How Not To Bust Your Holiday Budget

The holiday shopping season is in full swing. The malls are packed with eager shoppers. Offers and promotions are coming from clothing stores, electronics retailers and other shopping sites. They’re probably flooding your inbox, and your physical mailbox is getting overloaded with catalogs from shops you haven’t bought anything from in years, if ever. If…

How To Get By In An Emergency: Personal Loan Or Credit Card?

Unexpected expenses, by nature, can come out of nowhere. Your check engine light comes on, and your car demands you put another thousand dollars into keeping it on the road. That cough that just won’t go away turns out to be more serious than you thought. Your air conditioner gives up during the longest heatwave…

Whose Fault Is Fraud? The Complicated Reality Of Debit Card Transactions

When you use your debit card, you visibly see an actual interaction between three people. You tell a merchant you would like to buy something. That merchant tells your credit union to pay out some of your money. Your credit union asks you to authorize the transaction. If something goes wrong in that process, it…

Skip-a-Payment: Free Cash Flow With A Summertime Break From Your Loan Payment

Q: Summer always puts a big strain on my budget. There are so many extra expenses! I’ve been looking for a way to get through these months without racking up a huge credit card bill, and one option I’m considering is skip-a-payment. What do I need to know about this program? A: Summertime brings loads…

Financial Self Defense: How to Respond to “Can You Hear Me?”

“Can you hear me now?” is the once-popular tagline of Verizon commercials, but it’s also the headline of a new scam. Scammers making robocalls will ask some innocuous question. Once the targeted person says “yes,” a recording is made of the response and it is used to sign up the target for unwanted, expensive services….