MoneyWisdom Blog

There are two sides to the engagement coin: it’s a time full of love & joy, and it’s also a time full of stress and to-do lists. Not only are there literally hundreds of decisions to make, nearly all of them come with a cost. Some couples even opt to take out a personal loan to fund the wedding of their dreams.

Bluetooth technology, which has been around since 1989, has experienced explosive growth in use over the past decade due to the combination of lower-priced hardware hitting the market and innovations in power consumption and range, thanks to products like Apple’s AirPods.  Legislation in many states restricting use of cell phones while driving — including here in Massachusetts very soon — means that Bluetooth has become the de facto standard to listen to and communicate through cell phones.

When my son was 16, I made a decision that many of my friends with teenagers thought was a little "out there": I let him have his own credit card.

While you're shopping for the hottest tech and sweetest deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, fraudsters are shopping for something far more lucrative: your personal information, including your login ids and passwords for popular shopping sites, credit card details, security information, and other valuable bits of information they can use illegally. 

There’s a household item that you probably consult every day that can save you big bucks. It might be on your phone or your laptop, in your purse, or even hanging on your spare room wall. Sometimes it features inspirational sayings, trivia questions, or images of the Grand Canyon or a kitten tumbling with a piece of yarn.

I’m talking about a calendar.

Whether we rely on the old-fashioned paper version or an online iteration that can be edited and shared, we all have them. How else would we know when we have yet another meeting, or a family function that requires snack preparation beforehand, or even an all-too-rare evening that’s clear to Netflix and chill?

But we can — and should — consult them to make our days, weeks, and months more lucrative financially.

Here are some ways that, with a stroke of the pen or a click of a mouse, you can use your calendar to add some money to your life.

When an employee is struggling with an illness for an extended period of time, a strong human resources department will be prepared with regulations and guidelines for working with that employee during and after treatment. And that is a good thing. But on a more personal level, we often want to help in a more human way — person-to-person. The problem is knowing what we, as coworkers, can and should do.

Credit cards could use a good publicist. The media rarely reports about their positive attributes.

On the other hand, we read a lot about the dangers of credit card use and the debt they can rack up quickly. Fifty-five percent of Americans with credit cards carry debt on them. Racking up too much debt can drag you into a dangerous area that can harm and even cripple your financial situation.

But credit cards have plenty of value when you use them wisely. Here are five ways a credit card can be a smart move.

I found out awhile ago that a favorite password had been compromised in a data breach. Yes, I'm hanging in my head in shame because I know now that I shouldn't have a favorite password. But I did, and my punishment was a few hours of my time spent changing all of my passwords to reduce the risk of being hacked in the future. (If you're wondering why it's a bad idea to reuse passwords, it's because once a hacker knows a password, they'll use it to try to break into other accounts you own.)

Even when you practice good fiscal fitness, your credit score can suffer a knock-out. Sometimes the steps you think make financial sense can actually harm you, even if you pay your bills on time, keep your debt to reasonable levels, and make purchases that are responsible, not frivolous.

That’s all good stuff and goes a long way toward establishing a solid financial footing. But there are things you may be doing — often with the best of intentions — that you could hurt your credit score.  

Check out these five ways your actions could hurt your credit score.

If you're establishing direct deposit through your employer, ordering checks, or transferring money between financial institutions, you'll be asked to provide a routing number along with your personal account number to execute the transaction. 

A routing number is a 9-digit code identifying a financial institution, such as a credit union, bank, or investment firm. This number helps reduce confusion between financial institutions that may have similar names and allows money to flow between these institutions without glitches. Sometimes an institution may have more than one routing number depending on its size and the type of account (checking account vs. investment account, for example).