Category: Credit Repair

The Workplace of the Future: How to Prepare and Preserve Your Career

Workplaces have always evolved with technology, trends, and research. The changing environment of our global economy and advances in technology mean organizations have to adapt to stay competitive. This also means employees should keep their eyes forward and focus on the skills that will keep them employed and open new career opportunities. 

Looking into our immediate future, we’re seeing offices embrace telecommuting tools and implement flexible schedules to retain qualified employees and maintain social responsibility for the health and wellness of their teams. 

With increasing reliance on technology, we’re also seeing a large shift towards prioritizing soft skills. Early adopters of artificial intelligence technology are reporting a 16 percent increase in the need for business leadership roles as the need for researchers drops and advanced technology fills the gap. 

The best way to prepare for the office of the future is to set career goals and develop new skills, like how to run a productive meeting and collaborate within a team to increase productivity. Taking ownership of your skills and output can impress your manager and set you up for success when you negotiate your salary at your next performance review. 

Read more about workplace trends and how to invest in your future below:

Sources: Global Workplace Analytics | NPR | CareerBuilder | SHRM | Gartner | Gensler | Lifesize | KFF | Cengage | Deloitte | IWG | World Economic Forum | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

The post The Workplace of the Future: How to Prepare and Preserve Your Career appeared first on MintLife Blog.

Source: mint.intuit.com

Why Set Impossible Goals for 2021? [The Ultimate New Year’s Savings Hack]

In the 1980s, self-driving cars and smartphones without antennas were only things you’d see in movies — unimaginable futuristic goals. Now, these “impossible” inventions are part of people’s everyday lives. These innovative ideas were thought to be outlandish years ago until creators like Elon Musk and IBM’s team put their impossible goals to the test.

Impossible goals are things you want to achieve that seem out of the ordinary — ones that feel as if you may never reach them, even in your wildest dreams. These goals could be turning your dream side hustle into a full-time job or building your savings from zero in the next year to buy your dream home.

While the end result seems unreachable, a mix of motivation, determination, and hard work can get you further than you think. To see the strategic process of setting and achieving your biggest life goals, keep reading our jump to our infographic below.

What’s an Impossible Goal?

An impossible goal is a goal you think you could never achieve. Becoming a millionaire, buying your dream home, or starting a business may be your life goal, but one too big that you never set out to achieve. Instead, you may stick to your current routine and believe you should live life in the comfort zone.

Becoming a millionaire usually requires investing time, confidence, and a lot of hard work — things that may challenge you. But when you think about the highest achievers, most of them had to put in the effort and believe in themselves when nobody else did.

Flashback to 1995 when nobody believed in the “internet store” that came to be Amazon. While that was considered impossible years ago, Amazon’s now made over $280 billion dollars.

In other words, when you make your impossible goals a priority, you may be pleasantly surprised by your progress. We share how to set hard financial goals, why you should set them, and how these goals could transform your financial portfolio this year.

Impossible Goals Set by the Rich and Famous

4 Reasons to Reach for the “Impossible”

Impossible goals challenge you to shift your way of thinking — getting comfortable out of the safety zone. They help fine-tune your focus for daunting tasks you’re willing to put in the time and work for. Whether you’re looking to become a millionaire, buy your dream house, or pay down your debts, here’s why you should set goals for things you think you could never achieve.

1. You May Be Pleasantly Surprised

Everything seems impossible until you do it. When you’re in elementary school, maybe you thought getting a four-year college degree would be out of reach. Regardless, you put in the time and hard work to become a college grad years later. The same goes for your potential goal to write a book. You may think it’s hopeless to write a few hundred pages in the next year, but you may find it attainable once you hit the halfway point.

2. You Check Off Micro-Goals Along the Way

It’s hard to set your goals too low when you’re trying to reach for the stars. In the past, you may have set small goals like being more mindful with your money. While mindfulness practices are extremely beneficial for your budget, you may need more of a push to save for your dream home. By setting impossible goals, you may find it easier to reach your savings goal this year. You may have no idea how to do it, but your goal is to figure it out. Side hustles, a new job, or starting a business are all potential starting points.

