MONEY MANAGEMENT
ARTICLES

Money Management
Understanding Your Income and Expenses

To create an accurate budget, you must understand your income and expenses. Many people think they know how much they are spending month-to-month on various ...

Money Management
Monthly Credit Card Management

Effectively managing credit card debt can often be difficult, primarily due to the temptation of readily available credit. However, with careful monitoring of your monthly credit card ...

Money Management
Types of Savings Goals

Where do you start when it comes to saving money? Many people recognize the need to put money aside, but they have many ideas on what to save for – how do you know ...

Money Management
Bump-Up CDs vs. Step-Up CDs

The main attraction of a certificate of deposit (CD) is its fixed interest rate. Opening a CD in a bank or credit union allows you to lock in an interest rate ...

Money Management
How a Smart Home Can Save You Money

Smart homes have become increasingly popular due to their convenience, comfort, and security benefits. However, one of the most significant advantages ...

Money Management
Safe Practices for Mobile Banking

Although mobile banking is relatively new technologically, its popularity has skyrocketed. Offering a convenient way for people to access their bank accounts and perform ...

Money Management
What Is Social Commerce?

If you've been on social media and scrolled through your various feeds, you have most likely seen social commerce at work. Social commerce is when brands advertise and ...

Money Management
Using a Sinking Fund to Save

Hearing the name "sinking fund" may give you the wrong idea, mainly if you've never heard of one before. A sinking fund differs from a savings account because money ...

Money Management
How Inflation Impacts Your Finances

Inflation has made its impact in the past couple of months. If you've noticed an increased cost of goods and services, that's due to inflation. While inflation is natural ...

Money Management
Dealing With High Gas Prices

Gas prices have been surging in 2021/2022 due to inflation and supply-chain issues related to the pandemic. Then, more recently, the war in Ukraine has ...

Money Management
Measuring the Cost of Living

Understanding the cost of living in an area can help you determine the amount of money necessary to cover basic living expenses. It can also describe the amount ...

Money Management
Calculating Your Disposable Income

Disposable income is a consumer finance term used to describe your income after the deduction of taxes. It is a significant indicator of personal wealth ...

Money Management
Financial Basics for Service Members

In the military, you can use available resources to help prepare for your future. As far as saving money, you have various tools to help you build and secure your ...

Money Management
How Peer Pressure Can Destroy Your Finances

As many adults do, you likely have set some long-term goals for your money. Whether it is building or maintaining a six-month emergency fund, ...

Money Management
Building an Emergency Fund One Step at a Time

Emergency funds are critical to helping you get out of tight financial situations. Not having one — or having one that is inadequate, can ...

Money Management
Saving Money While on Vacation

Vacation. It is a magical time for friends, couples, and families to relax, unwind, and connect with others rather than ...

Money Management
The 50/30/20 Budget Rule

The book, "All Your Worth – The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan" explains the 50/30/20 budget rule ...

Money Management
Are You Eating Away At Your Paycheck?

According to the USDA, 30 to 40 percent of food produced and purchased in the United States is thrown away each year ...

Money Management
Maximize Your Car's Trade-In Value

Many things impact a car’s resale or trade-in value. Learning to maximize your car’s trade-in value gives you more buying power for the purchase of your next vehicle and ...

Money Management
Shopping Strategies for Holiday Deals

Shopping for the holidays isn’t just stressful. It can be quite expensive if you don’t have a strategy in place for managing your money and getting more ...

Money Management
25 (Almost) Pain-Free Budget Cuts You Can Make

Creating a budget and learning to live within certain limitations does not have to feel like walking across hot coals barefoot. It’s true! There are things you ...

Money Management
Dealing with Dynamic Pricing

We all like to think of ourselves as savvy shoppers who do what it takes to get great deals on the things we buy. However, the things you do not know ...

Money Management
Budgeting on Irregular Income

An irregular income presents unique challenges when it comes to budgeting. However, it does not effectively make budgeting impossible. When done ...

