paying down debt

For more than three-quarters of U.S. taxpayers, the silver lining of tax season is the refund check. This year, the IRS says the average refund is just under $3,000, and many people will use theirs to pay off debt or cover expenses. But it could also create an opportunity to save or invest.

Equifax has ranked the U.S. metropolitan areas that are still suffering the most from high credit card debt, and found the majority of the areas with the highest debt-to-income ratios are located in six states. But the six might not be the ones you'd guess.

Today, I'm going to share with you a system to help you get out of debt called DOLP, which stands for "done on last payment." The DOLP system is the cornerstone of your Debt Free For Life plan. I've talked about it for over a decade, and I've taught it to millions of people. It's simple and it...

After the Great Recession and with volatile stock markets and unemployment keeping Americans jittery, more people are ready to commit to improving their personal financial situation in 2011. Here are a dozen steps that can help put you on the road to fiscal security.

The numbers are rolling in, and by all accounts, Americans have finally bucked up and told their credit cards, "It's not me, it's you." While consumer spending has inched up a bit, it's not the big credit card networks that are benefiting, which means we're opting more often to spend the money...

While some of us fantasize about cutting up our credit cards and bidding good-bye to them forever, that's not a realistic scenario. Unfortunately, those tempting pieces of plastic can make it all-too-easy for you to fall into bad habits and rack up hundreds or even thousands in unwanted debt....

It seems that having less money makes people want to pay off their debts. U.S. households paid down their debts in the third quarter for the first time since at least 1952, the Federal Reserve reported today, according to MarketWatch. Finally, some good news from the recession. Hit by a loss of...

Welcome to WalletPop's series "You've graduated. Now what?" Our bloggers have a wealth of suggestions to help you find you way through that time of amazing transformation, from student to working stiff. Previous: Time to find a place to live Next: Learn to cook When I graduated from...

So here's the deal. We're broke. Not poor, just broke. We live paycheck to paycheck and it's just rough. We can't live like this forever. It's not safe and just doesn't make sense. So we have to develop a plan. A plan for today, a plan for tomorrow.What can we do to get out of this financial mess?...

Are you thinking about buying a home, but you need to improve your credit score in order to get the best interest rate? Paying down debt using the round robin strategy can get you there the fastest. People with the best credit score only use 10% to 20% of their available credit, so the faster you...