Credit 101

Far beyond just your drivers’ license, your personal identification information lives in many places in the digital age. Accordingly, there are more ways to make sure you’re keeping all that information safe when you travel. Listen in to review a few of the most simple ways to keep your information away from would-be hackers and prying eyes.  

Whether you travel for business or pleasure, being out of your familiar home zone can bring additional challenges when bad news finds you: like learning that you’ve become the victim of identity theft. Discover how an extra bit of planning before you depart can pay a significant dividend when you field this kind of news while traveling. Learn a few top tips to help keep your information secure but available so you can travel smart.

You don’t need a black belt in shopping to help keep your information secure online when you make purchases. In fact, it’s much easier than negotiating those killer deals you might live for! If you’re a frequent online shopper, you may think about it a bit each time you make a purchase, but as often as places offer to remember your payment information, it can become easier and easier to think about online security less and less. Check back in with our quick rundown of things you’ll want to make sure your protection practice includes.

From the outside, credit can seem confusing to learn about, and difficult to establish. It can seem like it's something you've already got to have set up in order to use, and if you haven't already established yourself, you're destined to be seen as a 'have-not'. But the truth is actually much different. You might already be making regular monthly payments that you can request be reported to the credit bureaus to help establish your credit score for the first time. Remember, one of the most important credit behaviors is to make your monthly payments on time consistently - and that can yield benefits whether you're new to credit or a long-time user. 

One of the biggest transitions in credit cards is in the middle of unfolding – right in the middle of the busiest time of year for retailers. It’s likely this year that you’ll encounter businesses at different points in the changeover – make sure you know what to ask and how to determine the changes you’ll see during a time when lines are long, clerks busy, and tempers often short.

It’s not usually at the top of everyone’s list at this festive time of year – identity protection, that is – but if you’ve done well all year long, don’t fumble at the finish line in the last few weeks of the year. Though it’s a busy time of year for all, make sure you refresh on a few key ways to help keep fraudsters and scammers out of your personal information. Have the holidays you intended; don’t spend them cleaning up the aftereffects of identity theft activity.

It’s no secret that one of the main reasons the holidays are a frustrating time is the way they can easily overwhelm your budget. Before your holiday spending gets serious this year, give your holiday budget a makeover, and make sure it includes all the ways you plan to spend. Once you can account for all the hidden ways the holidays can drain your budget, you’ll be able to make wiser decisions when you spend – and not greet January from under a mountain of surprise debt. 

When it’s time to share your financial know-how, where do you start? When you’re managing your money month to month, it can be hard to reset and help someone just starting out with the right information they need. To help jumpstart your finance conversation, check out our four cornerstones that can help ease the discussion and help you recall what you needed when you were new to managing your own funds.

As the beginning of fall semester draws near again, how will you plan to shoulder the costs of back-to-campus spending? Don’t think that the ‘emergency only’ credit card can fund a weekly night in with friends for pizza and beer! A little planning of your payment strategy can help you prepare for the expenses you know about as well as a few you might want to anticipate – like forecasting a replacement for that ancient laptop on its last legs. Lay out your ideas now to avoid getting sunk by last minute expenses of all kinds – and make it to the holidays with a little extra in your pocket.

Like a lot of things in life, you might not be an expert on something as you attempt it for the first time. Joint accounts are often one of those items for many who are unsure about the fine details of operation and reporting. Like cosigning - another two-person enterprise in credit - the information about how you keep up with your account responsibilities can impact both parties. Confirm that you know what the operation of the account will be like for you and the other party so you'll be as knowledgeable about it at the beginning as you can be. Joint accounts in many parts of your finances can work differently, so be sure you have your information straight before things go off-course unexpectedly and your credit takes a hit. 

If there's a soon-to-be graduate in your friend or family circle, you may be cosigning a loan to help them reach their goal of higher learning. But it's not something you should do before thoroughly discussing how you'll handle financial changes. Since a cosigning will appear on the credit of both parties, make sure you know who's responsible for what before you sign on the dotted line.

For college students, a cosigner is often the key that can help unlock the funds that make higher learning a reality. But if you’re new to credit and need a cosigner to help complete your application, know that it’s likely they’ll need an established financial history confirmed by a credit check. Make sure you know all that your cosigner should be prepared for so you can set the right expectations.

With the pursuit of higher learning often comes educational debt, and its often among the longer-term debts that you'll work to repay gradually over decades. Educational debt is also one that's assigned comparatively early in a person's credit history, so it holds an impactful role in how you manage your finances starting soon after graduation. That's pretty early in adulthood for you to have an understanding of the significance of the impact it can have over time. Taking the time to educate yourself now means you'll be better equipped to make smart choices when the time comes. Learn a few smart tips to keep your finances stable while shouldering college debt.

You’ve probably heard that FICO Scores are both popular and important when it comes to knowing about your credit. But you might not know how your information feeds into a FICO Score – and the impact that your credit behaviors can have on your Score. Discover more about a FICO Score reflects back your credit behaviors as a Score.

Taking your search for love online means that the world becomes your oyster. Thanks to dating sites and apps, you can connect with other, like-minded singles looking to find a special someone whether they’re near or far. But know that some of the profiles you see may not be genuine. Learn how to fend off the advances of those after something else – your information.

Good credit isn’t just something that happens to you – that’s like playing the lottery with your financial information and hoping you get it right. But putting solid credit behaviors into practice on the regular can have real benefits. Just how can good credit help you? Whenever you consider a big purchase, or explore a new way to make a payment, your credit can be a part of that choice. Find out how.

With identity theft impacting increasing numbers of victimized consumers every year, it's no surprise that people are looking for ways to mitigate their risk entirely. Identity theft can be a serious headache if it happens to you, but unfortunately there's no way to neutralize the danger entirely. One of the best ways to amp up your response is to make sure you're alerted to atypical activity as soon as possible: something that credit monitoring can do when it scans your credit report each day. You'll be able to respond as quickly as possible to suspicious activity, limiting the damage that identity thieves and intervening criminals can do with your information. Considering credit monitoring? Learn why it's a smart idea.