Money Management
Staying Frugal without Becoming Cheap

It is possible to pinch pennies without anyone being the wiser. We live in a world where people are continually judging everything they see us do or buy when ...

Money Management
Avoid These Car Leasing Mistakes

Leasing a car is a great way to continue driving a new vehicle with the latest comfort, safety, and connectivity features. However, you have to be smart when ...

Money Management
Repair or Replace it?

In today’s ever-increasingly disposable society, it is not always easy to know what items you might want to try repairing instead of just replacing it. More importantly ...

Money Management
What Do You Need in Your Wallet?

We live in a time where people can access a surprising and alarming amount of information about our personal and financial lives with only a few critical details about ...

Money Management
A Financial "To-Do List" When You Move

Moving is one of life's most stressful events. What with organizing your belongings and packing them up ...

Money Management
What to do with a Financial Windfall

Sudden financial windfalls come in many forms. Some people have no idea they are in the works or how to deal with them. Putting the money aside until ...

Money Management
Saving on Back-to-School

Between supplies, books, clothing and other back-to-school items, beginning a new school year can be hard on ...

Money Management
Standards for Tipping

Tipping is a familiar dilemma, but one that leaves many people unsure about whom to tip and how much ...

Money Management
Savings vs. Money Market Accounts

Some financial decisions are harder than others. Should you apply for a 15-year or 30-year ...

Money Management
Building a Rainy Day Savings Fund

If you lost your job tomorrow, would you have enough money to pay your bills without running up credit card debt? ...

Money Management
Putting Money in a CD Account

Looking for a safe place to invest your dollars, an investment vehicle with a guaranteed rate of return? ...

Money Management
Using a Debit Card

Trying to cut down on your credit-card bills? Don't like to carry around large sums of cash? Then a debit card ...

Money Management
Little Cuts to Save You Money

Tired of scrambling to pay your bills each month? The problem might not be that you make too little income ...

Money Management
The True Cost of Buying on Credit

There's a reason so many consumers are struggling today with sky-high credit card bills. U.S. consumers are addicted to plastic ...

Money Management
Budgeting a Savings Plan

You know you need to save more money, but it seems impossible. After all, you are barely paying your bills now ...

Money Management
The Best Time to Buy

You may be the most frugal person in your family. You might even be the most frugal resident of your city. However ...

Money Management
Why Budgets Fail

You finally committed to making a household budget, listing your monthly expenses and revenue streams. However ...

Money Management
Popular Budgeting Methods

You know that setting up a household budget is something that you need to do. Doing so can help you ...

Money Management
Smart Ways to Spend Your Tax Refund

When tax time rolls around, you are likely waiting for that tax refund to come in, or maybe you already received it. Chances are ...

Money Management
Debit or Credit Card?

The convenience of plastic, whether in the form of debit or credit cards, is hard to beat. They both offer advantages, yet have significantly ...

Money Management
Are You Maximizing Your 'Cash Back'?

Cash back is an incentive that many credit card companies offer to encourage the loyal and consistent use of their cards. For some consumers ...

Money Management
Is it Time to Use CDs for Investing Again?

Once again, CD rates are back on the rise, leaving people who have decided against them in the past to reconsider ...

Money Management
Are Paper Checks Still Relevant?

While there is an argument that paper checks are no longer relevant or useful, they are still in use, primarily by ...

Money Management
Are There Leaks in Your Finances?

Sometimes, when it comes to your budget, it can be too easy to overlook the small "money leaks" that negatively ...

Money Management
Exchange Rate Basics

it is often necessary to exchange your American dollars for the local currency. When you trade currency in one form for currency ...

Money Management
Saving Big by Buying Used

Secondhand stores are flourishing. According to The Association of Resale Professionals, where retailers only see ...

Money Management
What is a Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is one of those words that is slowly trickling into our everyday vocabulary ...