While researching information on credit card debt negotiations, i stumbled upon a website that was quite similar in they negotiate the terms of your contract, in this case it was for life insurance. But the website quoted the following words from one of my favorite sports figure and The former Heavyweight champion turned Grill Master, George Foreman.

“The question isn’t at what age to retire, it’s at what income”

Now being a huge boxing fan and knowing of the hardships Foreman had gone through, it made me think a little more about life insurance and how to cash in on my retirement.

Safe Haven Financial Center offers clients interesting option for their life insurance policies. Safe Haven’s Life Settlements allows their clients to assign or sell their life insurance policy and receive lump sum payments.

One example the Life Settlement can be found at their Life Settlement Case Studies page.

Male Age: 72 with a $ 3,000,000 policy received an offer from his insurance company for only $180,000 to surrender the policy. Our team was able to get him $515,000. He was able to fund a new policy and save $13,000 a year, smart move.

Results like this show that services like Safe Haven can make a real difference. Especially when your in your twilight years and all you want to do is enjoy yourself.

To see if your able to qualify for their service, you can take a look at their Free policy appraisal.

A new method has been created for online payments so that credit card and bank account details do not need to be used. Consumers can buy a VCard virtual voucher with credit of up to $1,000 which can then be used instead of a credit card wherever Visa is accepted. The VCards can be purchased from retailers in a similar way to purchasing pre-paid mobile phone credit and cost $5.50 for each voucher. Each VCard comes with a Visa card number, expiry date and three digit security code. Market research firm Forrester earlier this year estimated that 7.2 million Australians shop online and this is expected to increase by 22 per cent each year until 2010.

By Sydney Morning Herald

Mortgage rates are creeping lower as increased concerns over the stumbling housing market reach into other markets. These concerns have brought mortgage rates down to their lowest levels in almost half a year.

This news was illustrated by the Primary Mortgage Market Survey put out by Freddie Mac. According to the survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is currently averaging 6.26 percent with an average 0.4 point for the week ending November 1, 2007. Just the week earlier, the mortgage rate was at 6.33 percent. Last year at this same time, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage was averaging about 6.31 percent.

These results show that the benchmark 30-year mortgage loan rate has is at its lowest since May 17, 2007, at which time it averaged 6.21 percent.

According to Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist: “October’s consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since October 2005 as mortgage rates continued to decline this week to their lowest level in almost six months. Continued market concerns about weaker economic growth and further declines in the housing market have kept mortgage and mortgage refinance rates low over the last few weeks."

While this should be good news for buyers, the recent troubles with the sub-prime market has caused many lenders to tighter up credit, making it more difficult for some buyers to get these lower rate loans.

People commonly think of insurance as a necessity, not as an investment. For things like car insurance or even some types of health insurance this may be the case. Not so for long term care insurance which can pay millions of dollars to policyholders. The stats show that a very large percentage of policyholders will end up making claims. There are plenty of discounts on long term care insurance for families as well. Might be good to look at.

A News.com.au / CoreData survey has found that over half of Australians admit to using their credit cards to bridge pay periods. The survey also revealed that 90 per cent of respondents held at least one credit card whilst 52 per cent said that they had been charged penalty fees and or interest in the 12 months before the survey.

By News.com.au

Following calls from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for longer fixed term mortgage loan deals to be available to consumers, there is some evidence that homebuyers are beginning to take out medium-term mortgages as interest rate rises start to bite.

Homebuyers are choosing to go for three to five year fixed mortgages according to moneysupermarket.com, which is longer than the two-year fixed deals that had previously been popular. Interest rate increases have caused households to look for the security of known payments and with debt becoming more of a risk debt consolidation is often given as a reason for the new mortgage

Despite the likelihood of another rate rise having receded, homebuyers still feel uncertain following events in credit markets and with Northern Rock.

Two-year rates have traditionally been most popular, particularly as lenders offered the best rates for this period, but now 21% are going for two-year or less, and 27% are choosing three to five years. First-time buyer figures are even higher for the longer deals, as they value the security for the first few years of their mortgage life. Rates at around 6% now seem fairly reasonable to them. As well as first-time buyers many people nearing the end of their mortgage want to fix their rate for one final time before their mortgage is paid off.

Lenders are even beginning to reward forward loyalty with lower fees for longer deals. Secured loans are sometimes being used as an alternative.

