The recent announcement from American Express that it will raise interest rates for more than 1 million cardholders has a lot of people asking questions, like how this change will affect them or whether or not this could be the start of an industry-wide trend. It’s been a while since credit card issuers were in… Read More

If you have student loan debt, you’ve probably noticed that your loans have a language all their own – and the last thing you want to do is spend your free time learning it. The good news is that you don’t need to be fluent in loan lingo in order to navigate the world of education debt… Read More

In early December 2014 I went to the doctor for a twinge. Fifty-six days, two surgeries and countless tests later I’ve been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. I could recount for you all the co-pay and medication costs, but let’s talk about all the things I bought that insurance doesn’t come close to covering: $99 –… Read More

When a widespread data breach happens, children are often the most at risk for identity theft. Their clean credit histories make them targets for identity thieves to steal information and open new lines of credit. After the Anthem data breach, millions of children in the U.S. had their personal information exposed, making them vulnerable to… Read More

Mobile alerts from your credit card issuer can do much more than alert you to possible fraud. You can use that information to help you improve your credit. First, a word about how credit scores work. The two biggest factors are paying on time (35%) and the amount of credit you use relative to your… Read More

Last year, Apple captured the imagination of technology enthusiasts and credit card users alike when it introduced its Apple Pay mobile payments system. No longer would credit card users need to carry around a bulging wallet filled with myriad credit cards — their smartphones could simply be waived in front of a payment terminal. That payment process has… Read More

Ivory, one of our readers, bought a car at a dealership and drove it home. Fifteen days later, she received a letter saying that the loan had been denied. Here’s her story: Me and my mom were approved for an auto loan on 1/27 we signed all the paperwork even got the car payment bank… Read More

Filing your taxes should trigger a feeling of relief — it’s a huge thing you get to scratch off your to-do list — but millions of taxpayers have submitted their taxes only to have a very unpleasant experience: that their Social Security number has already been used in a tax filing. Most people discover this… Read More

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance asked me about my job, and upon hearing that I write about budgets and credit cards (and such), she had something she wanted to share. She doesn’t like to pay her credit card bills on time, she told me, because it makes her nervous to see her bank balance… Read More

Another calendar quarter has passed and the latest edition of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Report on Household Debt and Credit is on the wire. As usual, there’s plenty of news to pick apart. Take, for example, the reported $117 billion increase in average household debt in the final three months of 2014…. Read More