George Boelcke FCI
George Boelcke, CCP is a financial consultant, speaker and frequent media go-to guest.
With more than 25 years of experience in finance, banking and credit, George has a degree in credit management and is a member of the Credit Institute and the Association of Finance & Insurance Professionals.
In addition to his frequent media appearances and weekly radio tips, George is the author of the US, Spanish and Canadian bestselling books:
It´s Your Money! Tools, Tips & Tricks To Borrow Smarter and Pay It Off Quicker.(¡Quédese con Su Dinero! Los Secretos del Crédito y la Deuda)
For questions, feedback or suggestions for future columns, George can be contacted through: www.yourmoneybook.com
With more than 25 years of experience in finance, banking and credit, George has a degree in credit management and is a member of the Credit Institute and the Association of Finance & Insurance Professionals.
In addition to his frequent media appearances and weekly radio tips, George is the author of the US, Spanish and Canadian bestselling books:
It´s Your Money! Tools, Tips & Tricks To Borrow Smarter and Pay It Off Quicker.(¡Quédese con Su Dinero! Los Secretos del Crédito y la Deuda)
For questions, feedback or suggestions for future columns, George can be contacted through: www.yourmoneybook.com
Articles by George Boelcke FCI
October 29, 2009
Last week I found a $20 bill in the glove box of my car. It was an emergency $20 and had been there for over a year. Because it´s been out of circulation a year, should I send this back to the Treasury Department and get them to shred it? Are you nuts? Of course not!
Yet, that´s exact...
October 10, 2009
When the much heralded Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility & Disclosure Act of 2009 was passed in May, I commented that it was a lot like Swiss cheese. Within five minutes I had come up with over a dozen angles, traps, and alternate ways card issuers would reach into their customer´s pockets....
August 22, 2009
In a recent survey, 71% of respondents felt that their standard of living would be lower coming out of the current recession.
What? I was shocked when I read that. But what is the definition of a lower standard of living? Is it less income? Is it less cash (or room on the credit card) to buy all ...
August 09, 2009
This past week, the federal government injected another $2 billion into the cash for clunker program. If you´re considering buying a new vehicle, and have an old vehicle that qualifies under the program, you´ll love the additional time and money in the program. It was also welcome news to car manufa...
July 09, 2009
Last week, I bought a new car. No, it isn´t new, new. It is a 13-year old Buick, but with 96,000 miles, it´s a major upgrade from my Chrysler, which I retired after 185,000 miles.
Anyone who has ever read the vehicle chapter in the It´s Your Money book knows that I am not likel...
May 19, 2009
In January we talked about GM and Chrysler, and the possibility of bankruptcy. Right now, it´s one down and one to go, as I believe a GM bankruptcy is probably just weeks away. GM is working on a June 1st deadline to eliminate $27 billion of bondholder debt and come up with a new labor agreement or ...
May 06, 2009
Have you ever borrowed or lent more than $500 to a friend or family member? If so, you´re not alone, as more than two-thirds of us have done so, according to a recent survey by Investors Group.
But did we always want to do it? About a third of us felt pressured to make the loan, and ironic...
April 12, 2009
The deal with any reward program was always that you spend literally tens of thousands of dollars on airline tickets, or charges on your credit card. In return, you would get some free flights, or other kind of rewards, way down the road when you finally accumulated enough points.
You kept your ...
April 07, 2009
Getting ahead financially really isn´t complex, or hard to do. We just need to do one thing: Spend less than we make. Yes, it really is that simple to say, but often that hard to do. We just get addicted to our "stuff," and our lifestyle. Yet, any drop in income has us in denial and clinging to our ...
March 20, 2009
For months, we have heard one recession story or statistic after another compared to the great depression. Last week, with four days of good stock market news, many of those same people now see an end to the recession.
Throughout these extremes are the continuous questions of when this recession...
March 05, 2009
What a difference a year or so makes. Way back then, everybody who could sign their name was approved for almost any card they wanted. Today, rates for more than half of all cardholders have skyrocketed while interest rates are at their lowest levels in history. At the same time, mostly for very lit...
December 30, 2008
Next year, a number of companies are going to be reinvented as banks. GMAC, the ex finance arm of General Motors, just made it yesterday. No, of course they´re not a bank. It´s just what it takes to be able to access the existing bailout money!
This was a hugely profitable company until they took...
December 06, 2008
Dear Retailer:
I know that you´re really counting on me to spend a lot of money in your store this Christmas season, so I thought I should give you a heads up it won´t be happening.
The Retail Council says I´m supposed to do my part in spending almost $500 billion this holiday season. But I ha...
November 25, 2008
Last week I had to pay a $900 bill to repair my 99 Chrysler with almost 250,000 miles on it. Ouch is right – but once the shock wore off and I wrote the check, I was actually quite happy about it. Let me explain:
I paid $10,000 cash for my car and have driven it for seven years now. Since then, n...
