Responsible credit card use is a recipe for saving money, considering the lucrative rewards, 0 percent rates, and fraud protections that are available. The thing is, of all the words in that sentence, "responsible" is both the most important and the most likely to be ignored. We as...

It's no secret that the beginning and end of each year inevitably illicit a variety of different "Best" and "Worst" lists. Some -- like the Cutest Pets of 2012 -- are purely for entertainment purposes, while others validate a lifetime of work with a decidedly more serious tone,...

There are more than 16 million stay-at-home spouses in the United States, and they're currently in an unenviable position. Not only are they largely closed off from credit, but they've also found themselves embroiled in a debate that pits their consumer rights and well-being against the soundness of the nation's...

While it's not yet time to make New Year's resolutions, you're going to have to swear off procrastination and rethink your retail habits if you want to minimize the cost of holiday shopping. Well, sort of. It's important to avoid a type of retailer-issued financing known...

In this, the age of prodigious athlete contracts, staggering CEO bonuses, and runaway budget deficits, millions are tossed around on newscasts and in everyday conversation seemingly without care. The result: We've become desensitized to the true value of large amounts of money. You might therefore be inclined to brush aside...

The summer travel forecast is looking increasingly bright for U.S. consumers, despite the toll high gas prices have taken on our wallets. Nearly one in five people are planning to take more vacations this summer than last, according to a recent national survey conducted by Harris Interactive. As...

Regardless of what dumb old Punxsutawney Phil has to say on the matter, spring training camps are open, which indicates to me that spring is here. That, of course, means it's time to start planning summer vacations (especially if you have international destinations in mind) because simply hoping to find...

Learning something new, saving money, and lowering stress are among the 10 most commonly broken New Year's resolutions, according to Time. This need not be the case, however, and you can even get a jump on bringing these annual vows to fruition...

Watching movies like A Christmas Story or It's a Wonderful Life has become a holiday tradition for many families. If you're familiar with the latter, you know that getting in on the "ground floor" of the "plastics" industry is one of the many things on which George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart)...

It's like a rollercoaster that will not stop. The credit card debt pay down that comes in first fiscal quarter of each year is inevitably followed by a three-quarter stretch where these pay downs are systematically erased and new debt is often incurred. But why are things getting...

What if the best checking account wasn't a checking account at all? Seems crazy, but that's how things are looking as the October 1 implementation of the Federal Reserve's cap on interchange fees draws ever closer.

With the authority granted to it by the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank...

While it's truly a testament to the new credit card laws that the number of utterly unattractive credit card offers has diminished over the past couple of years, the fact of the matter is a few bad offers will always remain. Whether they have high fees, costly interest...

The momentum that had been building toward postponing the Federal Reserve's ability to set the debit card swipe fees that merchants pay to banks came to a grinding halt almost a week ago when a large-bank-led initiative fell six votes shy of passing through the Senate. Now that the Fed's...

So, what's the difference between business credit cards and regular consumer credit cards? This might at first seem like a stupid question, but think about it and try to come up with the answer. Is it that a business credit card is opened under a corporation's name and...

Anniversaries are always a time for reflection, reflection that lends itself particularly well to gauging progress. As February 22 marks the CARD Act's one-year anniversary, the time for reflection and evaluation of the law's effectiveness is upon us.

Has this sweeping piece of reformatory legislation increased transparency throughout the credit...

Ok, the holidays are over, and it's time to get back to business. A new year has arrived, and with it have come the promise of a fresh start and the desire to make this year better than the last. Perhaps you want to expand your business, go after another...

As the United States comes out of the Great Recession, we must critically examine the causes of this economic swoon and make adjustments in order to prevent such an event from ever occurring again. While it appears that many consumers have failed to do this--as indicated by the

If you have excellent credit, there's a good chance that you have a Visa Signature credit card, a World MasterCard credit card or an American Express charge card. If this is, indeed, the case, you might be in for one nasty surprise. Unbeknownst to many cardholders, these cards are actually...