=    Written by a Professional Loan Broker

Reviewer: The Rebecca Review.com

Howard L. Russell is a professional loan broker who has been working in the trenches getting loans for his clients for years. He has also talked to thousands of people who didn’t qualify for a loan and finally realized no one had written a complete book on the subject.

“After you read this book, you will be able to get a copy of your credit report and sit down at the kitchen table with a pen, paper and calculator and determine whether you qualify for a loan or not. If you don’t quality, you will know exactly why and what to do about it.” –Howard L. Russell

The Insider Credit Handbook will show you:

1. How to get, read and understand your credit report
2. How to establish credit
3. How to re-establish credit
4. What is a personal loan: what it takes to qualify for one and how to get it
the two kinds of car loans: what it takes to qualify and how to get one
5. Home equity loans: what they are and how to qualify to get one
6. Using a loan broker: what they do, what they charge and avoiding the rip-off guys
7. Bankruptcy and what to do next. An alternative to bankruptcy.

In the first chapter you learn exactly where to go to find your credit report. Web site info and phone numbers and how to get your report fast. In the back of the book, there are sample reports so you can read this book and see examples on the actual forms.

Once you get your “own” report, that is when this book gets really helpful!

Like: You might see: Sum-ACCTS 18, 3-ZEROS, 14-ONES

What does ACCTS:18 mean? When you see this on your report it will mean you have 18 loans listed on your credit report.

The author takes you step-by-step through your entire report! How unique to actually have someone spend that much time explaining things. Oh the beauty of books. There is no way the author could spend this much time in person because he would be out getting loans for his clients. So, this is really the “decoder” for your report. Although, I must say, he does do everything he can to help people get their credit back so they can get a loan the next time they apply. There are plenty of examples and stories that were quite interesting to read.

There are some very important “warnings” listed. Like if a loan officer pulls a credit report and sees lots of recent inquiries, it might mean you are trying to borrow a lot of money in a short period of time or you have already been turned down a few times.

You know, I don’t normally review “finance” type books, but this one is dang interesting! It is like entering this secret little world of loans. The font size is nice and easy on the eyes.

This should be required reading at some time during high school! Everyone in America needs this information, because eventually you will need a loan. At that point it might be too late to undo the damage caused by mistakes you didn’t even know you made!

~The Rebecca Review

MONEY

"The earliest reports of payments with cowrie shells were from China about 3,500 years ago."

The first thing I noticed on the first page was the heart-shaped English brass halfpenny token from 1665. I've seen a lot of coins, but had no idea that they could be in so many shapes. From the Ancient Chinese bronze hoe-shaped coin of the 6th century to the square Indian gold mohur of the 17th century, there is a coin for every taste and collection.

There is information on funny money, the first coins, paper money, how coins are made, how banknotes are made, forgery and fakes, money and trade, money in war, power, shared currencies, checks and plastic and coin collections. The countries features include ancient cultures, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan and African countries.

"The name for a piggy bank comes from pygg, a type of clay used in Middle Ages to make pots for money and other thing. The idea to make banks in the shape of pigs probably came from the similarity of the words."

If we could still pay with shells, many of us would probably spend a lot more time at the beach. Some of the most fascinating "money" in this book includes red feathers glued together and tied onto vegetable-fiber coils. Writing a check on a cow? That has to
be the strangest thing I've heard about money.

This book has the most bizarre tales about money and also has a special section on coin collecting, how to store them and why you should note store them in a plastic envelope.

Other features:

Timeline of Banking
Glossary with Pictures

It is truly amazing how humans went from stone money to transferring money directly into our checking accounts. This book reminded me of visiting a place in Africa where a man told me if I could lift a gold bar with one hand I could have the gold. I did try. There is a picture of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York where one-third of all the monetary gold in the world is found in special cages.

"When one country sells gold to another, it is moved between the cages by workers wearing shoe covers to protect their feet from dropped bricks."

The most fun you will ever have reading about money.

~The Rebecca Review