What to Do If You Find an Error on Your Credit Report

 

Lenders look at your credit report to determine whether you qualify for a loan or credit card. Inaccurate information could lead to an unfavorable interest rate or outright denial of your application. You should periodically request copies of your credit reports and check them for errors. If you find a mistake, act immediately to have it corrected so it doesn’t hurt your chances of obtaining credit.

How an Error Might Have Occurred
If you have a common name, your records could have gotten mixed up with someone else’s. If you are divorced, a joint account that you had with your former spouse might not have been removed from your credit report, even if it was supposed to be according to your divorce settlement. Someone might also have made an error when entering your personal information. An account might be listed on your credit report more than once, or an account that was closed might not have been removed. In a more extreme scenario, someone might have stolen your identity and opened a fraudulent account in your name.

How to Dispute an Error
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, credit bureaus are required to investigate any alleged errors reported by consumers, unless those claims are deemed frivolous. If you find what you believe to be an error, write to the credit bureau or fill out an online form. Explain what you believe is incorrect and provide copies of any documents that support your position. If you send letters via the postal service, mail them certified and request receipt confirmation. Keep copies of all letters you send to the credit bureau and any responses you receive.

You should also contact the company that provided the information to the credit bureau and explain why you believe it is incorrect. Include copies of supporting documents and state that you have filed a dispute with the credit bureau.

Possible Outcomes
The credit bureau should complete its investigation within 30 days. In many states, a consumer who disputes an error is entitled to receive a free copy of a new credit report showing that the mistake has been corrected.

If the credit bureau does not agree that there is an error in your report, you can ask it to include your statement disputing the information in your file. Your statement can be provided to anyone who received your credit report recently or who will in the future. You may have to pay a fee for this service, but it can be worthwhile if it helps you avoid getting turned down for a loan or credit card. If you suffer harm as a result of an error on your credit report, you may need to hire a lawyer to help you resolve the issue.

Check Your Credit Reports
An error on a credit report can prevent you from achieving your financial goals. Request free copies of your credit reports and check them for errors. If you find any, take steps to address the situation as soon as possible.

Healthy Ways to Manage Stress

 

We all have stress in our lives. Busy days at work, problems at home, traffic jams and money trouble are prime examples of stressful situations. However, chronic stress can lead to serious health issues, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and depression, so preventing and managing stress is essential to living happier and healthier.

Here are some tips from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help you deal with stress:

Prepare yourself. Prepare ahead of time for stressful events like a job interview or a hard conversation with a loved one. Stay positive, picture what the room will look like and what you’ll say, and have a backup plan.

Plan your time. Feeling in control of your situation could lower stress. Think ahead about how you’re going to use your time. Write a to-do list and figure out what’s most important–then do that thing first. Be realistic about how long each task will take.

Relax with deep breathing or meditation. These are two effective ways to relax your muscles and clear your mind.

Relax your muscles. Stress causes tension in your muscles. Try stretching or taking a hot shower to help you relax.

Get active. Regular physical activity can help prevent and manage stress. It can also help relax your muscles and improve your mood. Aim for 2.5 hours a week of physical activity. Try riding a bike, taking a walk or lifting weights. Be sure to exercise for at least 10 minutes at a time.

Eat healthy. Give your body plenty of energy by eating healthy, including vegetables, fruits and lean sources of protein.

Talk to friends and family. Tell your friends and family if you’re feeling stressed. They may be able to help.

Get professional help if you need it. Stress is a normal part of life. But if your stress doesn’t go away or keeps getting worse, you may need expert help. A mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist or social worker, can help treat stress-related conditions. Lots of people need help dealing with stress–it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Home Safety Tips Every Child Should Know

 

Home safety is an important, even life-saving topic that you should teach your children about at an early age. If you educate your children on basic home safety principles when they’re young, the lessons will stick with them for a lifetime.

