Are you ready to tackle a home improvement project this year? If so, you have plenty of company. According to the latest LightStream Home Improvement Survey, 58% of Americans are ready to pour money into home improvement projects in 2018. The percentage of homeowners planning projects is close to 2017’s 59% value, but homeowners are
Borrowing
America’s economy is improving by most standards – but is it improving on the backs of excessive debt?
According to the New York Federal Reserve, total household debt reached a new high of $13.15 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2017. While the majority of household debt is mortgage debt, consumer credit rose by the
By Kelly Hartog
It’s been more than seven months since the credit reporting agency Equifax revealed in September 2017 that 143 million Americans’ personal data – including Social Security numbers, addresses and birthdates – had been accessed. Several weeks later, they announced that number was actually 145.5 million.
Even though the data breach occurred between
Your credit score may not be good enough to allow you to qualify for a home at a reasonable interest rate, but can a less-than-stellar credit score also keep you from finding a good place to rent?
“Credit scores aren’t just about mortgages,” says Rod Griffin, Director of Public Education at the credit bureau Experian.
When your identity is stolen, you have so many potential issues to deal with — changing passwords, closing accounts, dealing with fraudulent charges, and placing fraud alerts with the credit bureaus — that you may forget about potential tax fraud. Armed with your personal information, identity thieves can file a fraudulent tax return in your
By Eric Olsen Executive Director, HELPS Nonprofit Law Firm
According to the Kaiser Foundation, almost half (21 million) of American seniors have incomes below 200% of the poverty line. Many have debt they can’t afford to pay. When debt is not paid, collectors call, send demand letters, and sometimes file a lawsuit. Being served legal
Why do you even bother signing your credit card receipts? Nobody ever looks at it. You could write your name, Donald J. Trump, Samuel L. Jackson, or Bullwinkle J. Moose and nobody would care – would they?
Theoretically, your signature does matter. That signature indicates a binding contract for the purchase. A seller could choose
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That’s sound advice for almost all aspects of life, including the search for mortgage relief services.
Distressed homeowners don’t have to resort to third-party mortgage services. Free counseling is available at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD programs such as the
By Roshni Chowdhry, innovation & product development lead at SafetyNet
The idea of being rich appeals to most of us. What’s not to like about a world where your only money trouble is how to spend it? Plus, in a world where money is plentiful, you’re free to do all kinds of exciting things most
If you are a lending institution that loses money on the loans that you make, it’s an understatement to say that changes are required. Unfortunately, that’s the upcoming position of the federal government with respect to student loans.
While student loan debt has spiraled upward to top $1.4 trillion, the government’s return on that investment
Help the Renters, Too For years, cities have struggled to help lower-income Americans find affordable housing. Many housing assistance programs approach this problem through making home mortgages more affordable. However, a new test program in Montana addresses an underserved area of the housing market – affordable rental homes – by making loans to help people
Are you counting on your tax refund to pay off bills? You may need the cash before your refund arrives.
The IRS website states that typical refunds take less than 21 calendar days if you e-filed your return. However, if you are claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or the Additional Child Tax Credit
According to Collegedata.com, the average annual cost of tuition and fees for the 2017-2018 school year was $9,970 at an average public college for in-state residents. Out-of-state collegians paid an average of $25,620, while those attending private colleges saw average bills of $34,740.
Throw in a typical $10,000-$12,000 for housing and meals, another $1,200 for
Soft Heart, Hard Choices If you lend your credit card to a friend in financial need, trying to be helpful, there’s a decent chance that you’ll end up with increased debt – and possibly an ex-friend.
A recent survey by CreditCards.com found that 49% of Americans that have owned a credit card at any time
Policymakers have been struggling to identify ways to deal with America’s staggering student loan debt. As of January 2018, Student Loan Hero estimated total outstanding student loan debt at $1.48 trillion, affecting 44 million Americans. Thanks to this debt burden, young Americans are having difficulty achieving typical financial milestones such as home ownership.