3. It May Not Be as Hard as You Think

It can be uncomfortable to try something for the first time, so to avoid the doubts of reaching your goals, create a strategic plan. Download and print out our printable to breakdown each impossible goal. Start with your big goals and break them down into mini-goals. For example, if you want to start an online ecommerce store, researching the perfect website platform is a good starting point.

4. What Do You Have to Lose?

If you already live a comfortable life, you may only have experiences to gain and nothing to lose. When embarking on this journey, check in with yourself every month. Note all the lessons you learned and how far you’ve come. You most likely will face failures, but you’ll be failing forward rather than backwards. Your first ecommerce product launch may not have gone smoothly, but you may know how to improve for the next time around.

Impossible Goals Roadmap

Impossible Goals Download Button

How To Set Impossible Budgeting Goals in 6 Steps

If your impossible goal is related to finances, your mindfulness, time, and dedication will be required to put you on a path towards your dream life. To get started, follow our step-by-step guide below.

Step 1: Map Out Your Dream Lifestyle

  • Get out a journal and map out your dream life. Some starter questions may be:
  • Do you want to afford that house you’ve always dreamt about?
  • Do you want to have a certain amount of money in your savings?
  • Are you hoping to turn your side hustle into a full-time job?
  • What do you find yourself daydreaming about?

Track all these daydreams in a notebook and curate the perfect action plan to achieve each goal.

Step 2: Outline Micro-goals to Reach Your Financial Goals

Now, list out mini-goals to achieve your desires. Start with the big “unachievable” goal and break it down into medium and small goals, then assign each mini-goal a due date. For example, saving $10,000 this year may take more than your current monthly earnings. To achieve this, you may create passive income streams. If that side hustle is to start a money-making blog, you may need to research steps to successfully launch your website.

Step 3: Believe and Act Like Your Future Self

Think of yourself as the future self you want to be. You may picture yourself with a certain home, financial portfolio, and lifestyle, but your current actions may not reflect your future self. Your future self may invest, but your current self is too intimidated to start. To act like your future self, consider doing the research and finding low-risk investments that suit you and your budget.

Step 4: If You Fail, Learn from Your Mistakes

When working towards your dream life, you may hit roadblocks and experience failures. As Oprah explains it, “there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.” While failure may happen, you’re able to learn from it and pivot. Every mistake you make, analyze it in your journal. Note what worked, what didn’t, and what you want to do better tomorrow to surpass this roadblock.

Step 5: Track Your Results Consistently

Host monthly meetings with yourself to see how far you’ve come. Consider creating a goal tracking system that suits you best. That may include checking your budgeting goals off in our app month after month. Find a system that works for you and note your growth at the end of each month. If you’re putting in the time and hard work, you’ll get closer to your goals in no time.

Step 6: Be Patient With Your Budget Goals

Throughout this journey, practice patience. Setting goals may be exciting and motivating, but when you’re faced with failures, you may feel hints of disappointment. To avoid a failure slump, be patient and open to learn from your mistakes. If you didn’t make what you wanted from your side hustle the first year, you’re that much closer than you were last year.

Why set your sights on hard goals? Everything feels out of reach until you do it. All it takes is motivation and determination to achieve the impossible. To boost your lifestyle, budget, and drive this New Year, consider setting goals that feel out of reach. Keep reading to see why these goals may be perfect for you. Why Set Impossible Goals for 2021? [The Ultimate New Year’s Savings Hack] appeared first on MintLife Blog.

Source: mint.intuit.com

Why You Should Not Buy a Credit Privacy Number (CPN)

What Is a CPN, or Credit Privacy Number?

If you’re looking to repair your credit, you may have come across websites that advertise a credit privacy number, credit protection number or CPN. These numbers are nine digits like a Social Security number (SSN), and sellers claim that you can use them instead of your SSN. However, these CPNs are often actual SSNs lifted from real people, reportedly children, prison inmates and the deceased – and you can never legally buy a new SSN. In other words, a CPN is no solution to your credit rating problem. Under no circumstances should you try to buy a CPN.

Why a CPN is No Credit Fix

Websites have sprung up all over the internet, offering CPNs to people with bad credit or low credit scores. They advertise that this number can serve as a “get out of jail free” card for your bad credit. In theory, you can use a CPN instead of your SSN on credit applications to hide the poor credit associated with your personal SSN. If you have bad credit but still need a credit card or loan, this can seem like the solution, assuming you can pay anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

That price might seem worth it for a chance to wipe the slate clean. However, these offers are essentially a big scam. The CPNs you can buy online are not legally assigned credit protection numbers. Instead, they are usually stolen Social Security numbers, taken from children, the deceased or inmates.

Also, using a purchased CPN puts you in some hot water, too. Credit agencies can easily spot discrepancies if you try to use a CPN on an application instead of your SSN. Not only will this fail to help your credit, but it’s also committing fraud which is punishable by jail time.

How to Avoid CPN Scams 

What Is a CPN, or Credit Privacy Number?

If you’re dealing with some bad credit, don’t turn to a CPN. Only scammers sell CPNs, and they in turn may cheat you out of your personal information as well as hundreds or thousands of dollars. Using a purchased CPN can also put you in jail, even if you didn’t know the number was fraudulent. This is why it’s important to be aware of this popular scam.

If you really need a CPN or new SSN, it will be free. The process will go through the Social Security Administration Office, since a new number would be tied to your old SSN. That said, it is very hard to qualify to receive a new number. Having bad credit is never a qualifying reason.

How to Get a Legal CPN

With so many fraudulent websites and companies trying to sell you a way to reset your credit, it’s hard to know how to get a legal CPN. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Some experts say that you can speak with an attorney to obtain a legal CPN. The attorney can then contact the Social Security Administration Office on your behalf. However, others maintain that all CPNs are illegal.

Generally, it seems that you cannot get a legal CPN unless you actually need one. These situations include celebrities, government officials and people under witness protection. You can also apply in other specific instances, like if you’re a victim of abuse, stalking or identity theft. A real CPN would be attached to your SSN, so it’s still not an escape from the credit tied to your SSN.

You may also stumble upon offers to obtain an EIN, or Employer Identification Number. The IRS does issue EINs, but only businesses can use them for business costs. This means that you cannot legally obtain an EIN as an individual looking to improve your credit. You also cannot make up a home business, apply for an EIN and use that new number for a credit reset. It is a federal crime to obtain an EIN under false pretenses. In any case, the credit profile for your EIN is still tied to your SSN.

Bottom Line

What Is a CPN, or Credit Privacy Number?

You shouldn’t ever, under any circumstances, try to purchase a CPN. These offers are fraudulent and don’t provide any credit repair or relief. At the very least, buying a CPN wastes money you should put towards repaying your loans in the first place. At worst, you could go to jail for fraud. There are better, more constructive ways to repair your credit. If you’re truly in a situation that calls for a CPN, contact your lawyer for assistance.

Tips on Rebuilding Your Credit 

  • Of course, the best way to legally clean up your credit is to pay back your debts and improve your credit practices. A good place to start is to pay off your credit card debt with the highest interest.
  • Sometimes you’ll just have to wait for your bad history to fall off your record. Generally, negative info stays on your credit report for seven years. If you can’t get a debt collection removed from your credit report, for example, it’ll stay there for seven years. However, as time goes on, the toll it takes on your report lessens.
  • Don’t go it alone. If you have a good income, but you’re just bad at managing your money, a financial advisor can help. With guidance, you can make smarter choices – and even start growing your wealth. To find an advisor, use our free, no-obligation matching tool. It will connect you with up to three advisors in your area.

Photo credit: Â©iStock.com/becon, Â©iStock.com/Xesai, Â©iStock.com/Kerkez

The post Why You Should Not Buy a Credit Privacy Number (CPN) appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

Source: smartasset.com