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.
Bad credit has a negative impact on your day-to-day finances as well as your ability to buy a home or car, rent an apartment, or, sometimes, qualify for a job.…
As calendar dates go, April 15 doesn’t exactly create the heart palpitations of December 25, February 14 or even the Fourth of July. However, you can’t deny that April 15…
Be wary the next time you check into a resort and are offered a free gourmet dinner or a massage or Disney World tickets if you’ll just attend a…
Buying a house is usually the largest purchase any of us will make. It rarely can be accomplished quickly and easily. And yet, as a country, we are always on…
Personal bankruptcy is without a doubt a serious setback, but it can serve as a financial tool. It’s an opportunity to streamline your finances and rebuild credit, and more than…
Disruptive events rarely wait until it’s convenient, and that’s doubly true for consumers whose credit scores have gone south. Nonetheless, there are moments when those with rocky credit histories absolutely…
If you used debt relief options – specifically, debt settlement – to escape severe financial problems last year, you’re probably still celebrating your good fortune. Slow down. The IRS has…
What is an Offer in Compromise? An “Offer in Compromise” is a little-known but remarkably effective way that thousands of people in trouble with the IRS routinely eliminate tens of…
LendKey, a relative newcomer to the field of student loan refinancing lenders, is a third-party online lending platform that connects clients to banks and credit unions offering loans. It promises…
There’s an old accountant’s joke about the difference between a legitimate tax deduction and a loophole. A legit deduction is the item you’re claiming. A loophole is the item your…
Debt remains an enormous issue for Americans. The recession that struck 15 years ago threw millions out of work and destroyed nest eggs, and after a recovery had things looking…
Choose Your Debt Amount Get Loan Quotes Today Free to use, no hidden fees Requesting rates can take just minutes and costs you nothing. More lenders, Best options Pick the…
Outdated houses can be a pain to live in and difficult to sell, prompting U.S. homeowners to spend billions of dollars annually on renovations and improvements. The high cost of…
Forget terrorism, climate change or a Jonas Brothers reunion tour. The biggest worry millions of young Americans have is student loan debt. Here is how bad the situation stands in…
When debt becomes completely unmanageable and nothing in the near term offers hope for a solution, people often mull over filing bankruptcy, the nuclear option for personal finance. Chapter 7,…
If you’ve never considered refinancing your student loans, that’s almost certainly not the fault of the financial services industry. Lending institutions seek borrowers with an aggressiveness that compares favorably with…
Tax season among members of the military is much like tax season among civilians: stressful. Just like for civilians, members of the armed forces must pay federal taxes, wade through…
Debtors Anonymous is dedicated to helping people dig out of financial holes. These days, that requires a lot of shovels. Americans are on a spending binge, with household debt hitting…
With the possible exception of trips to the dentist, filing tax returns is one of the least favorite things American adults have to do on a regular basis. Ignoring that…
If you have faithfully made monthly mortgage payments and (hopefully) seen the value of your home increase, you are building home equity, which can become a life raft for homeowners…
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…
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…
Everyone knows the old saying: Time flies when you’re procrastinating. Seems like only yesterday we were breezing past April 15 — the traditional deadline for income tax filing — and…