The Idea Vault blog
Filter on: Idea Vault Regional Pulse News & Press Releases Webinar Clear Filter
Income and Expenses¶
Sources of Income In most cases, income comes from salary or wages, government benefits (such as Social Security), and investment income. Income can be variable, it changes, which is one of the reasons that budgets are not set in stone. Earnings in particular frequently change: most people expect…
Continue Reading
The Upside to Frugality¶
Money is Not Linear Frugality is typically thought of in straightforward, or linear, terms— x plus y equals z. If you skip a daily $5 takeout coffee, you’ll save $35 a week, $150 a month or $1,800 a year. Using that same thought process, if you cut your monthly spending in half, your income will la…
Continue Reading
When things go terribly wrong: Fraud¶
You’ve budgeted, saved, gotten (or stayed) out of debt and are starting to see results. And then the unthinkable happens: Someone gains access to your accounts and starts taking your money.How does it happen and what can you do about it?There are a lot of ways that fraudsters can gain access to you…
Continue Reading
Credit. Debit. Two very different ways to spend money.¶
“Credit or debit?” We hear these words all the time when making purchases. What’s the difference and why does it matter? We have so many ways to spend money today – with the flick of our wrist, our watches can be used at grocery stores and elsewhere to make speedy purchases. But how do these transa…
Continue Reading
The Interesting World of Interest¶
APY or APR? Compound or Simple?Understanding banking terms that describe interest can be confusing, but interest plays an important role in determining which products will help you reach your financial goals, so it worth looking at more closely.What is Interest?Interest is “the interest percent tha…
Continue Reading
Save Better in 2020¶
What are you saving for?A vacation?A house?A car?College?Retirement?As we discussed last week, 78% of us live paycheck-to-paycheck and 26% of us have fewer than $1,000 saved, which means many of us aren’t saving at all (at least not regularly) and most of us have more in debt than we have savings.1…
Continue ReadingStart the New Year Off Better¶
What’s your New Year’s resolution?Exercise more?Eat healthier?Learn something new?How about…take control of your finances?Saving money is a leading New Year’s Resolutions each year – it’s clearly important to us! So, over the course of the next few weeks, we will be exploring key elements of fin…
Continue ReadingEmail Compromise: the $26 Billion Scam!¶
Suspicious email exampleThis week we are going to shine the light on email account compromise (EAC) and resulting fraud losses. It’s also been called the “business email compromise (BEC)” or the “CEO wire scam”, but it happens just as frequently to personal email accounts. Non-profit organizations…
Continue ReadingSocial Engineering¶
Welcome to our new blog series, The Idea Vault, where you’ll hear from ARB subject matter experts on a variety of topics to educate you on all things banking! We thought we’d launch the series with a few weekly posts on cybersecurity in honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness month.This week, we…
Continue ReadingAmerican Riviera Bank Small Business Administration Loans¶
Obtaining the financing you need for your new business venture is certainly a key part of starting your business and realizing your dream. You may also need funds to buy an existing business that you plan to modernize and make your own. In each case, a United States Small Business Administration (S…
Continue Reading