Money Basics

7 Things You Should Know About No-Penalty CDs

With so much uncertainty in the economy right now, I’ve been focused on building my cash. But instead of just sitting there like a bench warmer, I’d like to have the money work for me a bit.

Despite offering higher interest rates, I’ve always shied away from regular CD’s because they required leaving my money in the bank for a fixed period of time (and penalized me if I withdrew my money earlier than the agreed term). I mean how can I predict today if I won’t need that Le Creuset signature dutch oven within the next 2 months??

And then I discovered the no-penalty CD.

How the Federal Reserve Affects You Every Day

The Federal Reserve impacts the lives of US citizens every day. It’s considered the most important and powerful financial institution of the United States.

Particularly in response to recent times, the Federal Reserve has made the news for “cutting rates”, “buying billions worth of government bonds” and being tied to the rising trend of money printing memes.

These news impact your life (well maybe not the memes), so it’s always good to have a basic knowledge of what the Federal Reserve does and how it affects your wallet.

Build Your Financial Fortress

We are constantly under financial attack by financial emergencies that are authentically and genuinely unexpected.

There’s minor emergencies, like a nail in the tire, and major emergencies, like a trip to the emergency room. All of these are attacks on your money.

Building your financial fortress is crucial to defending yourself from these attacks.

What is a Stock?

A stock is a type of investment. When you purchase stock in a company, that means you are buying a small portion of that company. In other words, you own shares of the company. And as a result, you are considered a shareholder of this company.

Companies will sell shares to raise money to operate their business. This money can be used for a variety of reasons, including funding growth and expansion or paying off debt.

What is a Certificate of Deposit (CD) and Should You Get One?

For many years, I didn’t know what CD’s at banks stood for or what they were used for.

Like many of you, the only types of “CD’s” that I knew of either contained my PC games or were used to blast music to drown out my teenage angst.

But as much as I’d like to reminisce over the early 2000’s, instead, the type of CD’s we’ll go over today can help you make more money off of the money that you already have and plan to have sitting at the bank.

Why I Set Alert Notifications For Every Transaction Purchase

Have you ever logged into your bank account to find purchases that you didn’t remember making? Any store transactions where you don’t recall authorizing or recognize at all?

A few years ago, that exact situation happened to me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were times where I shopped at so-and-so store and totally forgot about it 😅… but we’re not here to talk about those today. These are the types of purchases under your name, but not made by you. The type called identity theft, or credit card fraud.

Why You Need to Understand How Compounding Interest Works

We’ve all heard the the spiel, “The best time to start investing is today”, “You need need to start investing when you’re young”, “Compounding is a powerful force”, or “Let your money work for you”. But what does this all mean? What is so powerful about compounding interest?

How to Make a Simple Budget

Yuck.

We know… we know, we know, we know… “Budgeting” … ugh.

That one thing that we all know about (at least sorta) but just hate to deal with or face it. It feels so constraining or suffocating or just overwhelming altogether.

Like you’re setting yourself up to be benchmarked against expectations that already feel challenging to meet. No one likes to experience the feeling of failure - let alone voluntarily signing yourself up for it.