a vacation budget or loan balance to see how much you need to save each month.

Let Destinations Credit Union help with your pledge. Sign up for automatic transfers from checking to savings (or create your own within online banking) to keep yourself honest to your pledge. With a Kasasa Rewards Checking, you can attach a savings account and your rewards are automatically swept into the savings.  With these tools, you’ll be at your goal in no time!

2.) Show the world what you’re saving for

It’s easy to get discouraged when your goal is something abstract. “Savings” is hard to compare in your head to a new cellphone game or a dinner out. That’s why it’s so important to make your goal something concrete. Save for a vacation, or for a new vehicle, or for your education.

Picking a concrete savings goal is step one in keeping yourself motivated. Next, you’ll want to document your goal. Snap a picture of yourself with what you’re saving for. If you want to pay off your mortgage, take a picture of yourself in front of your house. If you want a new car, take a picture of yourself behind the wheel at a dealership. If it’s a tropical vacation you’re after, take a picture of yourself in a swimsuit in front of the giant piles of snow outside. Document your goal so you’ll always have something to look at when you get discouraged.

Best of all, snapping that picture could get you $500 toward your goal. Share your picture on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media. Use the hashtag #imsavingfor. Then, navigate to the America Saves Week website and let them know what you did. You’ll be entered in a drawing for $500 to kickstart your savings and you’ll inspire your friends to set and follow their savings goals as well!

3.) Stay inspired

There’s a rush of enthusiasm that comes from starting a new project. At first, it’s novel and effortless. Then the days drag on. The novelty starts to wear off. The project becomes just another routine. A missed day turns into a missed week. The enthusiasm that characterized the start of the project just isn’t there.

Make sure this doesn’t happen to you with your America Saves Week pledge. Take some time to flip through the inspiring stories, like Mary Brown. A Wisconsin resident, Brown spent 7 years in Milwaukee public housing before saving to her goal of $2,000. Now, she’s finished her B.A. and moved her family into their first home. Stories like these remind us of the power of commitment, discipline, and dedication.

Take time each day to reflect on the progress you’ve made and the challenges you’ve overcome. Take a look at your goal and think about how good you’ll feel once you’ve accomplished it. Thank yourself for helping to keep the economy strong and your career on track. Most importantly, keep saving!

SOURCES:

Job Seekers Beware: ‘Re-packing’ Jobs Could Lead To Jail Time!

/ destinationscreditunion / Leave a comment


We keep hearing the economy is improving, but that news rings hollow for many Americans. Long-term unemployment is still a reality for 2.8 million people. They’re isolated and increasingly desperate, making them a perfect target for cyber-criminals.

The Better Business Bureau is reporting a new breed of cyber-crime that turns innocent people into accessories in the distribution of stolen merchandise. The scam starts like a lot of others, with a job offer from an anonymous company. The work sounds ideal. It’s work-from-home, set your own hours, and work as much or as little as you like. Best of all, it’s easy. You receive shipments at your house, then repack them and ship them to another address.

If you sign up, you’ll receive packages containing products and instructions about shipping them to other addresses, sometimes overseas. Your employer will want you to cover shipping, but promises to reimburse you for costs on top of your salary. At the end of the month, you get a check from your employer.

The first bad news comes when you attempt to cash that paycheck and it turns out to be fake. All the work you’ve done, plus the shipping costs you paid out of pocket, are gone. It’d be bad enough if it ended there.

Worse yet, you might end up facing criminal charges. At the very least, you’ll be an accessory to the theft of the goods you handled. If you helped to redistribute those goods, you handled stolen property. Even if you didn’t know the goods are stolen, if you didn’t ask questions where a reasonable person would have, you’re guilty.

To make matters worse, if you shipped those items internationally, you likely had to lie on customs documents. That’s a federal offense. The scammers just tricked you into taking all of the legal risk while they keep the money.

Similar scams are common in money laundering. A scammer will contact you or leave a post on a job board asking for financial service assistance. They’ll send a check and ask you to deposit it, then wire them back some of the money. You can keep a portion of it as your payment. The check was written against stolen funds and the issuing institution refuses to pay it. You’re out whatever you wired the scammer and could face charges as an accessory to fraud.

These scams are an unfortunate part of the job search process. They prey on the uncertainty and desperation that characterizes long-term unemployment. The widely anonymous nature of the Internet provides a perfect cover for schemers. If you want to keep yourself safe, follow these tips: 

1.) Be proactive in your job search 

It’s possible that your dream job may fall in your lap, though it’s far more likely that you’ll have to work really hard to get it. If you post your resume on a job site and walk away, it’s possible that the only people who are going to contact you are scammers. If you work with a recruiter or employment agency, you’ll form a contact that can help you land the job you want.

Working with an agency will also help you weed out the scams. You’ll have someone you know and trust to sort the real opportunities from the bogus ones. They’ll help put your resume in places where it needs to be instead of in the wrong hands. 

2.) Check the links 

Many of these scams work by “spoofing” a legitimate job posting. You’ll see an email saying that X company has reviewed your resume and thinks you would be a good fit for this position. The email will contain a link to something designed to look like a legitimate job posting on a big job board like Monster or Indeed.

Checking to see where links are really going is a hassle, but a quick mouse-over the link will show you the URL. If you don’t recognize the domain (the first part after the http:// and before the .com or .org), don’t click the link. Report the email as the scam attempt it is. 

3.) Watch for keywords 

“Repackaging” or “reboxing” are common keywords in these scams. For money-laundering, scammers often refer to the work they are proposing as “payment processing” or “wire transfer assistance.” It’s worth taking a moment to think about what you’d be doing. No legitimate business would need a personal checking account to move money around. If they’re a business that can pay for your services, they have a checking account. Similarly, they have an address and postal services.

If an employer is seeking your personal information before they’ve hired you, they’re not a potential employer. They’re crooks trying to steal your identity. It’s as simple as that. 

SOURCES: 
http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-News+Local/212834/look-out-for-reshipping-job-scams#.VNJ-I9X3-ix  
http://career-advice.monster.com/job-search/getting-started/money-laundering-reshipping-scams/article.aspx
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm