If youre buried by credit card debt, a negotiated debt settlement with your creditor may be worth checking into. Negotiated debt settlement is a general term for discharging debt in a way that appeals to the credit card holder and the cards issuer.

Its best to negotiate from a position of strength by not having submitted late payments or having missed them, which can cause a credit score to fall. If that happens, cardholders will likely have a harder time getting concessions in a negotiated debt settlement. Instead, they should start talking to their creditor soon after realizing theyre having trouble repaying their debts.

Forbearance
There are a few types of negotiated debt settlements, and the simplest one is called forbearance. Banks offer these programs to reduce interest rates, waive late fees and extend repayment terms.

Forbearance doesnt forgive any debt, but offers better terms for repayment. Unemployed cardholders typically are approved for forbearance, and the plans should have no impact on the cardholders credit score.

Workout Arrangements
In these programs, card issuers lower or eliminate interest rates and fees, either temporarily or permanently until all of the debt is paid. A credit line may be reduced so that the credit card can no longer be used.

Like forbearance, a workout agreement doesnt reduce the principal owed. It can affect a credit score, depending on how the bank reports it to the credit agencies.

Lump Sum
A lump-sum settlement is where a cardholder offers to pay less than the full amount owed so that the entire debt is eliminated.

These are often accepted in two or three payments and are a way for banks to avoid trying to get payment through a debt collection agency. Interest and fees are likely to be forgiven in lump-sum settlements, however the principal will still need to be paid.

It can have several downsides. The bank will be charging off its loss, which will hurt the cardholders credit score. Also, cardholders must pay taxes on any forgiven principal of $600 or more and treat it like income.

Debt Management Program
This type of negotiated debt settlement is for people who dont want to negotiate directly with their lender. A third party does it for a fee.

Some for-profit debt management companies can be unscrupulous and charge large up-front fees. To find a reputable credit counselor, check with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, or the Financial Counseling Association of America.

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Significant works of art require being exhibited in a way that does them justice.

Heres what you need to know about displaying your art at home…

Assess the Space

Is the space best for a few large paintings or several smaller works?

Group pieces that are connected in some way, like style, color or motif.

Lighting

Warm, dimmable light bulbs are best to illuminate the artworks natural hues.

Avoid direct sunlight, as it can cause fading.

Consult a Professional

Bring in a professional to help curate your space.

Services can outfit your home with museum quality hanging systems to take your collection to the next level.

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Like the generation its named for, millennial pink is all around us. Its a fun, daring, sophisticated hue that isnt exactly new, but lately seems to have caught the eye of legions of clothing and dcor designers.

Not quite salmon, not quite rose and a far cry from traditional Barbie pink”millennial pink can best be described as a soft, subtle pink with some gray tones and a slight hint of peach. Its hard to miss if youre browsing the racks for trendy clothes or checking out the newest paint colors.

At your hardware or home maintenance store, check out Victoriana or Precocious by Benjamin Moore or Everythings Rosy by Behr. If the hues appeal, and youre ready to add their subtle vibe to your home dcor, here’s few fun tips to maximize the colors sunshine-like qualities:

Mix it up. Paint the whole living room or bedroom pink, or paint just one wall pink and accent with white or other pale neutrals and a touch of black. Framing neutral artworks with simple black frames are a good way to help a pink wall sing.

Add bolder pinks. Accenting millennial pink walls with deeper pink vases, lamps, bed linens, furniture and/or pillows can make the overall look of the room both relaxing and cohesive.

Try it on a door. Want just a dash of millennial pink? Paint a door this color to create an eye-catching architectural statement without overwhelming the room. Switching out the hardware to something with a black or bronze finish can be a perfect punctuation mark.

Use it as an accent color in your guest bathroom. You can add personality to a white bathroom with rosy pink towels, soap trays and other fun accessories. Try a blush pink for small accents, then top off the look with a few fresh pink blossoms in a pink vase to make the small space stand out.

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Are you looking for out-of-the-box decorating ideas for your space? Below are a handful of interesting accent ideas to up the creativity of your interior design.

Hanging accent lights. Caged, bubbled, modern, antique”there are myriad styles for hanging accent lights, which can be clustered, paired or used solo to fill up an empty corner or decorate a blank wall.

Mantels. Who says a mantel should only sit above a fireplace? You can easily install a freestanding mantel to rest photos, art or your favorite books. Another trick? If your walls are dark, paint your mantel to match and your items will suddenly be floating.

