credit cards
Popular posts in credit cards
Posted 12 weeks 2 days ago by Philip Brewer
Personal Finance
Did you travel overseas between 1996 and 2006? Or, did you charge anything on a credit or debit card in a foreign currency? If so, be sure to claim your share of a class action settlement over allegations that credit card companies conspired to set and conceal the fees they charged for foreign transactions.
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Posted 14 weeks 4 days ago by Anthony Marrone
Personal Finance
Every day I read about 60-70 personal finance/frugal living blogs. Through the help of many of our online friends, I have been fortunate enough to put my personal finance position into its proper perspective, and begin to take ownership of my financial decisions and decision-making. However, even after completing a total overhaul of my spending and budgeting, there are some financial pitfalls I cannot avoid.
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Posted 15 weeks 1 hour ago by Paul Michael
Personal Finance, Consumer Affairs
It was bound to happen. I just thought it would happen over here first. Today BECKY BARROW and JAMES CONEY of The Daily Mail broke the story that banking giant Egg, a household name in Britain, will block over 160,000 customers from using their credit cards. Is this a sign of things to come?
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Posted 16 weeks 1 day ago by Xin Lu
General Tips, Real Estate and Housing, Credit Cards, Consumer Affairs
The Federal Reserve just cut the interest rate by 0.75% between two official meetings! This is the largest cut since 1982 and it was like an adrenaline shot to the sagging stock markets. This move means different things for different people and for some consumers it is excellent news. How could these consumers take advantage of this event?
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Posted 23 weeks 1 day ago by Carrie Kirby
Consumer Affairs
Sometimes you have to ask 20 different people 20 different ways. It's usually worth it.
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Posted 26 weeks 3 days ago by Nora Dunn
Budgeting, Credit Cards
I charge absolutely everything to my credit card. Everything. Even $3 purchases if I can. Why, you ask, in a world where credit cards are "evil", would I do such a thing? Read on...
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Posted 26 weeks 4 days ago by Andrea Dickson
Lifestyle
Do you find it as difficult to talk to friends about money as I do? If you had friends that you believed were about to go into bankruptcy, would you do anything to try and stop them? Is it worth risking a friendship to discuss delicate matters like money?
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Posted 34 weeks 2 days ago by Philip Brewer
Personal Finance
I recommend carrying some actual cash money. When I do that, a lot of people say, "Why? Everyplace I go takes credit and debit cards." In fact, I know people who brag about spending no cash at all for weeks or months at a time. A no-cash life may be good for bragging points, but I suggest you carry some cash anyway.
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Posted 37 weeks 5 days ago by Paul Michael
Shopping, Consumer Affairs
I’d like to start this article by pointing out that Paypal is a fabulous resource and I use it often. I feel safe buying items, especially items on eBay, with my Paypal account. But over the past few months I’ve noticed that more places accept Paypal and I began to wonder…is this going to create a generation of impulse buyers?
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Posted 38 weeks 3 days ago by Philip Brewer
Personal Finance, Budgeting
Over and over again, in budgeting articles and even books on personal finance, I see sample budgets that include debt repayment as if it were an expense. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what debt is. Your debt repayment is not an expense, it's an internal transfer. The only part that's an expense is the interest. The rest of the money was spent some time in the past, when you incurred the debt.
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Posted 38 weeks 5 days ago by Nora Dunn
Credit Cards
Eliminating Debt Painlessly. Rarely do you see these words fit together in a neat little sentence. The very act of putting your hard earned money towards the stack of debts you've accrued is painful. The good news is you can snowball your progress against mounting debts if you do it the right way.
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In my last article about the dreaded junk mail, I showed you how to make some easy money from a ValPak coupon. Hopefully, a few of you have already taken advantage of that. Well, now it's time for the next stage of my anti junk mail campaign. This one is a lot of fun, and if enough of us do it the junk mailers will be out of pocket by many thousands of dollars.
Continue reading "Junk Mail revenge part 2 - It's WAR!"
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Posted 47 weeks 8 hours ago by Julie Rains
Credit Cards
The fine print on credit card offers is not terribly easy to understand, especially if you have not encountered all of the possible scenarios that generate interest charges and fees. For example, when I paid all but a tiny portion of my balance, the finance charge was calculated on all of my purchases during a given month rather than just on the balance over 30 days. It’s these nuances that drive me batty.
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Are you an impulse beauty shopper? Do you find yourself buying stuff in a desperate attempt to look and feel better, only to find yourself crushed under the weight of your credit card bills?
It doesn't have to be that way.
It's been said that luck favors the prepared. What that essentially means is, the prepared are merely better equipped to deal with life. And being prepared is the ultimate weapon in the battle against the impusle buy, especially those purchases pertaining to personal appearance.
Here are two problems and two solutions that I have come up with to help me save money and save my sanity when it comes to beauty.
Continue reading "Resisting the impulse beauty buy"
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"Learn from the mistakes of others, because you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself." (Anonymous)
I’ve asked my fellow bloggers here at Wise Bread to tell you about their worst financial mistakes (and have included mine). Hopefully, wherever you may be in your living-large journey, you can learn from us. After you've read our story, we want to hear yours! Tell us your worst financial mistake in the comments and be entered into a random drawing for a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate!
Continue reading "Our worst financial mistakes and what you can learn from them "
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Posted 49 weeks 1 day ago by Jessica Harp
Credit Cards
When’s the last time you saw the interest rate and fees on your credit card go
down? Yes, you read that right.
Down.
If you’re like most Americans, the likely answer to this question is never. Now, what if I told you that eliminating your fees and slashing your interest rate by five, ten or fifteen percent is as easy as picking up the phone and dialing the number on the back of the card? Yes, seriously! Just follow these two easy steps, and you’ll be on your way to lower credit card rates and more money in your pocket!
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Steve from Brooklyn used to work for a credit card issuer and he sent Wise Bread a great tip about the hidden dangers of reward cards:
I used to work for a large credit card issuer. One thing we found is that when our users upgraded from a standard bank-issued card (e.g. no rewards or points) to a rewards card (e.g. miles, hotel points, etc.), these same users also started charging a lot more to "non-essential" items e.g. Starbuck's, bookstore, dining out, entertainment, etc.
Continue reading "Insider's tip: how rewards credit cards end up costing you more"
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As a complement to Andrea’s article, here’s something else to make you sleep well at night. The average American has around 8 credit cards and is carrying roughly $9000 in credit card debt. If that’s not bad enough, the credit card companies are involved in what can only be described as a conspiracy to keep Americans in debt, permanently.
Continue reading "The Dirty Secrets of Credit Cards"
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Credit card companies are all kinds of evil. I know it, you know it. Now Congress knows it. Credit card companies do all kinds of nasty things (see below!) to take your hard-earned cash, so it's kind of nice to know that our government wants to do something about it.
Continue reading "Credit Card Companies Still Evil; Congress Surprised"
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Awesome, 10:45 and there's still one parking spot only a few buildings from mine. I do the parallel parking bit, grab my purse, lock the car, and start the quick walk to my apartment building. As I walk past our next-door building, a car stops in front of me, and the passenger steps out. Weird, he's talking to me. "OK, give me your purse."
Next thing I know I'm splayed out on my back like a dying cockroach on the curb -- except much wrigglier, and much, much louder.
Continue reading "How To Get Mugged"
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