Dear Liz: I’m 27 and have no consumer debt, a decent salary and a boatload of student loans. I use my credit cards for most of my expenses to earn rewards points and generally pay off my cards each month. I also take advantage of the 0% introductory rate offered by many credit card companies. […]
Recent Blog Posts
5 things I’m glad we bought in Italy, and three I wish we hadn’t
One of the reasons we travel is to learn, and our latest trip to Italy taught us a lot. We learned about the country’s culture, cuisine and history. We also learned how quickly the euros can fly out of your wallet if you’re not careful (and sometimes even when you are). Here are some of […]
Restoring credit scores after bankruptcy
Dear Liz: I had credit scores over 800 with no late payments ever. Unfortunately, a medical issue required me to charge $24,500 to a credit card. That led to a bankruptcy, which was discharged in July 2011. My scores dropped to 672, and they’re currently around 680. I’m paying two unsecured credit cards in full […]
Is a 3% withdrawal rate too conservative?
Question: In a recent column you repeat advice I have often read that withdrawing about 3% of my investment capital will reduce the chances of my running out of money in retirement. But that doesn’t make sense to me. I have been retired for over 19 years and I have sufficient data now to extrapolate […]
Your Social Security questions answered
My column about getting your parents a bigger Social Security check, “More Social Security for mom,” triggered a boatload of questions from readers–and confirmed what experts had told me, which is that a lot of people seem to be missing out on benefits for which they qualify. Here are some of the questions that came […]
Our credit cards worked in Europe. Mostly.
We just returned from 10 days in Italy, with a plane change in Zurich. After writing about the troubles some U.S. travelers faced using their credit cards overseas, I’m happy to report that we were able to use ours in most places with no problem at all. Of course, we visited tourist-centric locales (Venice and […]