Guide to Organizing Your Finances

For most homeowners, your mortgage payment is by far your biggest monthly expense. So we think it’s completely justifiable to spend 60 seconds reviewing it. In fact, don’t be surprised if this brief exercise does wonders for your budget. Let’s take a look under the hood and see whether we can find you some savings.

Full Story

You’re so much more than just a number to us. Still, a lot of folks — from your lender to your landlord to your insurer to your employer — define your character by the three-digit score that reflects what’s in your credit file.

Full Story

Unless your idea of “streamlined” finances is having eight credit cards in your wallet (that’s about how many the average card-carrying U.S. citizen hauls around), you’ve probably considered canceling some of credit cards you don’t use often.

Full Story

You can throw the reminders in the Cuisinart or chuck them into a garbage can, but that won’t make the debt go away. Debt hovers like a carrion bird over a dying beast, with annual rates of 20% or more compounded monthly, month in and month out.

Full Story

About 1% of the population has perfect credit, meaning a FICO score of 850 on Fair Isaac Corp.’s scale of 300 to 850. How they earned those gold stars is no secret. A quick peek into their credit files reveals that these star pupils haven’t got any fancy tricks up their sleeves.

Full Story