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. Bill can be reached at [email protected].
Identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in America for the very obvious reason that most of us have made our most valuable personal information — name, address, social security number,…
Health insurance costs continue to soar in the United States, far surpassing the overall inflation rate. Most Americans younger than 65 rely on employer-subsidized policies to cover medical costs, even…
Choose Your Debt Amount Call Now: (866) 612-9971 – OR – Continue Online VETERANS IN THE U.S. 0 Million UNEMPLOYED VETERANS 0 HOMELESS VETERANS 0 Debt Solutions for Veterans Frequent…
Want to guess at a community’s financial health? Abandoned houses or vacant shopping centers are an obvious sign things aren’t good, but a more subtle indication of financial insecurity is…
There is no happier day than when you open the front door of your new home. Unless of course, someone handed you the key somewhere around 2007. That was the…
What Is Debt Relief? Debt relief is when a borrower convinces a lender to reduce the amount of money owed (debt) to a level the borrower can afford to repay…
Dental school is expensive. Enormously expensive. Reports indicate a dental school education is the most expensive of all the higher education fields. And the vast majority of new practitioners emerge…
Managing your financial life is tough enough without credit reporting errors setting you back. But mistakes happen. The Federal Trade Commission did a 10-year study and found that 20% of…
Medicare, the federal government’s popular health insurance program for seniors (and younger people with permanent disabilities), covers nearly 60 million Americans, and adds more all the time: 10,000 baby boomers…
The Credit CARD Act of 2009 has saved consumers billions of dollars, and most of them probably don’t even realize it. The law is commonly called the Credit Card Bill…
Private loans represent only 10 percent of student loan debt, but that number — more than $200 billion – is still significant and, in many cases, even harder to pay…
Americans have about 800 million credit cards in their wallets and purses. If laid end-to-end, those 3½-inch pieces of plastic would circle the globe almost two times. Yet some people…
Credit scores are influential numbers because they usually determine the interest rates assigned to a consumer and whether someone can get a loan. They gauge a consumer’s paying habits and…
Revolving credit is a loan with a predetermined spending limit that automatically renews as the debt is paid off. Credit cards are the most popular example of revolving credit and…
Almost 190 million Americans have a credit card and they will make about 30 billion transactions in 2018. Sometimes, however, cash is still king. If you don’t need actual…
Given the dramatic increase in the number of delivery systems bombarding American homes — television, radio, internet, social media, phone, mass mailings, magazines, flyers, advertising copy — and the fact…
To many American consumers, the three major credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — must seem like confusing and unexplainable financial force. The “Big Three” credit reporting bureaus…
You’ve made mortgage payments for the past 15 years, your home has soared in value and you now have access to a pool of cash using a home equity loan…
Welcome to every consumer’s nightmare. For years, you’ve have used credit cards for everything from gas to groceries to going out on the town and never thought twice about the…
Debt collection arbitration is a process for resolving unpaid debt that is seriously, sometimes hopelessly, in arrears. If being desperately and deeply in debt describes you, and settling up for…
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…
There hasn’t been much good economic news in 2020, but if you’re buried in student loans, there was an astoundingly positive development recently. Thanks to a recent court ruling, you…
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…
The phrase “stimulus check” is second only to “coronavirus” or “COVID-19” as something to talk about these days and people are definitely talking. About 159 million Americans have received the…