By Shannon Christman
What I am about to say may be shocking to some in financially responsible circles: I use my credit cards more and more each year. Now, to make a disclaimer, I have never been tempted to rack up credit card debt and have only once failed to pay off the balance in […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
Since I landed my first job at age 15, I have been with the same bank. It is a credit union open only to residents of Washington State and I love the perks it gives us. When my husband and I got married, we decided to go with my bank for […]

By Jennifer Derrick
I have always spread my money around in multiple accounts. I use multiple checking, savings, and investment accounts, all marked for different purposes. Some are at the same institution, but I also use several different banks, depending on my needs. When I started making money years ago, spreading it around was simply the […]

By Cortni Marrazzo
I never pay any of our bills. Neither does my husband. But they get paid. Every month and on time.
Now I’m not advocating ignoring your bills and racking up a ton of debt. That would be stupid and begging for bankruptcy. What I am advocating is never physically […]

As the US becomes more and more a cashless society, is it really necessary to have cash at all? In many instances, there may be no reason, but one time that cash is king is when there is an emergency where normal outlets that dispense cash are not available and credit systems may be offline […]

By J. Alan Maguire
For the first day of kindergarten, I walked in to my daughter’s classroom and at each child’s place at the table lay 3 pennies. These were fake pennies, but as our kindergarten information packet stated, they were worth something.
Every day, the children get three pennies, which they put in designated […]

Loans and credit cards provide great consumer benefits, but as with any form of borrowed money, you’ve got to be careful about how you manage credit. Here are tips for saving money on credit products - in your basic financial affairs, when shopping for new credit, and when using loans and credit cards.
1. Pay your […]

One way to reduce the amount you pay in credit card interest is to do a balance transfer switching your high interest credit card rate for a much lower rate, often times 0% for a certain number of months. The problem is that it’s often difficult to tell what all the fine print means when […]

Sometimes finances go beyond your own and involve the finances of good friends or family members. When the finances aren’t yours, but those close to you, how do you help those that are obviously having trouble keeping their finances under control? This was a question that was raised in the forums:
Over the Memorial holiday my […]

By Wixx, special contributing writer
I am sure that I am not the only person who did not bid on your auction because of one of these reasons. That means that you may now be relisting your item, or selling it for a lot less than what you could have. The following is a rant. […]