Personal Finance Institute

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., March 21, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In 2022, US merchants paid a record $160.70 billion in processing fees to accept $10.589...

Everyone knows you need to save. Settling on an appropriate amount to save, where to put the cash and how to get there in the first place are harder nuts to crack. One option is to consult old saws, such as putting away three-to-six months’ worth of essential expenses in a high-yield savings acc

A perfect 850 credit score may earn you bragging rights, but not much else, says credit card expert.

The biggest news in the insurance industry this year has more to do with climate change than anything else. Extreme weather, be it heat and fires or storms and flooding, are taking a toll on insurers. In turn their customers are seeing coverage become more expensive, if they can find it at all. Things are getting dire in states like Florida, California, Colorado, Louisiana and even Iowa as many key insurance companies are pulling out of the market.

With climate change leading to increasingly large property damage claims, homeowners will bear the brunt of rising costs to insure their houses.

U.S. household savings rose and fell at unprecedented rates since the onset of the pandemic recession. Updated estimates suggest that only a small fraction of accumulated excess savings remains in the aggregate economy and that those funds are likely to be depleted during the third quarter of 2023.

Millennials adopt the idea of “tangjin-jaem”—little purchases that are tiny battles for joy.

More Americans are carrying more credit card debt than ever, and the costs can be steep, according to new Bankrate data. Here's what you need to know.

A short history of consumer borrowing and credit card debt in America.

/PRNewswire/ -- Today, VantageScore released CreditGauge, a monthly analysis highlighting the overall health of U.S. consumer credit. The average VantageScore...

Plus a charted review of the macro crosscurrents 🔀

The challenges to managing credit this year has been the impact of increased interest rates on all types of borrowing, and the trend, especially for smaller retailers, to either charge a fee for using a credit card to cover the “swipe fees” the merchant pays, or offer a discount for cash. We will discuss the details behind this and the proposed legislation to deal with this situation.   Interest Rates In July, the FOMC raised its benchmark interest rate to 5-5.25%. What do higher interest rates mean for all of your credit vehicles?

Total household debt balances increased by $16 billion in the second quarter of 2023, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. This reflects a modest rise from the first quarter. Credit card balances saw the largest increase of all debt types—$45 billion—and now stand at $1.03 trillion, surpassing $1 trillion in nominal terms for the first time in the series history. After a sharp contraction in the first year of the pandemic, credit card balances have seen seven quarters of year-over-year growth. The second quarter of 2023 saw a brisk 16.2 percent increase from the previous year, continuing this strong trend. With credit card balances at historic highs, we consider how lending and repayment have evolved using the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), which is based on anonymized Equifax credit report data.

Virtual Business Personal Finance is an interactive, online business simulation that teaches high school students the fundamentals of personal finance and financial literacy.

Everyone has an anthem that guides and grounds them. Just like the financial guidance offered by Anthem Advisors.

Determine how much your money can grow using the power of compound interest.

Discover new car prices and used car values for any vehicle, current deals, MSRP, and CPO values.

Banks are being choosier about extending credit, and making it more expensive for households and businesses to get a loan.

On return on hassle and why you need to consider the time/work needed for an investment in addition to its expected return.

The FedNow introduction tops this year’s “What’s New” entries. Also included is a discussion of the proposed regulatory and policy changes following the SVB and other bank failures and the potential impacts on consumers. Finally, we will provide updated lists of best rates and updated data on how many people in the US are “unbanked.”   FedNow For a comprehensive discussion of the FedNow program, it is worth reading this speech given by Loretta Mester, President of the Cleveland Fed earlier this month to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The speech is the basis of the description below, and the figures included are from her presentation.

From not saving for retirement sooner to taking out too much in student loans, 3 in 4 Americans have a financial regret.

Drawing on a decade of data, our most comprehensive report yet, uncovering child care cost trends and cost-saving strategies for your child care needs.

Shares of Wall Street's most valuable companies were mixed on Friday ahead of a rebalance of the Nasdaq 100 index to address the benchmark's "overconcentration."

Gifting your children a solid start to their credit history opens up a world of financial opportunities and benefits. It not only increases their chances of getting approved for loans and credit cards, but it also means they will likely receive lower interest rates, saving them a significant amount of money over time. It takes credit to build credit, not a debit card, checking or savings account. To build credit as a minor, your child must be listed on a credit-related account like a credit card

Americans are increasingly getting shot down when they seek out loans, new data from the New York Fed, released Monday, said.

The majority of Americans say they're uncomfortable with their amount in savings — nearly 3 in 5 don’t have three months of expenses saved.

Families spend less on food today than any point in the past https://t.co/Nk9Vw6Jmmf pic.twitter.com/tFHVUTg3oU— Jeremy Horpedahl 🤷‍♂️ (@jmhorp) June 28, 2023