Learn to lock a deadbolt. Let your children know that the door should always be locked to keep them safe—even when they’re home. However, it’s important they also know how to unlock it in case of an emergency.

Arm and disarm the home security system. With thousands of burglaries happening each day, it’s wise to invest in a home security system. Teach your children how to arm and disarm the system and what to do should it go off when they’re home or sleeping.

Memorize the escape plan. Just like how elementary schools conduct fire drills, it’s important to have an emergency escape plan at home as well. Walk your children through the house to show them the safest exit routes, and designate a meeting place outside the home where family members should gather if an emergency occurs.

Know important emergency contacts. Post important contact information on the fridge or in an easy-to-access location. Teach young children how to use the phone, dial a number and ask for help. This list could include contacts such as 911, Poison Control, parents’ cellphones, a family doctor, or a trusted friend or neighbor.

Never answer the front door. Children should never answer the front door, especially if they’re home alone. Tell children to alert an adult when the doorbell rings.

Don’t climb on furniture. Heavy furniture, such as TVs, bookshelves and entertainment centers, can tip if children climb on them. You can secure these pieces to the wall studs and add nylon straps to increase security. It’s also important to teach children that climbing on furniture is always dangerous—even if safety measures are in place.

Use medicine safely. Store medicine in locked cabinets that are inaccessible to children. However, should children come across any medicine, they need to know never to consume anything unless it’s given to them by a parent or trusted adult.

Young children often imitate the actions and behaviors of their parents and siblings. Practice the safe habits you want them to emulate, and they’ll likely mimic your moves.

Source: Sage Singleton/RISMedia’s Housecall

How to Help Your Kids Build Confidence

 

Children gain confidence by exploring the world around them, trying new things, and learning how to process both successes and failures. The way you interact with your kids on a daily basis can have a profound effect on how confident they feel as they grow up.

Provide Love and Support
The most important ingredient that helps children build confidence is unconditional love from parents. That doesn’t mean that you should agree with everything your children say and let them do whatever they want, but rather, it means that your kids should always know that you have their backs and that you’ll love them even if they make mistakes.

Encourage Your Kids to Try New Things, but Set Limits
Whether you introduce your kids to foods from other cultures or different genres of music, or take them to museums, plays or foreign countries, help them see the richness and beauty of the world around them. If a child expresses an interest in playing a new sport or musical instrument, let him or her try, even if the idea seems to come out of the blue and you think it’s just a passing fancy. Your kids may surprise you by sticking with an interest you’ve never heard them express aloud before.

Letting your children try new things doesn’t mean that you should let them try everything. Kids need rules to protect them, although the rules can change as they get older. Knowing where boundaries lie provides children with a sense of security.

Help Children Succeed and Learn From Failure
Kids will be confident if they know that they’re capable. That doesn’t mean that they’ll do everything perfectly, but everyone has talents, so help your kids find theirs. Encourage them to try things they might enjoy and to keep trying, even if they have a hard time at first. Instead of letting kids set lofty goals that will leave them disappointed, teach them to set realistic, incremental goals. With each accomplishment, their confidence will grow. Offer assistance, constructive criticism and praise whenever appropriate.

A large part of gaining confidence is learning from failure. When your kids are unable to do something, reassure them that everyone fails along the way—and encourage them to try again. They might need to devote more time and attention to a task, slow down, or try an entirely new approach. Frame failure as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Give Your Kids the Support and Freedom They Need
Parents can help children learn to be confident by allowing them to explore while enforcing rules for their safety. Kids gain confidence by knowing that with hard work and determination they can succeed, and that even if they don’t, their parents will love them just the same.

The Best Smart Home Technology for Pet Owners

 

Smart home technology is improving life for everyone, even your furry little friends. These days, there are tons of products available for pets who live in the lap of luxury, from smart feeders that automatically dispense food to treadmills designed for felines.