Here’s
The news seems to be filled with stories about hackers and identity theft these days, and rightly so. According to the Identity Fraud Study released by Javelin Strategy & Research, there were 16.7 million victims of identity theft in 2017, racking up a total of $17 billion in damages. Identity fraudsters successfully netted 1.3 million
What’s the best way to pay down credit card debt? LaTisha Styles, Millennial Finance Expert and Founder of Financial Success Media, LLC, outlines two popular strategies.
“In the first way,” says Styles, “you pay off the debts with the smallest balance. That’s how you get quick wins.” This is known as the “snowball” method, because
The Equivalent of Debtors’ Prison Is there such a thing as a modern-day debtors’ prison? Not literally, as
debtors’ prisons were outlawed by Congress in 1833. However, a recent ACLU
report on the criminalization of private debt points out that some private debt
collectors are creating the equivalent of debtors’ prison via the courts.
The
Excessive Borrowing – Bad for Countries As Well As People? If you continue to run a balance on your credit card every month, eventually your overspending will catch up with you. Collective interest charges will send you into a debt spiral – where you can’t even pay off the accrued interest, much less the debt
America’s student loan debt may be approaching a critical point with respect to repayment. According to Student Loan Hero, the total student loan debt has reached $1.48 trillion spread across 44.2 million Americans, and the latest release from the U.S. Department of Education in September of 2017 shows that default rates are climbing. According to
Given all the data breaches and hacks these days, it’s best to assume that your personal data has already been exposed and is in the hands of criminals – either preparing to sell your data to other criminals or planning to use it themselves. However, there’s more to good identity hygiene than just protecting your
Do you ever feel like you are drowning in debt? Have you ever considered simply not paying your debts? What’s the worst that can happen if you refused to pay them back?
Unless you owe that debt to the “unregulated” end of the high-risk loan market, nobody named Vito is going to show up and
Super Bowl LII (52 to you non-Romans) will take place at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday, February 4. We could have had the Jacksonville Jaguars in their first Super Bowl appearance facing the Minnesota Vikings as the first team to ever play a Super Bowl in their home stadium – but neither team
Thanks to large-scale hacks such as the Equifax and Yahoo breaches, identity thieves have no shortage of information to use in their criminal pursuits. Is your information among them?
“Identity theft can trash your credit score because there’s the risk that somebody takes your name, your Social Security number, and your solid credit rating, goes
In the wake of the housing crisis, it became significantly harder to get a jumbo mortgage due to the risk factors involved. Jumbo mortgages have been making a comeback since then, but they now face a different style of threat – disincentives for high-end homeownership created by the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Western Union has served as a reliable method for rapidly sending money over long distances since the late 1800s. Once known for telegraphs, it currently offers services to more than 200 countries across the globe. Unfortunately, Western Union is frequently used by scammers, thanks to convenience, speed, and limited means of recovery for fraudulent transactions.
What do you do when your credit card just doesn’t meet your needs anymore? Perhaps you have an airline or hotel rewards program that isn’t relevant anymore, you are paying annual fees that aren’t worth the benefits you receive, or you now qualify for a card with a better interest rate.
If you are in
Santa was not so kind to your friends and relatives this year, so you felt the need to fill the gap. You overspent on holiday gifts, and now you are stuck with a significant amount of holiday debt. Gratitude from gift recipients is a great feeling, but gratitude is not going to pay off your
Are you preparing to enter the housing market in 2018? Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, 2018 is likely to be a year of both challenges and opportunities. Our crystal ball is just as cloudy as everyone else’s these days, but based on recent trends and events, we can make a few predictions for
How often are you asked at a retail outlet if you have a store credit card, and if not, whether you would like to apply for one and put today’s purchase on that card? These cards are examples of “instant approval” credit cards — cards that are approved or denied within a matter of minutes
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