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When you are living in challenging circumstances, every small victory counts. The fact that most people who buy lottery tickets have less employment income than they need to make ends meet surprises no one who has ever lived paycheck to paycheck. Winning a free lottery ticket is worth the price of the original ticket, if…

In the corners of the Internet dedicated to the debt-free lifestyle, people will tell you that you should never borrow money under any circumstances. People who manage to do this are relying in part on good luck. Who can own a house without taking out a mortgage loan?  Only people who inherited houses from relatives…

Reading the news can fill you with dread, and most Internet content is designed to play on your insecurities, even if they are of a personal nature, but you can also count on the Internet to find evidence that there are other people out there who are even more hopeless than you are. According to…

It is infuriating when old people give you outdated financial advice that makes it sound like your financial problems are all your fault. They tell you that you are wasting money by paying rent instead of a mortgage, but they do not have a plan for how you can qualify for a mortgage and get…

If you have accessed the Internet at any time in the past decade, you have probably found content about how people your age do not understand the financial struggles that young people are facing, and that you and your peers are unfairly blaming the young generation for their dismal financial situation. Now think about the…

Californians have plenty of reasons to have a sunny demeanor, and not just because of the weather. California offers more paid medical leave than most other states, and in many California cities, it is easy to get from home to work on your bicycle or public transportation. Despite this, there is no escaping the fact…

It often takes a year or more for new business ventures to be more profitable. You might spend your first round of startup funding on business costs but then need to borrow more to keep it going. You are in good company if your New Year’s resolution is to start a business, but you do…

Family law attorneys advertise Divorce Monday, the first business Monday of the year, when unhappily married people act on their New Year’s resolutions and file for divorce from their spouses; the courts receive more divorce filings on Divorce Monday than on any other day of the year. Although bankruptcy lawyers do not advertise Bankruptcy Monday,…

Finances are in Bad Shape You have big plans for overhauling your finances in the new year. You have been disciplined about spending for as long as you can remember, but despite cutting out all unnecessary spending in order to put every possible penny toward debt repayment, your debt balances stubbornly stay the same, or…

What is so great about low-interest loans, anyway? You still have to repay them, and the longer the repayment term, the more interest you pay over time. Isn’t a low-interest loan just another debt? Debt consolidation loans and other types of personal loans with low interest rates seem more appealing once you find out more…

Most people choose to finance the purchase of a car not because they want to impress people with a flashy ride they cannot afford but rather as a practical financial decision. With the amount of money that is sitting in your bank account, the most you can afford to pay full price for a car…

It seems like everyone makes resolutions to improve their finances in the New Year, but it makes a lot more sense to get a head start. You can reduce holiday stress if you adopt the attitude that being disciplined about your finances is an ongoing process and not a cold turkey diet that begins X…

When people talk about education as an investment, they mean that students devote their time and money to pursuing university degrees so that, when they graduate, they will be qualified for well-paying jobs. Statistics consistently show that people with university degrees earn more in the course of a lifetime than those without university degrees. Once…

One of the goals of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is to tell corporations to pick on someone their own size. Too often, abusive debt collection and lending practices result in individuals paying a substantial portion of their income to debt repayment. Once you factor in sky-high interest rates and miscellaneous fees, people often…

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Brings Relief Employed People Everyone has the right to file for bankruptcy protection if they cannot afford to pay their debts, but not everyone will get a substantial amount of debt relief out of it, and not everyone is eligible to file under every section of the bankruptcy code. Chapter 13 bankruptcy…