For some people, debt leads to sleepless nights and anxiety about incessant collections calls. But for others, it causes quieter changes that still leave them drowning in bills without a clear way out. Understanding the ways in which your debt can affect the way you feel, think and act may give you perspective that’ll help you conquer it. Here are three subtle ways you may be responding to being in debt. 1. Defaulting to short-term thinking People who are in…

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If you’ve ever had to dispute a charge on a credit card, fix a mix-up with your mortgage or stop a debt collector from hounding you, you’ve benefited from the work of a federal watchdog agency that is now under fire in Washington. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau arguably has done as much to change the financial lives of consumers as any other government agency in history. Most Americans who have a credit card, bank account, mortgage, student or personal…

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2017 has gotten off to a great start (at least for Just the Tips!), and we can’t wait to share what else we have in store for you. We have a new version of our iOS app on the way that will help provide a boost under the hood (instant backups!), as well as a few additional features, and more accurate reporting. After we get Android caught up, we will be doing a major update, rolling out as many new…

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The three major credit bureaus, and one forward-thinking debt collector, are making changes that could allow millions of people to get loans they’ve unfairly been denied. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion plan to remove civil lawsuit judgments — where a creditor has sued and won in court — and many tax liens from people’s credit reports starting July 1. Striking those public records could improve the scores of as many as 14 million people, some by enough to qualify for mortgages…

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People who spend too much outnumber, by far, those who spend too little. But the methods that therapists and financial planners use to help “underspenders” can guide the rest of us about when it’s OK to splurge and when we should resist. Chronic underspenders can be so terrified about running out of money that they put off health care, ignore needed home repairs or descend into hoarding, says financial planner Rick Kahler of Rapid City, South Dakota. Framing certain expenditures…

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Anxiety at tax time is common, but millennials feel it more than others. Millennials are the age group most worried about filing their taxes, according to a recent NerdWallet survey conducted by Harris Poll. Factoring in student loan debt can be especially confusing. “You’d be surprised how many people out there don’t even think that’s relevant for their tax return,” says Eric Schaefer, a financial advisor at Evermay Wealth Management in Arlington, Virginia. Here are three ways student loan debt…

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Why Personal Finance Classes Should Be Taught in College By Brad Sherman Learn more about Brad on NerdWallet’s Ask An Advisor My friends and I have begun looking back nostalgically on our college years, and whenever we get together there is a common theme to the conversations that holds true whether I’m speaking with liberal arts majors or those who studied corporate finance: While we all know that E = mc2 and maybe even know a fair amount about Einstein’s theory, most…

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