The Importance Of Having A Will And Estate Plan Many people still believe that an estate plan is reserved for those with millions and mansions. This could be part of the reason why just 42% of adults in the U.S. have estate planning documents in place, including wills and powers of attorney.
What Does It Mean To Invest For Retirement? What does it mean to invest for retirement? To save for your future so that you can enjoy a stress-free (and fun!) life once you're ready to stop working.
How To Open An IRA Or 401(k) To Save For Retirement If you already have a 401(k), IRA or other retirement account, congratulations! You’ve taken a huge step to securing tomorrow for “future you.” And, maybe you already know how important your 401(k) account is...
Retirement Accounts 101: The Basics On What You Need Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the menu in a diner? One that goes on and on for pages — offering you everything from breakfast to dinner, 24-hours of the day?
How To Get A Cheap Rental Car Odds are, you’ve been there. You plan a vacation—flights, accommodations and an itinerary–-then you go to book your on-the-road transportation only to find it's one of the most expensive parts of the trip.
Credit Card Debt: The Best Debt Repayment Methods Owning a credit card and using it to build credit and to rack up rewards like cash back and travel bonuses can be a wonderful thing. We often need credit cards to rent a car, stay in hotels, or do countless other things that afford us freedom and enjoyment in our lives.
How Mortgage Debt Impacts Your Credit Union You may not exactly love paying your mortgage every month, but chances are you appreciate the value of home ownership — particularly if after spending time as a renter (and worrying about annual rent increases) you were eager to start building equity in an asset.
Student Debt 101: How It Can Help You, How It Can Hurt you Student loans are a part of life for 43.5 million Americans — 13% of the population — to the tune of more than $1.75 trillion. There are countless reasons why. But the main one is that a college degree (or several!) is often the only pathway to pursuing our passions.
How Agile is Your Credit Union’s Compensation Strategy? The legacy organizations that are thriving in the Experience Age are those that have mastered strategic pivots. From reengineering conventional products to reconfiguring entire business models, the changes these winners are making are all in the name of relevancy with stakeholders.
How To Read A Credit Report If you don't know how to read a credit report or don’t know your credit score, raise your hand. First, the good news: you're not alone. According to a recent study from BadCredit.org, more than 30% of Americans have no idea what their credit score is.
How To Build Back Your Credit Score After Taking A Hit Have you ever forgotten to pay a bill, only to unexpectedly watch your credit take a hit? It stinks. And unfortunately, it can take years to recover from a simple mistake.
How To Save To Meet Your All Your Goals — Both Big And Small It’s no secret that money can be a source of stress — particularly when income is low and monthly bills are, well, higher. But what if the idea of trying to save something…anything…for the future is also a line item on your list?
How To “Trick” Yourself Into Saving More With inflation high and money tight for so many of us, there’s never been a better time to re-examine how we’re managing our finances and to make some moves to save more. Some 62% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and 13% of us are spending more than we earn.
How To Break Free From The Mental Blocks That Stop You From Saving Money We all want to save more. After all, who wouldn’t want to be the best money saver (and savviest investor) they possibly could? But the truth is that saving money is hard, and many — if not most — of us struggle with it.
How To Save Enough To Make Birthdays, Holidays, and Vacations Special We all know that it’s important to save money for bigger life goals, like retirement or a new home — but it’s also essential to save enough to celebrate life’s little joys along the way. Unfortunately, all that celebrating can get really expensive, really fast.
8 Ways To Spend Smartly If you struggle to make ends meet, you’re not alone. More than half of Americans — 58% — live paycheck-to-paycheck, according to data from CNBC. If you’re among them, don’t despair.
7 Ways To Shop Smarter Ever feel like you’ve been on an online spending spree but don’t know how to stop? What about those in-store impulse buys that always seem to catch your attention at the check-out?
Everything You Need To Know About Getting A Mortgage When you embark on the search for a new home, you may think you know the steps to take: Read the listings, visit some open houses, sign on with a Realtor, make an offer.
Personal Loans 101: What Are They? Are you looking for a way to cover a big expense in your life? If so, you may have wondered, what are personal loans…and can they help you meet the financial needs you’re facing?
Emergency Funds 101 No matter what financial hurdles you’ve faced in your life, you’ve probably found that these unexpected issues (like a job loss, an appliance that goes out, or a car that breaks down) all instill the importance of being prepared for the future.
How To Create A Budget Once you’ve decided it’s time to create a budget, or get back on track with an updated spending plan, you’ll have more than a few options to choose from.
Why You Need A Budget Let’s be honest. The majority of Americans — 60% — don’t know how much money they spend in a month. They also have little idea where their money goes.
The Best End-Of-Year Money Moves To Make As 2023 draws to a close, it’s time to get our financial lives in order for the New Year so we can kick-start 2024 with as little financial stress as possible — and set some money goals for ourselves that we can actually reach.
How to Handle Market Volatility If you're relatively new to the investing world, you may have heard of market volatility, but you may not have experienced it firsthand. After all, the markets have been incredibly calm — and incredibly good (2022 notwithstanding) — for many years.
Save on Taxes By "Batching" Your Charitable Donations You hear the word batch and you think — yep — cookies. At least we do. But, there’s another application of the word you should know. Why? Because it can save you money on your taxes.