For those who like to spoil their dogs and cats, here’s the latest and greatest pet technology to bring into your home!

iFetch Too

For some dogs, a quick game of fetch is never enough. If this sounds familiar, then the iFetch might just be for you. This automatic ball launcher will have your pooch running around all day long with up to 300 throws per battery charge. Various distance settings that range from 10 to 40 feet allow you to set it up inside or out, so your dog can chase tennis balls to its heart’s content even when you’re not home. And for the ones who love digging holes, the iDig is also worth checking out!

Little Cat

Is your feline enjoying the cat nip a bit too much? For cats that could afford to lose a few pounds, the Little Cat from PetDing is the perfect solution. Essentially a large hamster wheel with a built-in LED light that cats love to chase after, it’s like an exercise program designed to get your little fur ball off the couch. Available in four different colors, it’ll look great in any house or apartment.

Petcube Bites

There are lots of pet cameras available for those who suffer a little separation anxiety during the day, but the Petcube Bites does more than just let you check in on them. The two-way speaker allows your cat or dog to hear the comfort of your voice when you’re away and you can even reward good behavior with the built-in treat dispenser.

Wagz Smart Door

Nobody wants an unwelcomed visitor coming through the doggy door. Now you can keep out any surprises with the Wagz Smart Door that uses a unique ID tag in the collar that only opens the door for your pets. You can even control when they’re allowed to go outside and use the live HD video camera to monitor any motion around the door.

Family-Friendly Artwork Apps

 

In the age of apps, there’s more to preserving the masterpieces your children create than just sticking them on the refrigerator.

Eventually, the magnets will slip and something that’s dear to you—or your child—could fall off and end up in the trash. If you have the space for keeping their school artwork or homemade projects, you may keep them in plastic containers and sort through them at a later time. But if you’re running out of closet space or are worried that too many of these precious memories will be lost, there are some mobile options that can help you archive them. Here are a few:

Cloud Storage
If you don’t want to keep the physical papers around, take a photo with your phone and store it in the cloud or on your computer’s hard drive. To share them with relatives, put them in Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Be sure to protect them with a password that you only give to relatives.

Digital Apps
Photos or videos are the most obvious ways to electronically store these projects, though mobile apps can help you organize and enhance them.

Keepy and Canvsly are two apps that help save and organize children’s art and school projects. Keepy allows audio and video commentary to be recorded while capturing images of a child’s artwork—grandparents and others can be invited to view the artwork, and can comment on it. They also have built-in tools to create and buy photo books and other gift items from artwork you’ve saved.

As with any company, assume it will go out of business one day and that your data will be lost. Keep a digital copy somewhere, or you can also print them out for a photo book.

Custom Printing
If you don’t want to print the artwork through apps, you can either have your smartphone photos printed at Costco or other stores, or go to a custom printing company such as Plum Print to have your photos professionally organized and printed into a book.

Make it Public
If you want to share your children’s art beyond friends and relatives, Artsonia is an online and worldwide student art museum. Upload the artwork to the Artsonia mobile app and you can share it with the world. Not only will your child’s grandparents be bragging about their artwork, but the rest of the world might too.

The Art of Hanging Artwork

 

Hanging artwork is an art—literally. Too high, and the room feels off balance. Too low, and, well…you get the idea.

One of the most common mistakes homeowners make, according to Apartment Therapy’s Eleanor Büsing, is hanging pieces at the wrong level. To help you spruce up your place with properly placed artwork, Büsing offers the following tips:

Establish eye level. Eye level in most houses is approximately 57 to 60 inches from the floor. All artwork, regardless of orientation, should be hung so that the center (not the top or bottom) of the piece is at eye level.

Coordinate with orientation. The orientation of the piece—landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical)—should coordinate with the wall space it’ll hang on. The area above a sofa, for example, is horizontal, so the artwork should be oriented landscape.

Portraits can be hung in horizontal spaces, however—the trick is to hang them side by side so that they appear as one horizontal piece. The opposite also applies: Landscapes can be hung in vertical spaces, so long as they’re stacked one on top of the other.

