Guiding Light Multi-Service Center, Inc.

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Guiding Light Multi-Service Center, Inc.

Guiding Light Multi-Service Center Inc, is a tax-exempt community based organization established in 2005, committed to provide support to our neighborhood.

Our goal is to encourage different roads to prosperity base on available resources.

01/15/2024

MLK Day

What does celebrating MLK mean to you? What kind of life are you living?

Be responsible for what happens to you. Don’t spend money you can’t afford. Shout “no” when people are trying to steal from or hurt you. Service does not mean giving as a victim. No one can judge the content of your character.

You put everything that is you in the universe. Have the foresight to know you can change all of it at any time. If you walk, run or standstill, it is all about you. MLK did his part to leave a better world, how about you?

Only you can help you, however, we are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

08/26/2023

Hope you had a wonderful week.

Do not throw away all of the money you work for then pass the hat for support when you need help. Start investing today, so your money is available when you need it.

Pay down your debts while investing. Don't treat these two items as separate thing. You do not have to get out of debt before you begin investing. Get on a simple budget. That will guide you to how much money you have for everything you need to do.

Writing a budget by hand will help you to see the process. Having the budget available every time you sit to pay bills makes it easy to stay on track.

Do not put any items on the budget that is pretax. Those items are already included in your budget. Only the wages you take home is important for the budget.

You are the only one who can help you, however, we are here to provide support at https:www.guidinglightmsc.org

Pictured: Beautiful NYC

04/10/2023

Are you still spending more money than you earn? Are you "debt-free" but have a big mortgage? Do you have a car but can't afford the insurance? Are you still stacking new charges on your credit card?

Every day your money is not working for you, it is working against you. Your family should be the most important people in your life, and they should be the only ones you are trying to impress.

Pay down your debts. Spend the money you have toward your bills. Start investing something from every paycheck. No amount is too small. Respect your money and it will surprise you.

We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

04/02/2023

I hope you had a wonderful week.

How are you doing financially? How far is your money reaching? Do you have a physical budget that you match with your paycheck? Or, do you just spend freely and hope you have enough money when the bills come due?

Are you borrowing money from your retirement plan? Did you borrow from your 401(K) to go on vacation? Are you buying lunch every day because your friends expect you it? What do you do with your retirement accounts when you leave a job? Spend it?

You should be investing money all the years you are working, no matter your age. As long as you earn you need to invest. Don’t give your money away because that is the thing to do.

We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

Picture: walking around NYC

02/26/2023

Do you need your car?

If you live in a metropolitan city with adequate 24-hour transportation? Do you really need a car if you are living in poverty? What if the cost of that car can expedite your road to financial security? How much is your vehicle-note? Insurance? Gas? Maintenance? Tickets?

Let’s look at a scenario. You decide you want to finally get out of debt and give your family a better lifestyle. You get rid of your car. Now you have money to pay off more debt. Let’s say you are not a homeowner, but have student loans and credit card loan. How do you tackle paying off your current loans in a very short period of time?

The best expeditious way could be to create a simple budget that you use every time you pay your bills. If you can consolidate these bills into one larger bill, you can pay this bill off very quickly. You didn’t borrow interest from any lender, so the money saved in interest is paying off your loan.

If you decide to keep all the loans you owe, it would be best to try and pay off the smallest one as quickly as possible, while paying the minimum on the larger bills. When you finish paying the small bill off, put all the money freed-up to the next smallest. That simple budget will be really helpful to keep you on track.

This is not professional advice. Just commonsense suggestion. We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

Pictured: Walking NYC

02/11/2023

I hope you had a wonderful week.

Do you have credit card debts? Try to pay them off ASAP. If you have more than one card, see if you can consolidate them onto one existing card. Or if you can open a new card with zero-percent interest for one year, aggressively pay down as much money as possible every paycheck.

The idea of paying off any debt is to pay as little interest to the lender over the life of the loan. The interest you are not giving the lender is helping you pay off your loan faster. This works best using a simple budget.

We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

Pictured: NY Public Library Lion

01/22/2023

Hope you had a wonderful week.

Too many working people are living in draining-poverty. However, a little education can really make a difference.

Using an online mortgage prepayment calculator, I ran a sample mortgage I found online (result pictured). This is a $121,000.00, conventional, 30-year, 2.875% for 5 years’ interest, $502.03 monthly principal & interest for the first 5 years increasing to a variation of $1,089 to $1,252 over the remaining 30 years (with $430.30 monthly escrow).

