Recent Blog Posts
Pet Store Loans Are Predatory Lending At Its Worst
In certain parts of South Florida, you are never fully dressed without a Labradoodle strutting by your side or a miniature schnauzer in your bicycle basket. Of all the expensive status symbols you see on display, the pedigreed dogs are the ones that it is hardest for frugal and status-unconscious curmudgeons to hold a… Read More »
When To Borrow A Personal Loan And When Not To Borrow One
If you are in debt, and almost everyone is, you probably open your mailbox every day to find it full of advertisements for personal loans. Don’t be so quick to fall for those loan offers that flood your mailbox, though. Some of them are outright scams, despite recent regulatory efforts to stop false advertising… Read More »
How Bad Is It That Credit Card Balances Are 15 Percent Higher Than Last Year?
“Pay off your credit card balance in full every month” ranks highly among the most naïve pieces of financial advice most of us have ever heard, right up there with, “If you bring coffee from home instead of stopping at Starbucks on the way to work, soon you will have saved enough money for… Read More »
Old Year’s Resolutions Can Help You Save Money On Taxes
The time to panic about being able to afford holiday celebrations comes and goes quickly; soon it will be Divorce Monday, the first business Monday of the year. Even if you are single or if you and your spouse are committed to honoring your vow to stay together for better or worse, the transition… Read More »
How To Avoid An Unaffordable Car Payment
When friends from obscenely expensive cities like New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. visit you in South Florida, they might admire the apparently simple life we lead here in the Sunshine State, but they are not seeing the whole picture. In the urban centers and inner suburbs of the nation’s wealthiest metropolitan areas,… Read More »
Have Your Debt Problems Reached Crisis Levels?
Before you set your financial goals for the new year, it is time for some debt triage. Paying your debt down to zero by 2024 is an appropriate New Year’s resolution for someone who is new to debt, but you have been trying to pay down your debts since 1993, and they only keep… Read More »
Predatory Lending Is Not Just About High Interest Rates
The first thing that comes to mind when most consumers think of predatory lending is payday loans, since those loans have astronomically high interest rates, and they typically advertise to consumers who have no other access to credit; many borrowers of payday loans do not even have bank accounts, and qualifying for a credit… Read More »
How To Stay Out Of Trouble With Buy Now Pay Later
Buy now pay later (BNPL) entered the popular lexicon at around the same time as social distancing and Zoom fatigue, but it is not a new concept. If you are old enough that you ever had to watch episodes of a comedy or drama series on television instead of bingeing it on Netflix or… Read More »
Discharging Tax Debts In Bankruptcy Is Easier Than You Might Expect
One of the best things about filing for bankruptcy is that you get to tell your creditors to get lost. Medical bills, credit card debts, and unsecured personal loans that have been making you miserable for years disappear a few months after you file for chapter 7 bankruptcy or a few years after a… Read More »
When Is It Worthwhile To Spend Money To Get Out Of A Debt Trap?
Most people’s debt problems are simply the result of life not being fair. Prices are high for almost all consumer goods, so full-time work barely yields enough to cover necessities for a household where all members are employed, much less one that includes children who are too young for paid employment. Most people who… Read More »