Align varying sizes. A complementary duo or trio of artwork in different sizes should be hung in alignment with the pieces’ center points—this means that the tops of some pieces will be higher than others. Avoid aligning them by their tops or bottoms.

Stay uniform. Multiple pieces of artwork hung improperly can make a room seem cluttered and cramped. Make a gallery uniform by arranging the pieces in a precise grid format with matching frames, or by hanging one “anchor piece” at eye level and hanging other pieces outward from there.

Whichever of these tips you use, consistency is key. Keep eye level in mind as you hang artwork throughout your home to maintain a sense of flow.

Reasons to Cook at Home More Often

 

Some people are overwhelmed by the idea of preparing their own meals, while others are tired after work and stop at a restaurant or order takeout for convenience. Cooking at home is a better choice, and it doesn’t need to take up a lot of time or add to your stress level.

Save Money
Meals prepared at a restaurant will almost always cost a lot more than ones made at home. If you have food delivered, you’ll also have to pay for delivery and a tip. If you make meals yourself, you can buy ingredients on sale and prepare extra so you’ll have leftovers for another dinner or to take to work for lunch.

Save Time
If you go to a restaurant, you’ll have to drive there and back and wait to be served. On a busy night, you may be starving by the time your meal arrives and realize you would’ve been better off whipping something up at home.

You can prepare meals your family loves in large quantities when you have the time and freeze the leftovers. Then, if you get home late or have a particularly stressful day, you can heat something up and have a delicious homemade dinner in minutes.

Eat Healthier
Restaurants tend to use a lot of salt, sugar, butter, oil and other unhealthy ingredients in their food. That can lead to weight gain if you eat out a lot. If you have diabetes, high cholesterol or food allergies, it can be hard to eat healthy at a restaurant. Some establishments are willing to make changes to accommodate customers with dietary restrictions, but others aren’t.

Restaurants also tend to serve portions that are too large for the average person, which can lead to overeating. At home, you can control portion sizes.

Explore Limitless Options
Sometimes you have a craving, but no local restaurant serves that particular dish. At home, you don’t have to choose from a limited menu. You can make whatever you want, whenever you want, and you can alter it to suit your own tastes.

Relax and Learn New Skills
Cooking at home can be fun, whether you do it yourself or with family members. You can explore unfamiliar recipes and ingredients and learn new methods of preparing old favorites.

Even if you don’t know how to cook now, there are plenty of cookbooks, TV shows, and online articles and videos to teach you everything you need to know. You may be surprised by what you can master.

Try Cooking at Home More Often
Preparing your own meals at home can save you money and time and improve your health. Many people also find preparing their own meals an enjoyable way to unwind and spend time with loved ones. If you currently eat out or order takeout most nights, make an effort to prepare more meals at home so you can see the benefits for yourself.

3 Ways to Deal With Extra Money After Paying Off Debt

 

If you’ve paid off your debt, you owe yourself a round of applause. It’s a rare feat, and one that should be celebrated—in moderation.

Now that you have extra money coming in each month, the first thing you’ll want to do is have a plan in place so that you don’t turn around and find yourself right back where you started.

Here are three things you can do with your money to set yourself up for continued success in the future:

Start an Emergency Fund
Some of the debt you paid off may have come from emergencies: a hospitalization, a car or household repair, or even a job loss.

To better position yourself for an emergency in the future, work on putting away three months of expenses in an emergency fund at your bank. From there, build up to six months to a year of savings so that you can still pay your bills if you lose your job. If you’re out of work for any period, you’ll want to have enough money to pay your rent/mortgage, transportation and food costs, utility bills and other essentials.

Save for Retirement
Saving for the future may not be at the top of your list, but you’ll thank your past self when you reach retirement age and can comfortably retire because you contributed the maximum amount to your retirement account when you could.

