A yellow road sign with the text "POT OF GOLD AHEAD" stands in front of a blue sky and rainbow background, evoking popular money myths.

5 Money Myths that Are Hurting Your Finances

If you’re struggling to balance your budget each month or just keep finding yourself on the verge of a financial crisis, it may be time to shift your perspective on how to manage money. Many of us are standing in our own way when it comes to managing money effectively because we have false beliefs […]

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A graduation cap sits atop a spread of hundred-dollar bills, symbolizing the burden of college expenses, next to a rolled diploma tied with a red ribbon.

5 Tips for Managing Your Child’s College Expenses

One of the important parts of financial planning involves dealing with your child’s current or future college expenses. Even though you want your child to avoid dealing with the stress of heavy student loans right out of college, you also don’t want to make too many sacrifices that would obliterate your own finances. Here are some

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A person in a graduation cap and gown holds and looks at a large pink piggy bank, contemplating student loan repayment.

3 Sources of Free or Low-Cost Help With Student Loans

Student loan repayments are increasingly taking a big financial toll on many U.S. households. Americans now owe $1.2 trillion in student loan debt, and the average college graduate from the Class of 2014 has about $33,000 in student loans. Unfortunately, more than one in eight outstanding student loans is currently in default, recent data released

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A woman with long black hair, wearing a yellow shirt, is smiling at the camera against a dark backdrop, likely capturing the moment she paid off her student loan.

Video: How Your Bankruptcy Will Impact Your Future Spouse’s Credit

A subscriber to AskTheMoneyCoach.com is getting married, but recently filed for bankruptcy. The person wants to know how her bankruptcy will impact her future spouse’s credit report. According to recent data from the American Bankruptcy Institute, there were 1.2 million personal bankruptcy filings in the United States in 2012. If it’s increasingly difficult for you to

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Are Your Student Loans the Reason You Can’t Find or Keep a Good Job?

A reader of AskTheMoneyCoach.com wrote me because she felt that her student loans were holding her back, and had become a big financial problem. As it turns out, her real money problem isn’t the higher education debt she has – it’s the chronic unemployment situation she’s endured. Economists say you are technically among the ranks

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A New Car Loan Application Form is seen with a pen and glasses placed on top of assorted charts and paperwork, detailing options for 72 month car loans.

Four Smart Alternatives to 72 Month Car Loans

I recently wrote about the pros and cons of taking on 72-month or 84-month car loans. If you read my previous article, you no doubt noticed that there were a lot more “cons” than “pros.” With all of these cons, it’s no wonder that some financial pros, like Clark Howard, say that you should just

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car loans

The Financial Pros and Cons of 72-Month or 84-Month Car Loans

If you’re in the market for a new car, chances are you want to keep your payments as low as possible, preferably under $500 a month. Car dealers know this, which is why 6 year or 72-month car loans are more popular than ever. Even 7 year or 84-month car loans – yes, some auto

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A red coin purse, secured with a thick silver chain and locked padlock, symbolizes security or restriction.

10 Horrible Business Practices That Make Me Shut My Purse

U.S. businesses are increasingly courting women customers. And it’s easy to see why. More and more women are taking an active role in managing their family’s finances, and 44% of all females in America are the primary breadwinners in their households, according to a 2014-2015 study from Prudential. Perhaps that why salespeople, business owners and

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Best Credit Card

Will Credit Counseling Hurt My Credit Rating?

Q: Hello Ms. Khalfani-Cox. Is it better to work with a debt management company and pay off a lot of creditors every month over a long period of time (I would be paying off the full amount of the debt… not settling (debt settlement)). Or is it best to contact each creditor who has reported me to the

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Stack of newspapers with headlines about financial topics such as retirement planning, investment protection, increased cost of living, and debt reduction.

The Shocking Threat to Your Retirement: It’s Not What You Think

What’s the biggest threat to your future retirement security? If you guessed the disappearance of Social Security, getting downsized in the years before you’d planned to retire, or even losing a bundle in the stock market, you’d be wrong on all counts. The biggest hazard to your financial stability in retirement is something you’ve probably

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