However, there is still little appetite for longer deals (ten years or more), although there are around 200 on the market now. Banks and Building Societies are following Brown and Darling’s instructions, but the public is not.

Does this sound familiar?

• You don’t have any savings
• You lose sleep thinking about your debt.
• You make minimum payments on your credit cards.
• You get calls from debt collectors.
• You’re afraid to look at your statements each month.
• You have no idea how much you owe.

Well for many this is a reality, while those with a some self control, basic money management skills and willingness to be free of debt they can slowly clear their debt and rebuild their credit rating but there are many of us that just can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

A glimmer of hope might be in reach, with the debt relief website Franklin Debt Relief, who specializes in debt consolidation and credit card debt relief noting to have successfully reduced customer debts by almost half.

The service is quite interesting and for those with large debts this may be an option to consider.

Franklin Debt relief negotiates with your creditors and try to agree on a lump sum payment on your behalf.

In their words:

Franklin Debt Relief negotiates with a creditor and once a creditor agrees to sufficiently lower the amount that a consumer owes, we settle it with a lump sum payment. In turn the creditor agrees to report to the credit bureaus that the consumer no longer owes them anything.

Now those of you looking for a little credit card relief then visit their website and see if you qualify for Franklin Debt Relief credit card debt help.

There has been a lot of talk recently about how mortgage arrangement fees have been going up, with some hitting nearly £2,000. What about an arrangement fee that is nearly £10,000? That is the fee Abbey will charge for its larger mortgages. Industry watchers say this is the first fixed fee to reach nearly five figures. Percentage-based fees have had the capability of reaching big numbers of course.

Most high street mortgage lenders provide mortgages up to £250,000, but this fee is applied to loans of between £500,000 and £750,000 with an interest rate fixed at 5.59% for two years.

James Cotton of broker London & Country said the fee would seem “ridiculously big” to most borrowers. However, Nici Audhlam-Gardiner, head of mortgages at Abbey, said the fee was acceptable, and that the money would be used to offset the cost of arranging the mortgage and enabling them to offer customers a choice.

Higher fees are increasingly added to mortgages with low interest rates which enable lenders to keep their secured loans high in comparison charts. Borrowers have to keep a close eye on all charges involved in mortgages – not just on the headline interest rates.

Other mortgage lenders charge 2% fees on loans over £500,000, which would make for charges of £10,000 and over. For example, Halifax is offering a 5.59% two-year fixed rate mortgage with a 2% over £500,000. On a £750,000 loan the fee would be £15,000. This makes the fixed Abbey fee seem very competitive.

Cotton said: “Borrowers have to do their sums and check that the rate and fee together offer good value. If you are after a big mortgage, don’t just assume you have to pay a huge fee.”

A spokesman for Halifax said: “For some loans, a fixed percentage arrangement fee is much better than a set arrangement fee.”

HSBC is one of the world’s leading banks and it has been well known for its huge credit card business. However, it has recently just sold part of its credit card business, including “Marbles” the well known credit card loved by many consumers.

The business has been sold to SAV Credit and it was sold for an impressive £385 million. The move will affect over 300,000 consumer accounts and whether it proves to be a popular decision will remain to be seen.

The reason given for the sale of these credit cards is that HSBC has actually developed its own branded card business recently. The Marbles credit card was said to be non-core and so HSBC did not see the need to keep it as well as their other cards.

It is not a huge shock to consumers however as Marbles has not been accepting any new business since April 2007. It has been losing out to more competitive credit cards and so to HSBC it was simply time to move things along.

The Marbles credit card continually had some market leading offers, which included 0% balance transfers and cash back.

Overall consumers do have mixed reactions to their accounts being sold on. On the one hand they are angry and worried about the changes which may occur. However there are some consumers who are also happy with the move and they feel it will bring positive changes as SAV Credit are a smaller company and they may have more time to develop the card into something better.

Our newest review for the Obopay mobile money transfer service and prepaid Visa Card review can be found here (Obopay prepaid visa card). The review gives you a break a down of the key features of the Obopay mobile transfer service and fee structure for using the Obopay prepaid Visa card.

The service is very similar to the Bopo prepaid visa card service. Though the service is strictly for the US customers.

Our latest review of the Ikobo service and prepaid Visa Card review can be found here (Ikobo prepaid visa card). The review gives you a break a down of the key features of the Ikobo money transfer service and fee structure for using the Ikobo prepaid Visa card.