Dips. Dipped frames, art or even doors are all the rage right now. Imagine a series of white picture frames with their bottom dipped in gold. The best part? You can DIY these in a couple of hours; all you need is your item for dipping and your favorite shade of paint.

Painted fireplace. Whether your fireplace is no longer active, or its only active for a few months a year, painting the inside a fun pop of color can add life to your space. Think a bright blue, merry orange or buttery yellow.

Vertical garden art. That vertical garden is no longer reserved for your back patio. If you have a blank wall, hang a grid-style vertical garden and decorate it with cool succulents, your favorite herbs or a climbing vine.

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If you plan to repaint your interiors this year, don’t forget to pick a hue that will positively impact your mood. While bright red or neon green may be fun, they can subconsciously create stress in the body. Below are five peaceful paint colors to up the “ahhh” factor of your favorite spaces.

Violet
A dusty purple can promote balance and inner peace. Make sure to pick a shade with more blue tones and less black for a relaxing vibe.

Green
While a neon green can be alarming, a less bright shade (think forest or grass) can be calming and refreshing.

Gray
While some may think gray is dull, it actually has been shown to be a soothing, stress-free color. Plus, it goes with nearly any accent hue, so you can get creative with accompanying colors.

Blue
Choose a gentle ocean blue in the bedroom for a restful night’s sleep. Known to reduce tension, opt for a lighter shade when choosing your blue.

Yellow
A rich, buttery yellow can brighten your spirits. Perfect for bathrooms and kitchens, paint your whole space or a singular accent wall and soak up that sunny disposition.

I hope you found this helpful. Contact me for more home and real estate insights and info.

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You’ve heard the warnings about global warming, you feel compassion for stranded polar bears and you worry about overwhelming the landfills. As a homeowner, you may not be ready for composting, but there are ways to become an eco-friendlier household.

Ecologists provide simple but useful tips that even the laziest activist can use to do their part in helping the environment:

Cut down on water use. Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth. Drink tap water in reusable containers instead of plastic bottles. Lower the water level when doing small laundry loads and dont run the dishwasher until its full.

Use less power. Shut off the lightsbeforeyou leave in the morning, and unplug electrical equipment that you arent using during the day and while you sleep”especially your work and home computers.

Adjust the thermostat. Set it for a few degrees higher in summer, and a few degrees lower in winter. You likely wont feel much of a difference, and youll like the decrease in utility bills.

Replace your light bulbs. Sources say if every American household replaced one regular lightbulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, the pollution reduction would be equivalent to removing one million cars from the road.

Change your shower-head. A low flow version will save water while providing just as much pressure.

Save on paper. Keep a digital calendar and notes instead of paper ones. Whenever possible, re-use the back side of old printed sheets for new but less important print jobs. Sign up for paperless billing and pay your bills online.

Use less plastic. Use reusable grocery bags even where theyre not required. Re-use empty plastic food containers with tight fitting lids, such as cottage cheese containers, for leftovers and storage purposes”be sure any unwanted plastic goes into the recycle bin.

Eat less meat. If youre not ready to go vegetarian, try committing to a meatless dinner once or twice a week to decrease the resources you use. Producing wheat and even veggies takes far less water than producing beef, and there are plenty of tasty meatless recipes online that families can explore together.

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Using a credit card to earn rewards is pretty simple. Just use the card to buy things and youll get cash back or reward points from your credit card company.

Getting that free money of 5 percent or even more on every purchase is easy, but there are some things you should pay attention to if you want to get the most rewards possible.

Register for Bonus Categories

To get the most out of a cash-back credit card, look for a card that gives bonus rewards on certain purchases.

While 1 percent cash back is common on all purchases, some cards offer a 4 percent bonus for a total of 5 percent for buying from certain types of merchants. These can include restaurants, travel, grocery stores, gas stations, airfare or hotels.

The categories may change every quarter, with airline purchases earning 5 percent back for three months, then changing to movie theatre purchases for the next three months, for example. The category may even have a cash back limit.

To get in on these bonus categories, some cards require you to opt in each quarter and manually select which category you want to earn money back on. Some credit cards make it as simple as registering your card online, logging in to your account and clicking a button.

Use the Right Card for Bonuses

If you have a few credit cards, it can be difficult to juggle them and remember which card has which bonus for the purchase youre making. With the bonus categories changing each quarter, it can be difficult to remember which card to use to get the most cash back from it.

Using a cash-back card that you thought had a bonus at gas stations but instead had a bonus at department stores can leave you with a lot less cash back than you thought youd be earning.