November 12, 2008
Hurray! Finally, one of the biggest financial institutions in the world is focusing on a pro-active plan, as Citigroup has announced a new pro-active program designed to head off the next wave of foreclosures. It´s called the Homeowner Assistance Program and targets around 500,000 customers wh...
October 29, 2008
If you visit a marriage counselor, should that affect your credit score? OK, how about a massage parlor charge on your credit card? According to a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against credit card issuer CompuCredit – it happens.
Every lender uses a credit score, but even for the...
October 08, 2008
As the financial turmoil continues from the banking problems to the stock market, and lack of available financing and credit, what go us here, what could we have seen coming or done earlier? More important, what are the implications for us as individuals and what might happen over the next few years...
October 03, 2008
Congress today passed controversial $700 billion bailout plan. While it was neither optional nor popular, it was one of the rare times when reality, necessity and doing the right thing trumped politics.
We all know families who are on the financial edge, broke, desperate and with no place to turn...
September 16, 2008
In the months to come, this past Monday should really be called Black Monday on Wall Street. A 500 point drop in the Dow and huge turmoil in the financial markets again, or still? It continues to be a story about greed and over-borrowing. A story that doesn´t just apply to a few big (now gone)...
August 26, 2008
I had a great phone call last week from a radio listener. After we talked, I realized there were a bunch of things in the call that are huge lessons for all of us:
The caller shared that she and her husband were two years away from paying off their mortgage. As I was heading for the fridge to...
July 21, 2008
Ah, to be rich and famous. That´s what most people tend to think when we watch entertainers or sports celebrities. But be careful what you wish for, because so often that´s an illusion and an image, and nowhere near the reality of their lives.
Here are a few examples just from the las...
June 11, 2008
The pain at the pump and the reality of $4 gas has hit everyone driving an SUV or other gas guzzler the hardest. 15 miles to the gallon has become a huge pain in the wallet as a tank of gas goes north of $80 or $100.
Many of those people are becoming desperate and looking for a way out – any way,...
June 01, 2008
What does it take to pay off your mortgage loan quicker? If your answer, and it´s the only answer, is to pay more money, more quickly onto the balance - you´re right. It really is that simple, and no magic software in the world will change that.
However, high pressure marketing, preyi...
May 15, 2008
Yes, you can get a 95 percent discount on the high price of gas just by using your credit card… sort of.
The vast majority of people are buried in credit card debt and monthly payments that make every lender rich, leave nothing for savings, and has the average family working most of the month jus...
April 28, 2008
Each and every day we are bombarded with ads from various lenders. What they are marketing, however, is debt and their goal is exactly the opposite of what you and I hope to achieve.
Here are seven different ones and what the lenders´ marketing departments are attempting to achieve, and som...
April 16, 2008
Last week a national cable network announcer used the word "crisis" in reference to the current mortgage, subprime and foreclosure situations five times in one sentence. It was followed by an excerpt of a speech from President Bush in 2002, "By the year 2010 we must increase minority home owners by ...
April 01, 2008
We all know the purpose of advertising and I´m certainly not against ads, but would it be too much to ask for ads to be honest and consistent?
Just a few minutes listening to the radio or television, or simply walking by a few no-service mega banks, shows some huge inconsistencies or traps ...
March 23, 2008
Linda is 18 years old, lives in Las Vegas and was now on TV. The show was one of these buy this house, flip this house, renovate this house type of shows, which was obviously recorded some time ago.
After a more than patient realtor had shown Linda house after house, she actually made an offer o...
March 12, 2008
I was surprised to get a number of media calls about a story a national broadcaster did last week. They went to a shopping mall, randomly picked 10 people, and asked them to call their credit card company to request a lower interest rate, which six out of ten managed to do.
Can we lower our obsce...
February 17, 2008
There is a great line from Homer Simpson that often comes to mind, as more and more of the mortgage crisis continues to develop, and to seemingly get worse: "for once in my life I´m confused." And here are some of the reasons:
• Why hasn´t there been legislation passed to mandate income verifica...
February 10, 2008
Recently, Fair Isaac, the developer of the FICO score that every lender uses to rule your financial life, has undergone some changes. FICO has be tweaking and fine-tuning their super-secret formula of all your credit bureau information used in calculating your score.
Exact information, and a lo...
January 15, 2008
The good news: It´s a new year! It´s the chance to start over, to resolve to do better, to do more, or in the case of your payments and all that interest – to do a lot less.
The bad news? It´s likely that you´re already broke! How is that? Well, we spend more than 120% of...
January 02, 2008
Here we are at the start of a New Year, and the whole world is thinking about resolutions. Hopefully, one of them is to make 2008 a whole lot better, financially, than the past years may have been.
