Personal Finance

Staying out of debt is much more difficult than accumulating debt for many adults, especially when we have social media and innovative new forms of advertising pressuring us to spend, spend, spend on a near-daily basis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the current statistics on Americans and debt are pretty abysmal: 55% of Americans with credit card(s) have debt U.S. households added $26 billion in credit card debt during the last 3 months of 2018 alone Approximately 10% of Americans with credit cards have balances of $5,000 or higher The average APR on a credit card is 17.73% If you’re part of any of these stats and want to get out of debt as quickly as possible without abandoning all comforts and little … Read more

The following is a guest post by Dr. Ken Druck, an international authority on Courageous Living and author of the new book “Raising an Aging Parent: Guidelines for Families in the Second Half of Life.” If you’d like to contribute a guest post to Money Q&A, be sure to check out the site’s guest posting guidelines. In my work with families over the past 40 years, I’ve learned that conversations about sensitive subjects like money can be extremely difficult. Talking about money can be a source of great satisfaction and benefit or a source of terrible pain and conflict. The success of a conversation about money depends largely on whether family members approach one another with “bad faith” (i.e. distrust, … Read more

Ask most investing experts, and they’ll tell you that the best time to start building your portfolio was yesterday. The sooner you can begin putting money into stocks, securities, and other assets for your future, the quicker you can begin building returns on your investments that compound dramatically over time. Every year that you put your spare savings into your bank account is a year of wasted interest – that lost money can really build up over time. You need to be investing at a young age. Investing at a Young Age Unfortunately, a lot of younger people in their twenties assume that it’s impossible for them to start investing unless they have thousands of dollars to put away somewhere. … Read more

There are many dangers lurking on the internet, and the masterminds of the dark web spare no one when trying to find data and personal information that can be exploited in phishing scams. One of the most common threats is a phishing scam, a ploy in which a fraudster is fishing to gain access to your personal information.   Through fake emails or fake webs site that look like some of the more trusted companies like PayPal or eBay, they trap people in sharing their information. Most of the schemes will try to trick you into giving your user name and password so they can gain access to the account online. Once they have the information, they will commit identity … Read more

The cost of raising just a child nowadays could cost as much as a house (if not more) over the span of 18 years (not including college tuition!). This enormous price-tag has a lot of potential parents wary about starting a family, especially when they’re still paying off student loans, saving for a home and enjoying youthful hobbies like traveling while they still can. A recent survey of adults aged 20-45 years old found 43% of them waited longer to have children due to financial concerns, so you’re not alone in wanting to postpone having a family (or not have kids at all, which is another increasingly popular lifestyle option). If you truly want children in the near future but … Read more

Lime vs Bird Scooters – Which Scooter Is the Best? E-scooters are becoming just as popular as local bike sharing programs, though the unique nature of e-scooters has led some states and local governments to ban or restrict the use of e-scooters in their areas. Fortunately, the potential for positive environmental impacts (e.g., reduced traffic congestion in urban areas, lower CO2 emissions) has convinced more and more politicians to pass legislation allowing the use of e-scooters (and even relaxing stringent regulations on e-scooters, as we recently witnessed in California and Texas). If you live in one of the many cities/states where e-scooters are permitted, then how do you decide whether to use a Lime vs Bird e-scooter? There are other … Read more