Credit card without annual fee - which costs you should nevertheless consider

The credit card without annual fee is no longer a rarity. The ability to pay and withdraw money anywhere without paying a basic fee is something more and more people are taking advantage of. There are important points about credit card without annual fee that you should pay attention to. Because in some circumstances you may still incur very high costs.

Credit card with no annual fee: these costs might apply

Even if a credit card is initially offered free of charge, it is important to check whether the credit card issuer generally does not charge a basic fee or whether it is just a temporary promotion.

It may well be that there is no basic fee only in the first year. Thus, it would not be a real credit card without annual fee if you want to use it for more than one year. Independently of this, however, there are usually other costs to pay.

Private construction financing is a very important line of business for banks and savings banks. However, the figures now published for the end of 2022 do not bode well. The private construction financing business has literally collapsed. The last time the situation was similarly bad was in 2011. The decline in new customer sales is having a lasting impact on credit institutions, no question about it. We have the information for you.

November down 39 percent year-on-year

Analysis firm Barkow Consulting has published loan volumes for November 2022. It turned out that the month was even worse than September and October. Private real estate lending has plummeted 39 percent compared to November 2021. In 2022, banks and savings banks granted "only" 13.6 billion euros in loans for private construction.

If you look at the decline in construction financing within the last year, the decline in private construction loans in Germany becomes even clearer. In March 2022, lending was still at a record 32 billion euros, ergo the volume has fallen by 60 percent. The last time there were similarly poor figures for new lending was in June 2011.

If you give your best in your job every day, you need time to recover. American research shows how much well-being can be improved through travel and vacation: people who can take regular vacations are much more satisfied with their lives than people who do not have the opportunity for a vacation. For a good rest, it is important to take a vacation from everyday life once and leave the familiar surroundings. If you want to maintain your efficiency and refuel resources on a regular basis, you need to be able to recover. Otherwise, the stress level rises to negative consequences for health. The further away from everyday life the vacation is, the better the recovery – after all, the stress factors simply stay at home.

Well-being increases with vacation

It has long been proven that people are not only happier and healthier after a vacation, but they are also more helpful, flexible and creative. People who return to work refreshed are able to perform much better: this benefits not only the employees but also the company. If the vacation time is spent with activities that are simply fun, new impressions can arise, new skills can be learned or improved. Because people are exposed to new experiences on vacation, they deal with other issues. This ensures that resources are bolstered during this time, and people come back from the vacations more creative. The key is to be able to spend your free time doing whatever you want: Everyone simply does what they enjoy doing. This can be done passively, but also actively.

Lasting memories of the vacation

When the vacation is over after the summer, beautiful memories of a carefree time, of long evenings, of the sea or the mountains and of time spent in the sun remain. For those who manage to remember the positive aspects for a long time, the recovery from the vacation lasts much longer. Photos, videos and music are equally suitable to extend the good time a little more. All this is a good reason to go on a vacation or luxury trip even when money is a little tighter at the moment. After all, when buying a car, but also household appliances and furniture, it has long been common practice to buy things on installments. The tourism industry has also recognized this – and offers loans for vacations. These are available directly from tour operators, but also on the Internet. An online loan can also help to rehabilitate the account badly strained by the vacation – and avoid the expensive overdraft.

ETF savings plan - basic knowledge

Saving money today offers a myriad of possibilities, especially in the age of digitalization and the Internet.
Whether you invest your assets in shares, deposit them in a call money account or save them in the classic way in a savings account, the choice is entirely up to you.
But also investing in an ETF savings plan offers a valid option to save and even increase your assets.

What is an ETF savings plan?

An ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) tracks a stock market index, such as the DAX or the S&P 500. This you can save with a savings plan.
The whole thing can be easily compared with a bank savings plan, although you can choose your investment instrument yourself.
You can also easily determine the savings period, the amount to be invested and the savings intervals yourself.

Let's take the example of the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF, an index that tracks the global economy, which thus represents a broadly diversified investment option.
Of course, you can choose your own index based on your personal preference.
Now you can think about your target savings period, here of course the longer the better.
A typical duration of the savings phase is, for example, 20 years or longer.
Of course, you can also pay into your ETF for a shorter period of time, though many investors and experts recommend a duration of at least 20 years, since that's when compound interest starts to take effect, though more on that later.

Subsequent financing is necessary if surprising additional costs arise during the construction of a house or the modernization of an old property that were included in the original cost plan. Refinancing is a delicate issue and often relatively expensive. And the higher the need for refinancing, the greater the likelihood that the entire financing "kipppt" (ie is no longer affordable). The main reasons for additional costs and thus the need for refinancing are poor planning, surprising additional costs (z.B. due to the constantly rising cost of materials), but also a lack of cost discipline.

What is so difficult about refinancing?

What makes refinancing expensive and complicated is the fact that banks have to treat and process each refinancing as a completely new financing transaction. In addition, the additional costs usually do not increase the value of the property initially set by the lender. This can be especially problematic if the original financing has already reached certain lending limits. Quite a few banks reject refinancing solely because the overall financing (incl. refinancing) are no longer within the loan-to-value range that is feasible there. And then to find a second bank that is willing to take on a sog. "subordinate" security in the land register is satisfied, is difficult.

Many refinancing deals are within a range of approx. 15.000 to 40.000 euros. This is also a problem for many lenders, because often the amount is not enough for a construction financing loan.

The Financial CHOICE Act is President Trump's administration's way of making good on its campaign promise to reduce regulatory burdens on the U.S. financial sector. Below, we discuss the likelihood of its implementation and the key implications for investors.

With the Financial CHOICE Act, President Trump's administration aims to make good on its campaign promise to reduce regulatory burdens on the U.S. financial sector. Below, we discuss the likelihood of its implementation and the key implications for investors.

