My Blog, Your Money

With the start of the new year, have you made any resolutions?  If you did, how are you doing on those?
If improving your credit is one of them, I suggest getting your credit report from annualcreditreport.com and then learning more about managing your credit at Credit Fairy.  There’s even some quizzes you can take at […]

[Read more →]

The widely used FICO score just got a little more transparent with the disclosure of “damage points,” negative point values assigned to undesirable credit actions.  What was most interesting to me is the fact that damage points for a particular action vary depending on the credit score with higher credit scores suffering greater declines.  Take […]

[Read more →]

If you carry balances on your credit cards, here’s a great article you should read: Clean Up Your Credit and Save $100,000.  It illustrates how by paying down your cards, the subsequent boost in your credit score will allow you to secure better rates on loans which could save you a significant amount of money.

[Read more →]

Yesterday, President Obama signed into law new legislation reforming credit card regulations.  Included in the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act are terms to make credit less accessible to college students, restrictions on interest rate hikes on existing balances, gift card protections, and enhanced disclosures (e.g. issuers are required to disclose the period of […]

[Read more →]

Last week, I wrote about the benefits of credit cards.  This week, I’d like to take a look at the flip side by listing (in no particular order):
My Top 5 Reasons to Not Use Credit Cards:
1. Increased spending- Credit cards make spending so easy that you’re more likely to spend more money.  When you use […]

[Read more →]

Let me start this post off by saying that I am a credit card fiend.  I use them as much as I can (even to buy packs of gum).  So I thought it would be good to share some of my thoughts on credit cards.  Without further ado, here are…
My Top 5 Reasons to Use […]

[Read more →]

Big news Tuesday: Fed cuts target for key rate to record low to a range between 0 and 0.25 percent.  This was more than the expected cut of half a percent and should definitely have some downstream effects for credit-crunched consumers.

[Read more →]

Most people have heard that they are entitled to free copies of their credit reports from the 3 national credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and Transunion.  All you have to do is visit annualcreditreport.com and you are entitled to receive one report every year from each agency at absolutely no charge to you.  For more […]

[Read more →]

You might have seen or heard ads about LifeLock, an identity theft prevention service, where CEO Todd Davis broadcasts his own Social Security Number. For those who are curious, it’s 457-55-5462. With such a bold marketing gimmmick practically taunting identity thieves to steal his identity, he must be pretty confident in the company’s service. So […]

[Read more →]