Author Archives: Jay Butchko
The Many Faces of Disillusionomics
Everyone has an opinion about Generation Z, but Americans born between 1998 and 2010 are not a monolith. It is difficult to generalize about what today’s young adults and older teens do, even though plenty of old fogeys try to do this, but it is easier to generalize about what they do not do…. Read More »
Meet the Parents Shielding Their Children From Financial Dystopia
The sound of your creaky bones and the sight of your gray hair and your wrinkly face are a bummer, but it is easy to count the ways that you have it easier than today’s young people. If your children are in their 20s, you are probably painfully aware of the financial struggles that… Read More »
Your Debt Problems Aren’t Just Money Dysmorphia
There’s a new diagnosis going around on social media, and its name is money dysmorphia. Its main symptom is feeling like everyone else is rich. Like so many other dysmorphias out there, the media make it worse. For example, you have probably heard the frequently cited statistic that most Americans whose annual household income… Read More »
Can Tracking Your Spending Help You Get Out of Debt?
There is an app for everything these days, but what most of them have in common is that their main goal is to get you to continue to engage, and therefore to get you to continue paying the subscription fees, rather than to help you achieve the goal with which they promise to help… Read More »
Relief From the Subscription Trap?
How many subscriptions do you have? You probably have more than you realize. The big ones are for services that you use frequently, like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and YouTube Premium, but if you look carefully at your bank statement, the list of subscriptions probably goes on and on. So many websites and software applications… Read More »
Mortgage Loan Modification
Home mortgage loans are supposed to be a long-term arrangement, for better or for worse. On the one hand, homeownership is the hallmark of financial stability, even for homeowners who don’t have enough cash savings to pay the sticker price on a house in one single transaction, which is most homebuyers. On the other… Read More »
Payday Rituals Can Help You Reflect on Your Finances
The leadup to payday feels like an exhausting uphill climb, even in flat Florida. You watch every penny; you hope your car will make it to work on the morning of payday without running out of gas. For most of the pay period, you have been putting just a quarter tank of gas in… Read More »
Choose Buy Now Pay Later Plans Wisely
As with so many aspects of personal finance, the popular media narrative on buy now pay later (BNPL) tends to oversimplify the situation. BNPL payment plans are popular because they are convenient and offer low interest or no interest plans, often with no credit checks. Because there are fewer barriers to enrolling in BNPL… Read More »
The Medical Debt Avalanche of 2026
Everything is so expensive these days that any bill can be a source of stress. People tend to focus their anxiety on the bills that, in recent memory, were noticeably cheaper. If you were in the workforce before the COVID-19 pandemic, then it is hard not to take offense at the price of a… Read More »
Parent PLUS Borrowers Have a Limited Time to Get Debt Relief
The student debt apocalypse has arrived. With less grant funding available for students, enrollments are decreasing, as students of all ages are reaching the conclusion that they cannot afford tuition for postsecondary education, especially at four-year universities. For some families, though, college education is the gateway to a meaningful career and the hallmark of… Read More »