As you should do with an emergency savings account, be sure to automate your retirement contributions each month. Check with your employer about how to do this, and increase your 401(k) contributions each month.

Put It in a College Fund
If you have children or plan on having some, starting a college savings account (529 plan) can be a great way to invest in the stock market to help pay for college. Money from the account can be used to pay for qualified expenses such as tuition and books.

Saving for college early—just like anything else—allows you to earn compound interest and more money than you might otherwise.

This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional or legal advice.

Quick Tips for Keeping Your Home Looking Spotless

 

Nobody likes to spend hours cleaning house–and, sometimes, there are few hours to spare. Yet some people seem to have a knack for keeping their homes looking spotless even when the time spent cleaning is minimal.

Country Living Magazine polled home bloggers and other busy women to come up with several little tricks that help keep a home looking spiffy:

Take your shoes off. Shoes carry in dirt and germs. Train the family to remove them when coming in the door–and put up a cute sign in the entryway asking visitors to do the same.

Make the bed. Even if the bedrooms are not picture-perfect, a neat bed makes the space look pulled together.

Squeegee the shower every time. It only takes about 20 seconds, and it keeps the glass looking clean and bright.

Clean the bathroom sink. A quick swipe with a baby wipe will keep your sink sparkling. Keep the wipes handy under the sink.

Wipe down kitchen counters. To avoid using harmful chemicals, keep a spray bottle filled with a homemade solution of one part vinegar with three parts water. It cuts through grease and easily removes fingerprints from stainless steel appliances.

Clean up as you go. When cooking, clean up the pots you’re finished with, mixing bowls and extra ingredients as you work. The goal is to have nothing much left to do after dinner but to put your plates in the dishwasher.

Do a five-minute cleanup before bed. Get the whole family to pitch in. Five minutes before bedtime, pick up the dog toys, newspapers and personal items; hang up jackets; put away the mail; and put things back in their place.

Put your clothes away. Almost every master bedroom has one chair that starts off empty on Monday and ends up covered with clothes by Friday. Before you go to bed, put dirty clothes in the hamper and put the clean ones away.

Open a door or window. Letting in fresh air at every opportunity is a good way to help keep your home feeling fresh and breezy.

With these quick tips and some discipline, you can keep your home looking spotless.

7 Tricks to Becoming More Productive

 

If you’re struggling to maintain a productive schedule, or finding that tasks are left undone at the end of the week, you may be able to hack your way into heightened productivity. Below are seven tricks for you to try out.

Dive in first thing. Start your day right by diving into a tough task first thing when you’re fresh, then taking a break for email or social media check-ins. This sets a tight pace for your day, rather than starting with emails or social media, which sets off a slower pace.

Get competitive. Competition is a great way to boost productivity, but you can achieve this result by being competitive with yourself. Can you beat your own time? Can you finish before your deadline?

Set a reward. Set a reward like a fun walk with friends, a coffee date or catching up on your favorite series once you’ve completed your task. However, make sure to hold yourself accountable so you can’t cash in on your reward if you didn’t do the work. If you struggle with this, enlist a friend or spouse to help hold you accountable.

Talk to yourself. Motivational talk doesn’t need to come from an outside source. Practice a few motivational phrases using “you” instead of “I” and find one that resonates, like “You got this!” Whenever you’re in a slump, say it to yourself.

Set up procrastination time slots. You know at some point in the day you’ll want to look at social media, online shop or peruse the menu for that new restaurant downtown. Set yourself two or three 15-minute time slots for procrastination, and that’s it.

Block social media. There are several apps you can install to temporarily block social media access from your phone or desktop. This will stop you from habitual distractions, like cruising Facebook every 20 minutes.

Try the one-task trick. If you’re really struggling to get on the productivity bus, tell yourself you can quit for the day after you slash one large item off your to-do list. Chances are, you’ll feel up for a few more tasks once that one is done. If not, at least you managed to cross something off your to-do list.