But please don’t make it like the wave of fitness club memberships where everyone shows up for a we...
December 19, 2007
“Maxed Out” is a television show on the W Network and this weeks’ show featured a family of seven and their Christmas challenges.
Basically, their Christmas spending had gotten out of hand. In fact, last year they spent just under $8,000 on decorations, dinner and presents. Like most spending, it...
December 06, 2007
Dear Retailer:
I know that you’re really counting on me to spend a lot of money in your store this Christmas season, so I thought I should give you a heads up it won’t be happening.
The Retail Council says I’m supposed to do my part in spending over $474 billion this holiday season. But I have...
November 28, 2007
Yes, I call it Christmas, as I’m a Christian. It is not the holidays – I have those next summer and they’re different, sorry. And I know canceling Christmas is a little extreme – and we’re not talking about the celebration, giving up your faith, or the chance to spend time with your family. We’re ju...
November 21, 2007
Would you pay admission to get in the mall or let your company claim back some of your pay because you hadn’t spent it yet? Well, that’s what lots of gift card issuers are asking you to do. But first, let’s go back to the beginning.
It wasn’t that many years ago when there were little slips of pa...
November 06, 2007
If you’ve never heard the name Chris Larsen, you’ve certainly been impacted by him. Larsen is the founder of E-Loan and is one of the people responsible for giving you access to your credit score. Until E-Loan, your credit score was a super secret known only to lenders and the credit bureaus. Kind o...
October 24, 2007
A credit freeze is the ability to put a blocker, or freeze, on your three credit bureau files as the most powerful and effective way to stop identity theft from ever getting started. Millions of people are spending upwards of $100 or more a year for credit monitoring that essentially informs you, af...
October 17, 2007
Between now and the end of 2008, $571 billion in mortgage loans will be resetting their interest rates with an average payment increase of $1,018. For prime borrowers, it will be about $450, but the big hit will be the teaser rate borrowers whose payments are likely to double, increasing an average ...
October 11, 2007
Seven years ago, Y2K, or January 1st, 2000, was going to melt down the economy, crash the banking system, shut down the government and every computer on the planet. Well, not quite. OK, how about the warnings a decade earlier that we never use a public bathroom again, because that was a sure way to ...
October 08, 2007
Last year, payday lenders were used by over 19 million families who borrowed almost $50 billion. Fees for these short-term loans are around $15 per $100 borrowed. On the surface, that’s not a big deal if the loan is paid off in two weeks. But that’s almost never the case.
When families can’t pay ...
September 27, 2007
There is an old saying that knowledge is power and one of the most important times it applies is when it comes to our borrowing choices. After all, debt isn’t something that just shows up one day. It’s almost always the result of poor, or uninformed, borrowing choices.
Understanding the ins and o...
September 19, 2007
A recent BMO survey conducted by Decima Research asked non-homeowners under age 34 for some savings and home purchase feedback.
Just like paying off our debts, the survey shows a real disconnect between the reality of what’s happening and the dreams of what the respondents would like. Here’s what...
September 04, 2007
Ah the first week of September and college and university students are back at it this week.
If you’re a freshman, I know your parents are concerned that you’re going to do more partying than studying – that’s something they’ve told you over and over. But there’s something they’re even more scare...
August 28, 2007
Since the 1960s, credit card companies have been investing tens of millions of dollars a year in “training” us that we can’t live without their cards. It started with “just for emergencies,” the still-popular “just in case” and “ease of financial planning” to the point were one out of seven American...
August 15, 2007
Do you know what you’re paying out in interest this month? If you’re like most people, you don’t have a clue – and it’s often too depressing to think about in the first place. But you cannot change what you do not know or acknowledge. And knowledge really is power when it comes to your finances.
...
August 11, 2007
OK, dumb question: How long has it been since you’ve last heard a car ad? If you own a radio or TV, you hear dozens of them a day! Now, the purpose of every car ad is simply to get you into the dealership, since you can’t sell a car on the radio or TV.
These days, that means advertise a payment,...
August 03, 2007
An RBC study from last year found that just less than 50% of us don’t believe a debt-free retirement is a must.
I was somewhere between shocked and in disbelief. Is that really true? Do we really believe that still having a bunch of monthly payments is OK when we reach the point of living on a f...
July 26, 2007
So how are your savings coming along? Our savings rate is now down to about minus one percent. That means on average, we’re cashing more and more of our savings while putting less and less back in. We need the money today to keep our financial heads above water – and never mind tomorrow.
Now tak...
July 19, 2007
Buying something expensive, like a car or a house comes with some really high monthly payments. OK, that’s a no-brainer. Or as the saying goes: You get what you pay for.
Well – not quite - maybe we can talk ourselves into having it both ways. Big ticket items come with big payments and big financ...