Avoid an Annual Fee and Interest

Paying an annual fee on a rewards card is normal, but be aware of how much more money youll have to spend to earn enough cash back or rewards points to make up the difference between the fee and what a no-fee card charges.

If a cash-back credit card has an annual fee of $75, for example, and pays 5 percent cash back for grocery store purchases, it would require spending $1,500 to get that $75 fee back. Thats a lot of groceries to buy before getting money in your pocket.

Another area where cash rewards can be eaten up is by card holders who dont pay off their balances in full each month or on time and pay interest on their credit card balance. People who pay interest each month are often charged a higher interest rate on their cash-back card than if they did the same thing on a credit card with no rewards.

If you regularly carry a balance on your credit card, look for a card with the lowest interest rate. Dont look for one with rewards.

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According to the National Kitchen and Bath Association, granite countertops are in less demand today, while the use of quartz is on the rise.

Why? For one thing, man-made quartz countertops are offered in a far greater range of looks and feels. Reason number two: its a bit easier to maintain over the long haul, and its deemed a better environmental choice because it emits lower levels of radon”a potentially cancer-causing agent. To be fair, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains the radioactive materials in granite countertops are far too minuscule to pose a health threat.

So what, exactly, is a quartz countertop? Its made of engineered stone, composed of at least 90% ground-up quartz mixed with a binder (like resin) then molded into a slab. Because pigment is added during the manufacturing process, the sky’s the limit when it comes to color. And quartz is non-porous and fairly resistant to stains, mold and bacteria.

Unlike granite countertops, which require periodic resealing to maintain their beauty, quartz is low-maintenance, needing only regular cleanings with soap and water or a mild detergent.

Quartz can be more impervious than granite to cracking or chipping under average conditions, although it is not quite as heat-proof. Most manufacturers recommend using a trivet when placing scalding hot pots or pans on a quartz countertop.

Apart from durability and maintenance, quartz comes in an infinite variety of designs, ranging in look and feel from sleek solid colors to organic-looking variations that resemble real substances found in nature, like veined marble. It can have a smooth and shiny finish or a softer, brushed feel (almost suede-looking). Choose wisely because the design can make a huge difference in the look and feel of a room.

Quartz counters may be a bit more expensive, up to 10 percent higher in cost than their granite counterparts, but shopping around and resealing over the years can mitigate any cost differences.

So, what side are you on? Natural stone mined from the earth or a man-made variation?

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The average length of retirement in the United States is 18 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

How do retirees pay for those 18 years? Retirement plans vary, though most people eventually collect Social Security and Medicare benefits. Here are some strategies for making the most of your money that’s set aside for retirement:

Maximize Social Security
To get the maximum in Social Security benefits, anyone who is 62 in 2017 would need to wait until they’re 66-67 years old to receive full retirement age, or FRA, benefits. Medicare benefits begin at age 65.

You can start collecting Social Security benefits as early as age 62, but it will be at a lesser amount than if you waited until FRA up to age 67, depending on the year you were born. The Social Security Administration has an online retirement calculator to determine your full retirement age.

By waiting until age 70, you’ll get more than the 100 percent of benefits of the FRA at age 67. Every 12 months that you delay benefits after FRA, until age 70, adds an additional 8 percent.

Keep Working
Earning an income, even a part-time one, can help people in their early 60s cover their living expenses while waiting to claim Social Security.

Delaying retirement and working longer also gives them less time to use money from their 401(k) and other retirement funds, and can give them more time to save money.

Without the extra years of work, there’s a high chance that many people might not have enough money to last them in retirement.

A financial planner told the New York Times, for instance, that a hypothetical couple with $1 million in retirement accounts with annual expenses of $70,000 for essentials had a 47 percent chance that their retirement plan would fail during their lifetime”assuming they retired at age 65 and collected Social Security benefits then.

Waiting until age 70 to collect Social Security dropped the risk of failure to 38 percent, the planner found.

Buy an Annuity
A way to drop that retirement failure rate to zero is to buy an annuity, the financial planner advised.

Spending $298,000 on a single-premium immediate annuity would pay that hypothetical couple $12,000 annually for the rest of their lives. Such an annuity allows immediate payments in return for a lump sum that’s paid upfront.

It can be a lot of money to pay at once, but as part of a balanced retirement portfolio, an annuity can give retirees peace of mind that they’ll have money to pay their bills.

I hope you found this helpful. Contact me for more insights and info.

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