I have heard it said that paying off your mortgage early does not make sense, because it is a save debt. The criteria I used was to add an additional $3,000 monthly ($36,000 yearly) principal-only payment each month. However, if this was a real scenario, this $3,000 does not have to be paid monthly. It could be spread out over the year to include monetary Christmas gifts, tax return, side hustles, rent paid by family members living in your home, and adopting a scarcity lifestyle. A simple budget would help.

What you should take away from this post is, no one borrows interest from their lender. If you could refinance, eliminating all your other debts, and able to pay off your 30-year mortgage in 3-years & 6-months, paying only $7,504.17 in interest, how can this change your family’s life? You don’t even have to refinance.

Information starts out free, you decide how much it is worth. Only you can help yourself. We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

11/21/2022

When was the last time you check your, or your parent’s long-term care (LTC) policy? It’s possible you only have the original documents, but the service description has changed over the years. Call your company and find out what you are cover for. Write down the date, agent’s name, and information you are given. Repeat it to the agent to make sure you understand what was said. Keep it on file.

Repeat this action every five years or so. You are paying on these very expensive policies for a really long time. Don’t wait to find that you are not covered when you actually need the service as a senior.

We are her to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

Picture: NYC time clock

11/13/2022

Hope you had a wonderful week.

Getting and staying out of debt is one of the most important things you can do for you and your family. Once you understand how these simple words can change your generations, you will hold on to the concept with two hand and never let go.

You are being conditioned to look at rate and payments all day long to keep you in debt. However, the rate you need to know is the rate at which you pay loans. Refinancing is a tool that gets you out of debt. Imaging a 200-year loan, you might be able to pay it off in 1-year – what? Because each month after you pay the structured payment, every dime you can pay interest-free, is 100% going to the loan balance. Why is it important to pay the difference monthly? Because you still have to live your life.

When you refinance your mortgage to a lower 30-year interest rate, with the knowledge of the monthly cost of a 15-year loan, you still have the same income, but now only one large debt. When you quality for a new mortgage the rate is never so high that you cannot make the payments. You have money on hand to pay an addition principal-only payment each month to your mortgage (preferable, the difference between the 30- and 15-year rate, tax refunds, rebates, any extra money). When you refinance, the original debt is paid off. By incorporating all your outstanding debts into the new mortgage, your student loans, vehicle notes, and credit cards are paid off. If you are a first time home buyer, you should try to put all your debts into the new mortgage. This can become a new trend.

Can understanding these tools help build generational wealth? Change your culture? Change the narrative in your community? If you are able to pay off your mortgage in 5 to 10 years, what can this mean for the rest of your life?

We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

11/05/2022

Hope you had a productive and successful week.

With interest rates rising, some people will be looking to refinance their homes, sell then buy a cheaper house, restructuring student loans, car notes and credit card balances. Before you do that, educate yourself about the structure of these loans. How are they generated? What are the details?

I would suggest you take to the internet and look for a document called "Settlement Disclosure Statement." Download several versions of this document. Analyze it with pen and a marker. Read it out loud line by line. Then when you are ready for a loan, ask the lender for this document to review, before your sign on the dotted line.

We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

The picture is a sample from the internet

11/03/2022

How are you leveraging your debt to retirement? How do you verify the information you are following is reducing your debt?

The true method of reducing any debt is to aggressively repay the money borrowed. The interest will automatically reduce, because it is calculated on a daily basis, on the outstanding balance. Therefore, the money you are not paying to interest is paying down your balance. This works for all debt from a small credit card balance to a mortgage. The key however, is to see what you are doing. That starts with a simple budget. See my 2020 interest activity on my credit card, pictured.

We are here to support you at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

10/29/2022

Hope you had a wonderful week.

Too many people are living in poverty by their actions. The interest rate you get with the debt is not the interest affecting your credit. It is the interest rate you pay back the money owed. The best way to attack any debt is to consolidate all debts into one (including your mortgage) and aggressively attack the debt per paycheck (not per month). The worst is to pay each debt - minimum payments - one at a time. To verify, multiply a previous year’s monthly interest percent paid by 12 to see the real
annual percentage rate (APR) you paid for the year, and compare it to the interest on your statement.

You can see from my 2021 credit card activity (pictured), the true effect of my payments on the interest. I use my credit card for all expenses, because credit is built by using credit.

We have created some simple tools to assist in debt management and credit repairs. For support, reach us at https://www.guidinglightmsc.org

Address

Brooklyn, NY

Telephone

+16469723049

Website

https://guidinglightmsc.org/

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