Staff Writer
Bill Fay
Bill “No Pay” Fay has lived a meager financial existence his entire life. He started writing/bragging about it in 2012, helping birth Debt.org into existence as the site’s original “Frugal Man.” Prior to that, he spent more than 30 years covering the high finance world of college and professional sports for major publications, including the Associated Press, New York Times and Sports Illustrated. His interest in sports has waned some, but he is as passionate as ever about not reaching for his wallet.
Credit card ownership begins as a privilege — the ability to make purchases before providing the funds to pay for the purchases — but can quickly devolve into a web…
Being in debt can be an overwhelming and debilitating experience. But there are smart, proven ways to manage your debt and bring you back into sound financial health. Take the…
An internship is a temporary position that provides on-the-job training in a student’s major or career goal. The student generally works in professional settings while being supervised and monitored by…
Debt consolidation is a sensible solution for consumers overwhelmed by credit card debt. It can be done with or without a loan. Consolidation cuts costs by lowering the interest rate…
Choose Your Debt Amount Consolidate Debt in Minutes AVERAGE COST OF A WEDDING IN THE U.S. $0 AVERAGE COST OF A DIVORCE IN THE U.S. $0 AVERAGE CONSUMER DEBT PER…
Buying a house or a car? Taking out a loan? Select your 3-digit score to learn about how lenders see your credit score range and what you can do to…
Filing your taxes is an important civic duty and a vital part of keeping the country running smoothly. It’s something everyone has to do each year by April 15, but…
Every year, millions of parents pay to place their children in youth sports programs in hopes the child eventually will develop the skills need to earn a coveted athletic scholarship…
With the advent of social media and an increasingly digital society, job hunting today isn’t just about writing cover letters and filing out the usual template-style resumes. Modern-day job hunting…
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” One can argue about the extent and quality of the civilization…
Facing any interruption in income is stressful but staring at a lengthy or even permanent loss of income can bring life-changing trauma. Fortunately – or not when you consider how…
Saving money for retirement is important for ensuring long and comfortable work-free years. It’s all too common for people to assume they are too young to begin saving or underestimate…
Society is constantly changing, and the professional world has been forced to adapt with it in order to keep up. Improvements in technology, changes in everyday interactions and rising living…
New procedures, medication and treatment options have vastly improved the medical profession’s ability to diagnose and cure disease, repair damage from accident or injury, and test for ailments and conditions…
The federal minimum wage is the lowest hourly wage an employer can legally pay, with some exceptions. Nearly 1.6 million Americans, 1.9% of hourly workers, make the federal minimum wage…
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as ObamaCare, was signed into law on March 23, 2010. It is the federal government’s most comprehensive overhaul of the…
At its base, card ownership is a limited personal loan to you, whenever you need it. Keep a credit card in your pocket and you have the ability to make…
Child support is a legal obligation that a biological parent has for providing for the basic living expenses of a child: food, clothing, shelter, health care and education. It is…
Are you worried about identity theft and someone ruining your good credit name? The Fair Credit Reporting Act was designed to ease your fears. So, what is the Fair Credit…
The Federal Trade Commission, launched in March 1915, was created in response to a groundswell of public concern that followed separate U.S. Supreme Court antitrust rulings against Standard Oil and…
Usually, what happens in the nation’s capital seems remote and meant for someone else. But when the Federal Reserve — best known as “The Fed” — acts, it’s your personal…
Medical debt and the problems they cause credit reports, have long gone hand-in-hand. Consumers behind on payments to healthcare providers, especially those whose bills have been sold to collection agencies,…
With a nod to Mark Twain, inflation has replaced the weather as the thing everyone talks about it, but nobody seems to do anything about it. Until now. Not that…
America has turned into a nation of quitters, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Spurred by the COVID pandemic, millions of people have joined “The Great Resignation” that’s happening…
The rules governing repayment of federal student loans contain so many nooks and crannies that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you may have missed one created during the…
The average Joe – not Biden – figures to benefit most from passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Approximately 145 million Americans will receive a third round of…
Biden wants the minimum wage – currently set at $7.25 an hour – to jump to $15 an hour by 2025. The increases would be phased in at approximately $1.75…
President-elect Joe Biden unveiled the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion war on the prolonged suffering of Americans hardest hit by coronavirus. Included in his proposal: a fresh round of…
The second COVID-19 relief bill is now law – all 3,126 pages of it. The people in Congress who passed it admit they don’t know what all is in it,…
If you haven’t looked at your bank account this week, now might be a splendid time. The long wait for a second stimulus check from the U.S. government finally is…
A second stimulus check – the financial gift from the U.S. government to help consumers recover from the economic belt coronavirus gave the American economy – needs only a signature…
If the biggest employee benefit you receive is when your company bothers to fill the toilet paper rolls in the employee bathroom, you might not want to read this: Google…
If you are paying on a federal student loan, you probably already know that the government CARES Act has provided benefits that suspends payment and interest requirements through May 1,…
Americans with student loan debt have a $1.6 trillion question on their minds: What would President Trump or a President Biden do about all that money these 45 million borrowers…
The COVID-19 pandemic has created record unemployment, erased profit margins, closed businesses and wreaked havoc on almost every family’s money outlook. It has even affected America’s ultimate get-out-of-jail financial symbol…
Veterans indebted to the Department of Veterans Affairs won a partial payment reprieve this summer that will last at least through the end of 2020. The VA action extends a…
Dorothy surely wasn’t thinking of life in a COVID-19 pandemic when she clicked those heels in the “Wizard of Oz” and opined that ‘there’s no place like home.’ But her…
Congress and the White House are still debating whether the HEALS Act, HEROES Act – or some compromise Act in between – will deliver the next round of coronavirus relief…
When the House of Representative passed the $3-trillion HEROES Act on May 15, it all but guaranteed that a second stimulus check would arrive for Americans in need of financial help…
The storm is coming. American consumers will be filing personal bankruptcies in record numbers by the end of 2020. That is the projection from bankruptcy attorneys, bankers and other experts…