Pay Off Debt

When it comes to your financial health, your credit score plays a vital role. While most people understand that their credit score is the key to getting approved for a loan, not all realize that having a high credit score also improves their finances. This is because a high credit score can save you money. The higher your credit score, the lower the interest rate you will qualify for, thus saving you money over the […]

The thought of someone breaking into our house and stealing our prized possessions is a real fear that many people deal with. But most people don’t worry about their personal information getting stolen and having their credit ruined. The reality is, identity theft is growing and it needs to be taken seriously. As more and more people turn to the internet to do their banking, investing and shopping, and as more and more companies turn

Identity theft happens to people every day. The process of getting one’s identity back can be long, tiresome, and costly. For me, it was nerve-racking. In my case, my debit card was compromised. To this day, I still don’t know how they got my debit card number, but they did. Luckily I logged into my bank account online and noticed the charges. Without doing this, the only way I would have known is eventually finding

If you want to experience financial independence or live the life of your dreams, you are going to have to avoid going into debt. Put simply, when you are in debt, you are working for someone else. Every dollar you earn is done so to pay someone else to satisfy your debt. As a result, you can never reach your goal of financial independence when you are saddled with debt. The key then is to

Credit cards can be a wonderful and helpful tool but having one is like playing with fire. If you aren’t extremely careful about how and when you use it, you could end up spiraling deeper and deeper into debt, upsetting all of your plans for the future. So make sure you manage your credit cards responsibly so that you can take charge of your debt. This article will give you 5 proven strategies for ensuring

If you are one of the thousands of recent college graduates you could be facing a mountain of student loan debt that you have no idea how to pay off. A decision on how to get rid of your student loans should be made before you graduate but if you are like most college seniors, thinking about paying off student loan debt is the furthest thing from your mind. But once you graduate, reality sets

I’ve been a Discover card holder since 2002. It has always been a good credit card for me, but never was my “go-to” card for my purchases. In 2012, Discover decided that it wanted to become more of a “go-to” card for many consumers. As a result of this, they eliminated all of their offerings at the time and began to only offer the Discover it™ Card. You read that right, while all other credit

Today’s post comes from Alex. He blogs over at Mutilate The Mortgage and is giving away a few free gifts just for Money Smart Guides readers. Head over to www.MutilateTheMortgage.com to find out how to pay off your mortgage in under 10 years. From start to finish it took us 6 years and 177 days or just shy of 6.5 years to completely pay off our mortgage and it’s changed our lives. We’re not alone either… Started at $375k in Nov

Debt is bad. But some debt is good. I hear this all of the time. People arguing over the difference of good and bad debt. It gets really confusing because many times people will just use a blanket statement like “debt is bad”. Well if all debt is bad, how can there be something called good debt? And can debt be bad but good at the same time? I guess it can since we all

[UPDATE: Sadly, Ready For Zero is no longer. It’s a shame because it really was an amazing service and I know of many people who benefited and got out of debt thanks to them. If you are looking for an alternative, I highly recommend the app Pay Off Debt. It does cost $4.99 but it is more than worth the price. It uses the snowball method to pay off debt and motivates you to get