What is the Financial CHOICE Act?

During his election campaign, Donald Trump did not hide his views on financial regulation. He has long advocated looser regulation of financial markets. Since taking office, he has been a particularly strong advocate of undoing parts of the Dodd-Frank Act, which was introduced after the global financial crisis (GFC) to regulate financial markets. The result is the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017 1 .

With interest rates trending downward over the last several months, refinancing is all the rage. For many homeowners, refinancing an existing mortgage to a home loan with an interest rate that’s at least a full point lower than their current rate, can hack hundreds of dollars off their monthly payment. This can easily add up to tens of thousands of dollars in saved interest paid over the life of the loan.

However, refinancing is not always a good idea. Here are six bad reasons to refinance a home loan.

1. To extend the term of the loan

Refinancing to a mortgage with a lower interest rate can save you money each month, but be sure to look at the overall cost of the loan. Homeowners who are more than halfway through their 30-year mortgage loan will likely not benefit from a refinance. Stretching out the remaining payments over a new 30-year loan will mean paying more in overall interest, even when it is at a lower interest rate. Also, by paying a monthly mortgage for many more years than originally planned, homeowners will be tying up their funds instead of having more cash available for other purposes.

Certificate of creditworthiness and Schufa

Bills not paid on time, too many credit inquiries or ongoing dunning proceedings: These and other factors negatively affect the creditworthiness of prospective borrowers. An unfavorable SCHUFA score can quickly stand in the way of important borrowing for a new purchase or outstanding bills. But there is also a chance to get a loan despite a bad credit rating. Providers such as Vexcash allow the granting of credit in this case, provided that other conditions are correct.

A loan request on VEXCASH has no impact on your personal Schufa score.

Credit despite poor credit rating: Is it possible?

A loan despite poor credit rating is possible, but very difficult. After all, banks protect themselves in advance by checking the creditworthiness of the potential borrower: Creditworthiness indicates how likely it is that the loan will be repaid punctually and regularly, together with interest. Who regularly overdraws his account, has many current loans or pays bills late, negatively affects the credit rating. Then it is quickly over with the (new) granting of credit.

The following text was written collaboratively by Carolyn Pillers Dobler, Professor and Chair, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Gustavus Adolphus College, whose research and teaching is in statistics, with interests in mathematical origami, data visualization, and mathematics education; and Donald Myers, Director of the Hillstrom Museum of Art and Instructor in the Department of Art and Art History. It was produced as part of a recurring exhibition program of the Hillstrom Museum of Art titled FOCUS IN/ON, in which individual works in the Hillstrom Collection are explored in depth in a collaborative process that engages the expertise of College community members across the curriculum. The text was featured in the Museum’s exhibition FOCUS IN/ON: Henry Schnakenberg’s Dominoes, on view from February 15 through April 18, 2010, in which was displayed a 1956 oil painting by American artist Henry Schnakenberg (1892-1970), a gift to the Museum from Reverend Richard L. Hillstrom in 2000. That painting, a still life, was the impetus for the study, which considers Schnakenberg, his work, style and career, as well as the history of dominoes and mathematical circumstances and problems associated with them.

An Artist Characterized

A t a memorial service for American Realist Henry Schnakenberg (1892-1970), artist of the Hillstrom Museum of Art’s 1956 oil painting Dominoes, poet Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977) praised the late painter in a tribute that was reproduced in the Newtown (Connecticut) newspaper, the Bee. Untermeyer, a celebrated author and Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in the early 1960s, had become friends with Schnakenberg when he moved to Newtown in 1947 after having spent the earlier part of his illustrious artistic career in New York City. The poet praised the artist not only for his artwork but also for his fine qualities as a person, calling him “Good at heart and good in deed, generous in act and in spirit,” concluding that “…Henry was loved by everyone.” About Schnakenberg and art, Untermeyer said, “To watch him handle a work of art or admire a painting was infectious to those who were with him,” and he quoted his friend as saying that “’an artist paints as he lives.’” An obituary for the artist in the New York Times echoed Schnakenberg’s self-assessment, calling him, in its headline, “An Artist of Everyday Themes,” and in the main text, “an imaginative realist.”

These descriptions are indicative of two frequently noted qualities of the artist. First, that he was a good and kind person who sought to help others and who was devoted to causes in which he believed. And second, that his art was solidly based in reality, as well as very accomplished. Schnakenberg’s characteristics had been described over thirty years earlier in a November 28, 1936 article in The New Yorker, by critic and social philosopher Lewis Mumford (1895-1990). In reviewing the third biennial exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, he cited the artist along with two other highly admired and prominent Americans, Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), as the best of a group of contemporary American painters he termed “the Poets of the Actual.” Noting the excellence of their craftsmanship, Mumford observed that what these three esteemed artists also had in common was their attitude towards their subject matter.

Single-family house with carport © schulzfoto, stock.adobe.com

Various types of loans are used in real estate financing, in particular the annuity loan

In the context of a mortgage, most banks provide not only one type of loan, but several credit cards. Therefore, it is important for you as a customer and prospective borrower to know at least the basic characteristics of the different loan types. Therefore, in the following we would like to take a closer look at the types of loans that in some or many cases are part of a real estate financing transaction.

The different loan types at a glance

First of all, we would like to give you a brief overview of the types of loans that are usually used within real estate financing. It is not uncommon for construction financing to even consist of a mix of several types of loans. Not every type of loan mentioned below is provided by all banks. Usually, however, you can choose at least between two to three different variants of the real estate loan at most credit institutions.

In addition, there are other lenders outside the banking sector, whose loan can also be integrated into the financing. In summary, the following types of loans exist that can be integrated into construction financing: