A new report confirms what we all fear to be true: Americans, no matter their age, are generally terrible at managing their money. In short, we all need to save more. A lot more. This insight comes from Financial Finesse, a think tank geared toward helping people reach financial independence and security, in its 2015 generational… Read More

A reader, Emily, wrote to us after being turned down for an apartment because of a previous eviction for her husband — only he’d never been evicted. Instead, she thinks his records may have been confused with his father’s. Here’s her story: My husband and I tried getting an apartment last month and they denied… Read More

Even if you haven’t yet entered the working world, you can probably assume you will want to retire and some point. While most Americans have similar goals for a debt-free, affordable post-working life, you might not realize how much work (outside the office) it takes to get there. You probably are not saving enough, or… Read More

It’s the privacy version of a “man bites dog” story. During a year widely acknowledged as the worst in data leak history, when perhaps 1 billion records were stolen by hackers, the number of identity theft victims fell. And the amount of money stolen by identity criminals plummeted — at least according to Javelin Strategy and… Read More

It’s one thing to knowingly make decisions that hurt your credit score. We’ve all been there, and sometimes tough decisions must be made. But it’s an entirely different situation to accidentally wreck your credit. In some cases, we make decisions without realizing the impact on our credit. In other cases we may know that certain… Read More

Phones are one of the few things people keep close by at nearly all times, and there are millions of people and companies using that to their advantage, including criminals. Phone calls are increasingly the most common way fraudsters contact potential victims — more than email or other online scams combined — according to a… Read More

Q. I am wondering if dropping an additional user from my credit card account will impact the credit score of that additional user. I have my daughters as authorized users of my account from the days when they were in college — over five years ago. Now they are married, living independently and have careers… Read More

Do you look forward to tax time? For some, it’s exciting because you know you’ll get a refund. It’s found money, like that $20 bill you find in the pocket of a coat you haven’t worn in a long time. But what to do with found money? Usually our thoughts go to all the cool… Read More

Costco on Monday announced agreements with Citi and Visa to replace American Express as the exclusive co-branded credit card issuer and credit card network in its U.S. warehouse stores. The 16-year-old relationship between Costco and American Express expires March 31, 2016, so shoppers won’t begin to experience the effect of this change until next year. At… Read More

TransUnion, one of the three major credit reporting agencies, has made several changes in the last few years to the credit reports it provides consumers, in addition to developing a new credit score to help lenders better evaluate potential borrowers. If you’ve requested your TransUnion credit report recently (you get free credit reports every year… Read More