Your ability to get future credit is based on your past and current experience. • Do you pay your bills on time? On time payments represent 35% of your credit score, the largest single factor considered by the credit bureaus. The ability and willingness to pay on time tells any future creditor that you are […]

It’s no secret that consumers have grown more frugal: Excessive spending is out and saving is in. “It’s become chic to talk value,” says Julie Winskie, the chief client officer at marketing firm Porter Novelli, which tracks consumer behavior for retailers. Like fashion, spending trends often cycle in and out, but what’s interesting about this go-round […]

Despite signs that the real estate market is bottoming out, millions of homeowners are likely to find themselves in worse shape within the next two years. Nearly half of the nation’s 52 million mortgage borrowers will have negative equity by the end of the first quarter of 2011, up from the 14 million at the […]