You’ve overspent during past holiday seasons, but you’re determined not to let it happen this year. What’s your plan to prevent painful post-holiday bills? A study from Elevate’s Center for the New Middle Class (CNMC) may be able to help.
The study focused on holiday spending behavior and how it varies depending on credit scores.
Budgeting
MoneyTips Do you like the idea of good deals but not the idea of standing outside the mall in a three-point stance waiting for the doors to open for pre-dawn Black Friday savings? Then Cyber Monday, which will be held on December 2nd, 2019 — the Monday following the Thanksgiving holiday — is for you.
What brightens up your holiday shopping season? You may prefer a quiet Christmas season at home, large family gatherings at the home of the relative who drew the short straw, or hand-to-hand combat on Black Friday at the mall. However, everyone agrees that saving money on Christmas shopping gives the holiday an extra layer of
Thanksgiving is a time to relax and enjoy a nice dinner with your loved ones. You don’t want to spend it stressing over the Thanksgiving budget; you want to spend it having an enjoyable day with friends and relatives, and relaxing on the couch with a tryptophan-induced nap.
Try these tips to save dollars on
Imagine an online offer for a restaurant chain that is so tempting it sells out in one second. That actually happened with the return of the Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Pass.
The original Never Ending Pasta Pass in 2014 was so popular that it crashed Olive Garden’s website, and the passes sold out within
Does your family celebrate Amazon Prime Day? Over half of Amazon customers are estimated to be members of Amazon Prime, a staggering figure. Prime Day 2018 was the biggest shopping day of the year, exceeding even Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with 89 million visitors logging on and over 100 million products sold. Prime Day
Mistakes are part of the human condition; it’s impossible to avoid them 100% of the time. But financial mistakes are in a class all their own — they tend to have a snowball effect and get worse over time. A seemingly small money mistake in your twenties can have outsized consequences in your thirties, forties,
Do as I say, not as I do. Do you ever fall into that trap? New research from Debt.com suggests that you might have that attitude when it comes to budgets.
Debt.com recently surveyed the budgeting habits and attitudes of Americans and found a wide discrepancy in following through on budgeting beliefs. A huge majority
Never mind what’s in your wallet – what’s in your savings account?
A savings account is your buffer against unexpected expenses. Without sufficient savings, you’ll probably rely on credit to handle financial setbacks – exposing you to interest charges at best and a potential debt spiral at worst.
According to a new study from ValuePenguin,
What will you do with your tax refund? We hope you have something fun in mind, but a new survey suggests that you might use it to pay bills instead.
The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) recently released baseline survey results for their U.S. Financial Health Pulse, a study designed to assess and track
Valentine’s Day may be one of the few times per year that you go out and buy fresh flowers, but that is no excuse for rookie mistakes. The gift of flowers is a reminder that you are thinking of someone and February 14 is an excellent opportunity to send this message. Make that gesture count
Did Santa bring you more gift cards this holiday season? Do you have a pile of partially used gift cards with small remaining balances? You can redeem them as part of a larger balance, but if you don’t regularly shop at that merchant, that may not be practical.
Many consumers forget about partially
By Andrea Woroch
There’s nothing more rewarding than starting your own business. Opening the front door of a shop for the first time, launching a new product or watching your problem-solving solution take flight can be life altering. However, regardless of your business idea or efficiency of execution, there’s one certainty – it won’t be
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
Does your wallet take a bigger hit during the holiday season? If so, you aren’t alone. According to a recent study by LendingTree, more consumers fall behind on their bills in December than in any other month.
LendingTree reviewed anonymized credit report data from October 2017 through September 2018 and broke down the percentages of
Many people are reconsidering their budget to prevent holiday overspending over the next few months. If you are one of these people, good for you – but why stop there? This is a great time to look further ahead and tackle your 2019 budget.
Lay out your calendar, spreadsheet, or whatever method you use and
The holidays are upon us. For those of us feeling a financial pinch, this can be a time of stress and worry rather than one of happiness and caring. We hope that this article will remind you how to do more with less and how to stick to a budget for gift-giving. As for the
You want to throw a holiday party but simply cannot afford to spend big bucks in the process. The holidays are full of expenses already without dropping hundreds or even thousands of dollars on festivities. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to cut down on holiday party costs and still create a great atmosphere. Consider
Black Friday arrives on Friday, November 23. Do you plan to join the frenzied early sales with hundreds of your fellow consumers, scour the Internet for online bargains as soon as you’ve digested your Thanksgiving turkey, or wait until the first shopping wave dies down and take your chances a little later in the day?
It may be annoying to see Christmas displays in stores before Halloween, but that does not mean that early shopping for Christmas presents is a bad idea. On the contrary — there are several advantages to doing your holiday shopping before the holiday “sales” start popping up. You can save money without having to fight
To some of us, Halloween is an enjoyable time to dress up our children and/or ourselves, carve scary pumpkins, decorate our home with spooky effects, gorge on treats, and spend the next morning jogging off a candy binge. To others, it is a time to figure out how much candy they need to have on
Are smart appliances and systems making you feel like you are being outwitted by your home? They shouldn’t. In many cases, it is just a matter of investing the time to read through the manual and understand the capabilities of the system.
For standard appliances like refrigerators, ovens, or TVs, if you do not educate
By Roshni Chowdhry, head of customer experience at SafetyNet
Of the 17 million Americans currently enrolled in college, 74 percent qualify as what we used to call “nontraditional” students:
One in five is 30 years or older.
About half don’t rely on their parents for money.
One quarter are caring for a
By Stephanie Braun, Director of Auto Product Management at Esurance
Companies have collected data on their customers for decades. It allows them to offer more tailored services and products, and provide more relevant messaging. The reason data collection has gotten so much press lately is because it’s reached unprecedented levels. Already, we create 2.5 quintillion
Did the money gremlins sneak into your bank account and drain it again? Surely, the problem cannot be that you spent too much! There must be some other reason….
Perhaps it is time to get a handle on your spending. If you do not track your spending, you cannot distinguish between gremlins and your own
How much discretionary income do you have left after you’ve paid the monthly bills? Would that change if you were a homeowner instead of a renter, or vice versa?
PropertyShark and RENTCafé considered this question with a study of 52 urban areas. Using data from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor, discretionary
Have you ever lied for financial gain? The odds are strong that you’ve done it at least once. According to a new study from finder.com, almost 4 out of 5 Americans have admitted to lying for some type of financial gain – and many don’t feel guilty about their lies.
Over 2,000 U.S. adults
Are you planning to retire within the next 10 to 15 years?If so, are you ready to take retirement preparedness to the next level?
Retirement is no longer an abstract concept when you reach your 50s. It’s important to take a closer look at your financial plans now, while you have time to make any
Do you have enough cash to handle an unexpected emergency expense? According to a new survey from Bankrate.com, a significant number of Americans don’t have an emergency savings fund – and don’t see the lack of one as a problem.
Bankrate found that almost one in four respondents has no emergency fund at all, and
Your kids are growing up fast. Soon, it will be time to have … the talk.
No, not that one. We’re referring to the talk about responsible use of credit. If you don’t drive home the importance of good credit practices while your children are young, they’re more likely to learn about credit the hard