Personal Finance

Articles on Money Q&A about personal finances and how it affects and interacts with your money and finances every day.

Why It’s A Mistake Teaching Financial Literacy In Schools

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Why It's A Mistake Teaching Financial Literacy In Schools

In 2015, a stringent new financial literacy law took effect in Oklahoma. It requires all high school students to pass a class on personal finance before they can graduate. Banking, taxes, investing, loans, insurance, and identity theft among other subjects will be part of the curriculum, and the teachers will have to certify that their students comprehend them all. Other states have followed suit over the past few years. A recent study analyzed 11,000 high school course catalogs and concluded only 1 in 6 high schoolers are currently required to take a personal finance course to graduate. But, are students really getting the critical life skills that help everyday adults avoid money problems such as budgeting, saving, investing, and even … Read more

How to Save Money on Your Electric Bill This Summer

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How to Save Money on Your Electric Bill This Summer

This past winter, I wrote about how you to save money on your electric bill this winter. But, now it is time to look at how to save money on your electric bill this summer. Come to find out, saving money in the summer is very similar to saving money on your electric bill in the winter as well. Saving money in the summer all comes down to keeping your cold air inside the house and not cooling down the entire neighborhood and also reducing the amount of air conditioning and electricity you are using in general. I routinely see my electric bill almost double during the summer after turning on my home’s air conditioning. There are several inexpensive and … Read more

Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals

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Cyber Smart

The following is a book excerpt from Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals by Bart McDonough. Bart McDonough is the CEO and Founder of Agio, a hybrid managed IT and cybersecurity services provider.  From Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals Copyright © 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.  Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc. William and Nancy Skog had cherry-picked an impeccable, perfect, river-front residence in Wilmington, Illinois. Exhilarated by the thought of moving into their dream home, the Skogs could practically see their new lives—watching the tranquil riverboats cruise by and listening to the water birds sing. There was one final … Read more

How to Get Cash Back On Credit Card

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Imagination is more important than knowledge but, if you give your credit card to a man in the early 19’s, he would just laugh in your face and walk off. Fast forward it to 1950 and Boom! America got its first credit card. Take a leap of 30 years, and you land up with the first reward program by American airlines. The point is, credit card has been with us for almost 70 years and yet we are not fully aware of its functionality. In our age where being frugal has become a necessity, the credit card should be the first to consider. Why? Coz, just take a peek at your wallet, how many credit cards do you see? At … Read more

Are You Aware of These Common Types of Credit Card Fraud?

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Can credit cards make you a millionaire?

Rather than wait until you’ve become a victim before you brush up on credit card frauds, it’s best that you keep yourself aware of the most recent and prevalent threats. That way, you can save yourself a lot of frustration, time, and money. An ounce of prevention is most certainly worth a pound of cure whenever there’s money (especially yours) involved. EMV Credit Card You’ve likely noticed that credit cards now come with chips to prevent the very type of fraud some fall prey to when getting a new chip card. What happens is scammers pretend they’re credit card issuers and email cardholders to tell them they need to update their personal information before receiving their new card. Cardholders respond … Read more

Top 5 Money Moves to Make Now in the New Year

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How To Actually Keep Your New Year's Resolutions

The end of the year is a time to reflect on only the previous year but also the new year to come. Now that we have all survived the year-end Apocalypse, the holiday season’s frenzy and the new year is upon us, now is the perfect time to not only take stock of where you want to go in the next year but also where you should take your finances as well. There are money moves to make now. The new year is an excellent time to look at your total financial picture and consider making changes to your strategy and money moves. There are several key financial aspects of your life that you should consider taking stock of in the … Read more