If you live in the Midwest and fill up your gas tank only at Marathon stations, the Marathon Platinum MasterCard would be the card just for you. Designed for consumers with good credit scores, the Marathon Credit Card awards cardholders with a whopping 10% rebate on all purchases made at Marathon. However, there is also a catch to this - the 10% rebate is only applicable for the first 60 days from the time the credit card account is activated.

While 60 days may not seem long, rebates are applied directly to the cardholder’s account, so savings are apparent right from the get-go. After the 60 days is up, cardholders are still eligible for a nice 5% rebate on purchases made at any Marathon location. Cardholders are also eligible for a 1% rebate on all other purchases.

In terms of the interest charges, the Marathon Credit Card imposes an above average interest rate. However, as finance charges are calculated with the “Two Cycles Average Daily Balance” method, the resulting interest charges will be higher as compared to other credit card companies that utilize the more common “Average Daily Balance”.

This disadvantage outweighs the attractiveness of the 10% rebate for the first 60 days of usage and also the 6 months interest-free introductory period. Cardholders who plan to carry their outstanding balances more than a month will face a sudden hike in interest rate charges once the 6 month introductory period is over.

In short, in order to make the most out of this card, use it for the 10% savings on gasoline within n the first 60 days and continue on for the 5% savings until the introductory period is over. Ensure that all your outstanding balances are paid for within the first 6 months, and pay off your credit card charges on time each month after that. With discipline on payments, you will then benefit from the 5% rebates given for Marathon charges.

How many monthly bills do you get? You may have a mortgage bill, a car payment, heating, electricity, gas, telephone, television, and that doesn’t even begin with your credit card and store card payments. The fact of the matter is that people today have more monthly commitments than ever before. And with all these various bills it is very easy to forget to pay one on time.

Then there is the wholly separate issue of whether or not you can afford all your bills. Sometimes we may simply have over extended ourselves financially and in such situations we may not be able to pay all of our bills as they fall due. And what if you were to lose your job, or become ill or otherwise unable to work? Even if this is only for a short time, you will have some very real problems meeting all your monthly bills.

Penalties

This can be disastrous. First of all most creditors will slap late payment penalties and other administrative charges to your account if you are late. Some may recall or try to repossess assets if they have security over them. This is most serious in the case of your house but can also apply to your car or any other purchase you have made by instalments such as a television, or computer.

How can you provide for such an outcome? Well having some savings is a very good start. This should be able to cushion you for a few months should you lose your job. Then there is the fact that it is perhaps not so wise to rack up so many commitments that you can’t reduce your outgoings at short notice.

Insurance Protection

Another option to consider is payment protection insurance. This can be very helpful and is designed specifically for situations such as these. How it works is you pay an amount extra on top of your monthly bill. This is automatically added to your bill and depends on how much you have outstanding for each bill. For example, payment protection insurance on a credit card might be priced at £1 per £100 you have outstanding. What happens then is should you lose your job through no fault of your own, or should you become unable to work due to accident or illness, then the insurance should step in and make your repayments for you so that you don’t fall behind and rack up extra fees. This can be a great assistance to you financially, at a time when you need it most.

Joseph Kenny is the webmaster of the credit card comparison site http://www.cardguide.co.uk/ and also CreditCards121.com for the latest credit cards available in the UK. He also writes for the US comparison site Credit Cards Info.

You hear people talk about credit reports all the time but do you know what they are really all about? Well, if you have ever been turned down when applying for a credit card or a loan it is high time you learned all about your credit report and how you can get it working for you instead of against you.

Let’s start off by explaining what your credit report actually is. Your credit report is a public record of all of the transactions concerning any money you may gave borrowed in the past. Any payments that you make on time or late, will show up on this report as well. Any tax liens or bankruptcies are on there as well. Your credit report even notes each time your report has been requested by someone or some company.

The reason that this report is so important is that this is how most lenders make their decision about whether you are a good credit risk or not. If you have a history of not paying your debts, they are obviously not going to want to give you any money because they know they will have a hard time getting it back from you. If you have poor credit you will find it difficult to get any credit cards or loans, even employers and landlords are accessing credit reports these days.

Everyone should request a copy of his or her report at least once a year. This is a simple task, all you need to do is contact one of the three major credit reporting agencies and ask them for a copy. This will not cost you anything but the copying expense and the stamp. You can contact these agencies online at:

Experian (located at www.experian.com)

Trans Union (located at www.transunion.com)

Equifax (located at www.equifax.com)

It is a good idea to get a report from all three of these agencies because they are not always the same. Once you get your report you will want to check it over for any errors or discrepancies. If you find any be sure to contact your creditors right away so that they can fix the problem.

According to the law you are entitles to receive one free copy of your credit report each and every year sot here is a chance that you will have to pay for the other two. But there is a chance that you will be eligible to get free reports if you meet certain criteria.

This criteria is as follows:

You have been the victim of identity theft

You are on welfare

You are unemployed

You have been denied credit recently

If your credit report is not a good-looking one at all there are some things that you can do to fix it up. First off, as I mentioned before if you see any errors report them right away, but if the black marks you see are all legitimate claims you will have to do some serious repair work. You cannot fix your credit overnight, no matter what anyone tells you, it is going to take some time and some effort.

If you just cannot seem to get things together enough to start making all of your payments on time each month you can contact a credit counseling service. They can help you to manage your debt successfully.

Having good credit is very important and the truth of the matter is that it is only going to get more important. Now is as good a time as any to get things under control don’t you think?

Martin Lukac, represents, #1 Loans USA, a finance web-company specializing in real estate/mortgage market. We specialize in daily updates, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more: http://www.1LoansUSA.com