Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Risky Strategies for Repaying Credit Card Debt
A credit card is a fair-weather friend. It feels great when you have available credit, and you can swipe the plastic whenever you feel like it, and then pay only a small fraction of your balance at the end of the billing cycle. Although the process is gradual, if your financial situation and your… Read More »
Which Debts Can You Let Pile Up?
The old generation makes it sound like it is so easy to stay afloat financially and keep your debts under control. Skip your morning Starbucks run, they said, as if you had ever indulged in a daily breakfast at a chain coffee shop. Monetize your hobby to supplement the income you get from your… Read More »
What’s So Great About an Awesome Credit Score?
If it is any consolation, people whose financial situation is beyond your wildest dreams probably spend as much time wishing they had more money as you do. Money does not buy freedom from stress about money. “Enough” is in the eye of the beholder, and realizing this is the first step to gratitude and… Read More »
The Art and Science of Juggling Multiple Debts
If you are making long-term plans for your finances, it either means that you have enough financial stability to make realistic predictions about your finances, or it means that you have a wild imagination. Dreams don’t cost anything, so if you are too poor to afford a deck of Uno cards but you still… Read More »
Interruption of SNAP Benefits Sends Families Into Crisis Mode
Even the people who never run out of things to complain about when things are going well ought to be astonished by the vast array of bad news that has come our way in 2025. As if things could not get worse, the federal government shutdown has gone on so long that there is… Read More »
What If Student Loan Policy Changes Have Tanked Your Credit Score?
The COVID-19 pandemic brought plenty of uncertainty, but for student loan borrowers, the pause of student loan payments was a source of temporary relief. If you borrowed money to attend college, then as soon as the guests had left your graduation party, the worries about repaying your student loans set in. Even though student… Read More »
South Florida Stands Strong Against Food Insecurity
Following the news is always nerve-wracking; it has been ever since notifications began bombarding the smartphones in our pockets every time something terrible happened, every time a celebrity reacted to a terrible event in the recent or distant past, and every time a journalist speculated that something terrible might happen in the future. Floridians… Read More »
Common Misconceptions About Credit Card Debt
Acknowledging your own mistakes is the first step to solving many problems, but your debt balances do not seem to budge despite all your humility and self-awareness. We all know someone who keeps running into the same problems repeatedly because the person has not figured out that he or she is the source of… Read More »
How to Find a Loan Without Wrecking Your Credit Score
Applying for a job, getting an interview, and then going to work and getting a paycheck is a wonderful experience. The same can be said for going on a first date, getting to know your dating partner on subsequent dates, and then meeting each other’s friends and family, getting married, and forming a family… Read More »
Florida and the Affordable Care Act Crisis
Florida’s location, a skinny peninsula dangling off the southeastern corner of the continental United States, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, makes it an easy target for disaster and also a meaningful point by which to take the nation’s pulse. At least one hurricane makes landfall in Florida each year. Florida… Read More »