Monthly Archives: May 2026
The Downsides of Debt Settlement
Deciding to settle your debt directly with a creditor is an easy choice if your other option is filing for bankruptcy protection. A bankruptcy case is a legal dispute where you are a litigant; you only get the financial relief that the court awards you, and you must pay the filing fee without knowing… Read More »
Confronting the Financial Fallout of an Unanticipated Retirement
You can usually avoid the mantra, “You have a limited number of hours of your life to trade for dollars” by refraining from clicking on passive income bro content, but the thought that you will eventually be too old and sick to continuing chasing paychecks is disconcerting if the only way you will be… Read More »
Now Used Cars Are Unaffordable, Too
Seven-year car loans are nothing new. It is a seller’s market for new cars, and it has been since the days of the COVID lockdowns. The average sticker price for a new car in 2025 was $49,000, and most consumers paid the sticker price, because the demand for new cars exceeded the supply. Buying… Read More »
The Multigenerational Financial Crisis
In the 1990s, newspaper columnists used to knit their brows about the popularity of trash TV. Everyone from retirees to teens home for summer vacation to the unemployable would sit at home and watch daytime talk shows where people complained about their sordid problems, from co-parenting conflicts to disputes over children’s paternity, and they… Read More »
Beyond the 30 Percent Rule for Housing
Handy numerical benchmarks can help us get our bearings, but financial decisions are more individual than our favorite personal finance proverbs would have us believe. Yes, if you want to save for retirement, you should put five percent of your income into savings every month. Thanks, Uncle Moneybags, but I don’t make enough money… Read More »
Seven-Year Auto Loans Are Here to Stay
Car loans with a repayment term of seven years have become the new normal. Ten years ago, five years was the standard term of a car loan. Seven-year loans existed, but they were only for the foolhardiest or the most financially desperate people. The pandemic changed everything, when shortages drove up prices, so no… Read More »
Never Trust an AI Financial Adviser
Before we started applying it to the machines that do most of the heavy lifting in office work, the term “computer” referred to people who performed mathematical calculations. For example, the protagonists of the movie Hidden Figures worked as computers; their work consisted of solving mathematical equations to corroborate the answers that their coworkers… Read More »