Recent Blog Posts
Debt Relief for Aspiring Retirees
Once you reach a certain age, people try to cheer you up about aging. You are only as old as you feel. 50 is the new 40. Life gets better as you get older. The truth is, though, that getting old these days is a different experience from what our parents lived through. The… Read More »
Autopay Can Make Your Debt Problems Worse
Even before productivity advice became ubiquitous on the Internet, you could buy books at FedEx Office, which was then known as Kinko’s, about how to be more productive. The authors, who presumably wrote the books quickly, productive as they are, would advise you to automate the tasks that you could automate. These days, it… Read More »
Does Debt Relief Work?
Your debts keep getting bigger, even as your income stagnates. You are in a bad enough financial situation that the old adage about earning more and spending less is no longer helpful. You already spend all your free time working, and all your money goes to housing, utilities, groceries, gas, childcare, and debt payments…. Read More »
Is Depending on Your Parents Financially More Expensive Than Borrowing?
The cheap shots about how young adults are in debt because they blow their entire paycheck on avocado toast and almond milk lattes are so out of date that one rarely hears them anymore. First, the working adults who joyfully blew their first paycheck on an extravagant brunch with their friends are no longer… Read More »
More Than Half of Americans Cannot Afford Necessities
On paper, it looks like the economy is doing great, but your lived experience tells you otherwise. You are not the only person who is struggling financially, even though the social media influencers and multilevel marketers who stand to make money off of your loneliness and insecurity would like you to think that you… Read More »
Student Loan Collections Represent a New Nightmare for Social Security Beneficiaries
Americans of all ages are staring down a long future of financial insecurity, and we did not get here overnight. Student loan payments may not be the biggest financial burden in terms of dollars and cents, but they are a pain point because of the unrealized dream that borrowing money for college would lead… Read More »
Beware of Dealership Cloning
On Memorial Day weekend, car dealerships turn up the charm and roll back prices as much as their budgets will allow. These days, cars are so expensive that, even if you trade in your old car and use the proceeds for a down payment on the new one, you will probably have to finance… Read More »
Brace Yourself for the Housing Assistance Cuts
You might not have noticed it amidst all the other cuts to federal programs that we took for granted, but the White House has proposed eliminating the Section 8 housing voucher program. In response, many cities have stopped accepting new applications for Section 8 housing vouchers. Eliminating Section 8 would not single handedly create… Read More »
How to Land on Your Feet After One Late Payment
This seems to happen every year. You start out the summer with big plans for being productive and frugal, but then a major expense comes out of nowhere and leaves you wondering how you will ever be able to make ends meet until the end of August, when there are five days per week… Read More »
How Bad Is It If You Only Make Minimum Payments on Your Credit Cards?
These days, you have to take good news where you can find it. If you have paid all of your bills this month, you should celebrate, even if your celebration cannot be anything that costs money, because by the time you have paid all your bills, your bank account balance is in the single… Read More »
