February 2016 – Creditaid

February 19, 2016

A Habitat for Humanity Home Gives Families a New Start

Creditaid is proud to support various community initiatives and has been an important supplier to Habitat for Humanity Manitoba in their support of low income working families for many years.

As credit counsellors, we have the skills and experience to aid this wonderful charity by providing budget strategies to new Habitat homeowners to help them prepare for home ownership and budget effectively for a lifetime of financial success.

The financial education they receive helps to instill a sense of accountability and pride in their new home ownership status.

We are happy to be part of the Habitat for Humanity family, and seeing videos like this one makes us even bigger fans!

February 17, 2016

Tell Your Money Where to Go

Most people avoid developing a spending plan. It’s just no fun hearing the same things over and over – “be frugal, be thrifty, save every penny you can for a rainy day.”

Unfortunately, failure to develop a spending plan usually results in our money waving goodbye every payday, and when bumps in the road occur and they will, (life being, well, life) you find yourself with very difficult financial challenges.

There’s got to be a happy medium – something between the regimented, enforced frugality that is so often presented as the solution to your life’s financial future and the carefree spending that’s going to land you in trouble. Taking control means that you take back full control and “tell your money where to go”!! No more letting it simply wave good-bye!

Enter the Save-to-Spend concept, a system of budgeting that will have you future-proofing your money, while still allowing you to achieve the things you want, and even giving you some “mad money” for the things you didn’t know you wanted. It is really all about pre-planning by putting your short, medium and long term goals on paper. Once you have them, put down what the costs are for each of them. Then prioritize them and determine the length of time it will take you to save for each of them. A simple example is buying a new big screen television. If the cost is $1200 and you want to have it in one year, start putting $100 away each month for it. This is far different then the buy now pay later program where you forget to pay off the interest free loan and end up paying 30% interest back to the day it was delivered. This is an example of a change from that path of instant gratification to one of delayed gratification!

The concept goes one step further and includes the most important part of any plan and that is building your emergency savings account. These are just a few simple examples of a very old concept that we need to return to.

Of course, you can’t make money from nothing, so there are going to be some sacrifices. They will, however, seem unimportant as you quickly see your bank balances grow with all the individual financial goals you have set.

Just remember you need to keep happy while you work within your Save-to-Spend plan! Like dieting, if you tell yourself you can never enjoy one of the foods you love, you’ll likely cheat. If you allow yourself the occasional treat, you’ll be happier overall and are more likely to get the result you want. Save-to-Spend has been proven to be effective.

If you have questions about Save-to-Spend, budgeting, or any other topic related to debt or personal finance, contact Creditaid anytime online or by telephone at (204) 987-6890.

February 16, 2016

Online Survey Finds Half of Respondents are within $200 of Being Unable to Pay Bills

If you are struggling to make all of your payments or are already unable to make your required monthly payments, Creditaid can help. Whether you need to rebuild your credit, undergo credit counselling, tackle your credit card debt, reassess your finances following a divorce or a move, or any other challenge that life brings – we’ve seen it all and we have a program that will suit your needs.

Reposted from the Winnipeg Free Press online edition February 16, 2016.

CALGARY – A new poll suggests nearly half of Canadians surveyed last month are within $200 per month of being unable to pay for their bills and make their debt payments.

The Ipsos Reid survey also found about one-quarter of the 1,582 people who responded to the poll were already unable to cover their bills and debt payments.

The online poll was done between Jan. 27 and Jan. 29 for MNP Debt, which provides licensed trustee services in six provinces, from Quebec to British Columbia.

MNP says the poll found that 31 per cent of respondents said any increase in interest rates could move them towards bankruptcy.

Ipsos Reid conducted the poll about a week after the Parliamentary Budget Office issued a report on Jan. 19 that said Canada has seen the largest increase in household debt relative to income of any G7 country since 2000.

The survey also followed Bank of Canada’s decision to keep a key lending rate at a historically low level of 0.5 per cent on Jan. 20, as the central bank lowered economic growth estimates for 2015 and 2016.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not a random sample and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.

February 11, 2016

Talking Financial Wellness at R.D. Parker Collegiate

Wednesday, February 10, 2016, marked another great day of professional development, this time with the staff from R.D. Parker Collegiate in Thompson, Manitoba. Our Balance Wellness Team is having a lot of fun meeting some great teachers across the province.

We were welcomed with open arms by Principal Rod Fisher and his staff. Keith Macpherson, Carla D’Andreamatteo, and Creditaid’s President Brian Denysuik, are really enjoying the opportunity to deliver some great programs. Creditaid’s Financial Wellness piece generated lots of interesting conversation.

Thank you Manitoba Teachers’ Society for having Creditaid as part of the Balance Wellness Program.

February 3, 2016

Identity Theft – A Growing Threat

Imagine that, one day out of the blue, collection calls started. Your mailbox filled with overdue notices. People threatened legal proceedings against you. All for debts that were incurred in your name, but you knew nothing about.

This nightmare scenario plays out far more often than you might think. RCMP statistics show more than 12,000 cases of identity theft annually in Canada. This theft results in more than 10 million dollars in losses for individuals, businesses, and insurance companies.

While identity theft crimes have been with us for decades, the technology that is being used to make our transactions more secure can make us a target, too. The two biggest tools of the identity thief are the telephone and the computer.

Telephone fraud has increased recently, due to the ability to “spoof” telephone numbers, which can make the source of the call any number the caller wants, rendering Caller ID equipment useless. Today’s widespread internet-based phone technology means that calls can originate anywhere in the world. Often the caller will pose as a bank, or even a well-known computer company, and they will troll for unsuspecting people to provide them personal information.

The vast majority of Canadian households have a computer, which has opened a whole new avenue for criminals searching for information. They can mine users via email, through official-looking webpages, or through software that’s designed to infiltrate the computer, looking for personal information. Keylogger programs can even be used to send your every keystroke to a criminal.

How to Avoid Identity Theft
Never divulge personal information if there’s the least bit of doubt about the person with whom you are communicating. Make sure that you originated the call, and it’s to a known business.

Never provide personal information, including credit card numbers, in an email.

When using a website for e-commerce, make sure it’s secure – you should see a padlock in the browser’s address bar, and the address should begin with https://. Always double check to ensure that you’re visiting the correct website.

Keep your antivirus and antimalware software up to date.

If you have questions about credit, or have found yourself in some trouble, contact Creditaid anytime online or by telephone at (204) 987-6890.