Money Tips Network

Investing and taxes are understandably confusing to many investors — many of us have big questions about how our investments impact our taxes.

The Internet is a wonderful thing:

It allows you to videochat with grandma in real time.

 
It gives you free access to the Library of Congress.

 
It empowers you to do financial transactions without visiting the bank.

However, it can also make you spend three hours watching...

A bad credit score can turn getting a much-needed loan into a big headache. Your credit score affects your interest rate and a bank’s perception of your ability to pay them back. Your loan may be capped at a lower amount to help the lender lessen its risk, and you may even have to offer more collateral to secure a loan.

Of course, some lenders who work with bad-credit borrowers are better than others. Getting the best loan with bad credit means finding a lender who is transparent about rates and fees, flexible on terms, and willing to view you as more than your credit score when deciding your rate and loan amount. It also means avoiding predatory lenders and common scams that can keep you trapped in a cycle of debt.

Frugal life skills: We all need them to get through the daily grind with less stress and fewer dollars flying out of our pockets. But what skills are essential to your everyday life for health, happiness, and saving money?

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup!

'Tis the season to be jolly, but instead I often find myself stressed when I realize I have no clue how much to tip my hairdresser. Or my housekeeper. Or my garbage collectors.

Whenever I see a typical gift idea list, I have two immediate frustrations.

One, the gifts on it are often expensive. If there’s someone out there I’m going to be spending $100 or more on for a gift, it’s very likely that I know that person well enough that I don’t have to be looking at a gift list for ideas. Gift lists are good for that last-minute person or for the person you don’t know that well, not for your spouse.

That leads to the second problem. Gift lists usually seem to be just tossed together, like someone literally went to Amazon and did a search for items in a certain category and made a list out of the top few results. I might like two or three of the items and then have no idea why some of the other ones were even on the list.

Start digging yourself out of debt with either the ‘debt snowball’ or ‘debt snowflake’ method. Photos: redjar / Andrew Magill

Being in buried debt and not knowing how to get out of it can be very overwhelming. Add to that the many strategies, methods, and tips for paying off debt, and you may be ready to quit before you’ve even started.

Not to worry though. There are two very popular, proven ways to pay off debt: the ‘debt snowball’ method and the ‘debt snowflake’ method. But what are the differences between them? And which one is best for you?

Below is a complete explanation of both types of debt repayment strategies so you can compare which method is right for your situation.

This article is by staff writer Kristin Wong.

For the past two years, the topic of women and money has come up in my life quite a bit. I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that I’m a woman who writes about money.

But as a woman who writes about personal finance, I feel have given the topic less attention than it deserves — not just in my writing, but in my own thoughts too. I suppose I figured personal finance is something that we all struggle with, not just women. But the more I learn, the more it hits home, and the more I realize we should embrace the topic so we can do something about it.