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Reasons to Refinance¶
Lower Interest Rate One of the most powerful outcomes of refinancing a loan is a lower interest rate. Whether your credit score has improved since you originally took out the loan or simply because average rates have dropped, if a significantly lower rate is possible, it’s worth looking into. A low…
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When You Can't Afford Your Minimum Payments¶
Time For Action Though it may feel tempting to pretend like your loans or credit cards don’t exist, it’s unwise to hide from debt payments or avoid making them. Doing so makes it harder to get out from under the debt as interest, late fees, and penalties build up. The best thing to do is take actio…
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How to Manage Your Debt: Strategies and Tools¶
Types of Debt While being in debt is never ideal, some types of debt are better than others because of the effect the debt can have on you or your net worth. To reflect this, debt is sometimes broken up into “good debt” and “bad debt.” “Good Debt” is debt that is an investment back into yourself or…
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Best Practices for Using a Credit Card¶
The first step to best using a credit card is to get the right one. That means doing your research. You should consider your spending habits and priorities when it comes to rewards. Are you an avid traveler who wants to earn miles? Or maybe you’d rather just get cashback. If possible, it’s wise to…
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Credit Cards¶
A World of Options Not all credit cards are the same. With traditional credit cards, such as MasterCard, Discover, and Visa, you can charge up to a certain dollar amount, called your credit limit or spending limit. It’s generally between $500 and $10,000, depending on your credit history. You have…
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What a Car Loan Costs¶
The APR The APR (Annual Percentage Rate) is a percentage of the loan principal that you must pay to your credit union, bank, or other lender every year to finance the purchase of your car. This finance charge includes interest and any fees for arranging the loan. The charge gets added to the amount…
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Getting a Car¶
Used Buying a used car is appealing to many people. Used cars are less expensive up-front, and they have the added benefit of not depreciating instantly (more on that later). Because you're buying a used car and saving sometimes up to 25-30%, you can usually afford to buy a higher class of car than…
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Credit Scores¶
Sources of Data Credit scores are the result of a compilation of several different sources of data that are available in your credit report. That data falls into four distinct categories, which are listed in order of how much weight they usually have in informing your score: Payment historyAmounts…
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Interest¶
Rates When banks discuss interest rates for their savings accounts, they’ll tell you both the nominal rate and the annual percentage yield (APY). The nominal, or named rate, is the rate they pay. The APY is what you earn in a year expressed as a percentage of your principal. For example, if you dep…
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Using Credit¶
Paying it Back Let’s be clear right from the beginning: when you pay for something with credit, you’re still on the hook for that money. Often, you’ll have to pay back even more because of interest. The type of credit you use and the specifics of the agreement will determine how much interest you’l…
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