July 15, 2007
Last week, when I picked up a friend for dinner, she actually started laughing and asking why I was still driving this “piece of crap,” as she called it.
You see, there are two kinds of attitudes when it comes to vehicles. Those who believe they should be driving a new vehicle, and that they bec...
July 03, 2007
A recent BoM survey conducted by Decima Research asked non-homeowners under age 34 for some savings and home purchase feedback.
Just like paying off our debts, the survey shows a real disconnect between the reality of what’s happening and the dreams of what the respondents would like to accomplis...
June 27, 2007
For the year ending in March, just with our Visa cards, we charged more than 25 billion transactions totaling over $1.4 trillion in purchases. That’s some serious debt, interest and payments. But that’s not all – there’s way more profit for credit card issuers than just all those fees, charges and i...
June 18, 2007
Yes, I know it’s a little weird to be wishing you a merry Christmas in the middle of the year. It’s just that for the average person, right now is about when we have last years’ Christmas bills paid off.
Studies over the years have shown that we tend to be wildly optimistic in thinking our Christ...
June 14, 2007
If there was a 75% chance you’d win something in the next lottery – would you buy a ticket? Of course! How about in sales? If there’s a guarantee that three of the next four clients will buy something really profitable from you – would you do whatever it takes to get to talk to four clients? Of cou...
June 08, 2007
Sooner or later, all of us end up on a car lot looking to replace the vehicle we’re now driving – or just to buy a new car.
One of the most innocent first questions from the salesperson is generally: “what kind of payment are you looking for?” What answer would you give? Maybe $400 a month? “OK –...
May 30, 2007
The definition of being stuck in debt frustration is to keep doing the same thing over and over, month after month, and somehow expect different results in the future – it won’t happen. You will have to do some different things to have different results.
After more than 20 years in banking, cred...
May 23, 2007
Ah, we’re in love with the automobile. In fact, so much so, that there are more vehicles on the road than there are people with drivers licenses in the country. And you’d be amazed how often our attachment to our wheels leads to huge financial problems – sooner or later.
Never mind that almost 5...
May 16, 2007
What effect does money have in a new relationship? OK, you might not marry for money (at least I hope you didn’t or wouldn’t!) – but that’s exactly what you’re likely to end up with, as a bonus to getting married.
According to a study by research scientists at Ohio State University, it really do...
May 09, 2007
In the history of credit nobody has ever been asked to cosign with the admission that the borrower really can’t afford to pay it back. We want the loan really badly, we’re totally optimistic that everything will be fine, and that – well “you’re only cosigning.”
Wrong! Cosigning makes you just as ...
May 01, 2007
I know, I know – almost nobody does a budget any more. We have so much of our income going towards bills, that there’s really nothing much left over to budget with anyway.
But could you do it just once? More like a snapshot of what money is going where, instead of a monthly budget? It’ll give yo...
April 23, 2007
The headlines speak for themselves: Mortgage crisis, a drop in the median sale price of homes for the first time since 1968, tightening lending standards, more than 44 mortgage lenders closing their doors, or the devastating stories from Detroit alone, where one out of ever 21 mortgages was foreclos...
April 17, 2007
Here we are, one and a half years after the revisions of the bankruptcy laws came into effect, and almost the same timeframe since minimum credit card payments were increased to around four percent. (Actually, it’s one percent principal plus fees, interest and all those pile-on charges).
With tha...
April 11, 2007
It’s very sad, but true: 85% of teenagers never take a class on finance or credit. No wonder they don’t have the knowledge or tools to function in a world where the perception (and reality for lots) is that credit is part of their income these days. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the h...
April 04, 2007
In families were both partners work, the thought of one parent staying home to raise the kids is often a goal and a dream. It might not be for everyone, but those who want to do it, often feel they can’t afford it, financially, and the dream dies right there.
Yes, almost all couples who have dec...
March 29, 2007
Wal-Mart this month dropped another attempt to apply for a banking license because of significant objections. Most of these came (and will continue to come) from consumer groups, other retailers and banks. This was an application for a so-called industrial loan application, which is only a limited-p...
March 20, 2007
When you’re up to your neck in bills and payments, you’re surviving not thriving, and that’s not a fun way to go through life. It means your bills are managing you, and not the other way around.
Yes, you can afford to be debt free. It’ll change your life, give you options and not obligations, an...
March 14, 2007
Every couple of months, one report or another confirms what the majority of people already know: If most families missed one two pay checks, they’d be in serious financial trouble.
The most recent study comes from the Center for American Progress and reports on a survey of middle-class families, ...
March 12, 2007
Last weeks Senate hearings on credit card industry practices, led by Senator Car Levin, received a lot of media coverage. It certainly put the spotlight on a number of credit card practices, ranging from Universal Default clauses, which can double or triple the interest rate even if you’ve never bee...