Finance Globe

If you fall behind on a debt, your creditor may extend an offer to settle the debt for less than the balance due. When you settle a debt, you pay only a portion of the balance due and the creditor cancels the rest of the debt. Settlement offers are typically only made on past due and charged-off accounts and on debt collections. If you’ve received a settlement offer from one of your creditors, here’s what you...

With the increased amount of data breaches comes an increased need to protect your identity from being stolen. Once a thief has your personal and financial information, they can use it to make unauthorized charges on your account, open accounts in your name, take over your current accounts and leave you to deal with the fallout. Fraud alerts have been a way to protect your identity for several years, but is a fraud alert enough? What...

Last month, I wrote an article on what Cryptocurrency is. Given the increased demand around Cryptocurrency, I wanted to write a brief overview of the technology behind Cryptocurrency, which is blockchain. Below is a high-level summary of what Blockchain is. Please feel free to post any follow up questions in the comment section below. As previously discussed in the Cryptocurrency article, in the language of cryptocurrency, a block is a record of new transactions (that could...

You may have seen in the news lately how the Federal Reserve has increased the federal funds rate target range. If not, it is important to know in their March 2018 meeting, the Federal Reserve decided to increase its federal funds rate target range by 0.25% to 1.5%-1.75%. While this may not seem like a large increase, it is important to know the increase could affect you in a lot of ways. It can have a...

The landscape of healthcare and healthcare costs are dramatically changing. Many companies are now offering high coverage plans and many are pushing high deductible plans to its employees to help keep costs down and put the “cost ownership” in the individual’s hands. Therefore, Health Savings Accounts or HSA, are becoming very popular. However, many people do not know exactly what they are and what kind of benefits come with Health Savings Accounts. Below is a high-level...

The credit cards you open when you’re just starting out or repairing your bad credit aren’t always the cream of the crop. Sometimes even when you have great credit, you opt for a credit card without knowing you can qualify for something better. It helps to shop around for a credit card to see if you can get better terms – better rewards, better interest rate, or lower fees. Here are a few ways to tell...

Whether or not you review your credit report every now and again is a personal decision. Some people are in the habit of doing so, while others don’t see the point. As a general rule of thumb, you should request and review your credit report at least once every 12 months. Here are some of the many reasons to do so: •    It doesn’t cost anything. You can request a free credit report once a year,...

The federal funds rate, set by Federal Reserve, is the basis for the interest rates set by most financial institutions. While the rate directly affects the interest rate that banks loan money to each other overnight, it also indirectly impacts the interest rates for many other types of financial products. If you're carrying a credit card balance, you could be affected. How Fed Rates and Credit Card Rates Are Related Most credit cards have a variable...

ATMs are a convenient way to get cash from your account and make other bank transactions without having to go inside a bank branch, It's especially convenient outside of business hours or during the bank's busiest hours. But, remember may non-bank ATM operators are in it to make a buck. If you’re not careful, you could end up spending a lot of money just from going to the ATM. Not paying attention to the ATM fee....

Do you have bad financial habits? Have you come to find that these are stopping you from reaching your goals? Are you ready to make a change for the better? Here’s the good thing: you aren’t the only person with bad financial habits. Most people have at least one habit that they want to eliminate as soon as possible. Here are a handful of bad financial habits that you don’t need in your life: •    Impulse...