#financial-habits

#financial-habits

Using a credit card can help build better credit, earn rewards like frequent flyer miles, and take advantage of other benefits that debit cards do not offer.

Having said that, I refuse to believe there's a single person out there overpaying on rent who wouldn't be happier if they owned a house outright.

Debt eats at your ability to build wealth over time. It steals your hard-earned income and causes you not to be able to do things like invest, not to be able to do things like pay cash for emergencies.

The average American's FICO score is now down to 714 - a two point decline over the course of the last year, reflecting a troubling trend in credit health.

The agate type that used to fill newspapers' TRANSACTIONS boxes and for all I know still do can change everything - about your team, about the players within, about the course of your expectations and satisfaction as fan. While the Hot Stove barely simmers, Kyle Tucker rumors notwithstanding, I'd like to take this opportunity revisit a few picas worth of Mets transactions through time.

My goal was to only pay bills. I didn't want to buy anything extra, but I knew things always come up, like my son needing something for school. I told myself ahead of time that I could "break the freeze" for absolute necessities only. Over the 30 days, copays for doctor's appointments and prescription costs were the only unexpected purchases I made.

Looking back, it's easy to spot the moments where things could have gone differently. At the time, each financial decision felt justified, and sometimes even smart! Whether it was driven by optimism, pressure, or a belief that I could "figure it out later," I made choices that seemed reasonable in the moment but were costly over time. What surprised me most wasn't just the money lost, but how similar the underlying mistakes were.

Trina, a 38-year-old Florida resident, was drowning in $44,000 of debt on a $60,000 annual income. Her financial obligations spanned car loans, credit cards, and her son's private school tuition-a complex web of commitments that became more concerning when she revealed filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy just two years earlier. This recent bankruptcy suggested her struggles weren't isolated incidents but part of a recurring pattern of financial instability.

The past few years have done a number on a lot of people's savings. Between high levels of unemployment spurred by the pandemic and several years of rampant inflation, many folks have whittled down their cash reserves to practically nothing. An estimated 63% of U.S. workers did not have enough savings on hand to cover a $500 emergency expense, according to Fintech company SecureSave. That's kind of scary, though, because as a general rule, it's important to have a large enough emergency fund to cover at least three months of expenses.

Step away from those individual stocks. Forget I bonds and laddered portfolios of individual Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. If you're a satisficer, they're not for you. Reduce your number of accounts and the holdings within them.A portfolio with fewer moving parts is easier to oversee and simpler to document in case your loved ones or a financial advisor needs to take the wheel.