Credit & Debt
Credit scores, credit reports, debt payoff strategies, student loans, credit card debt, collections, and rebuilding credit. Practical advice for managing and reducing what you owe.
Latest in Credit & Debt
Paying your credit-card bill before the statement closes can lower the balance that sets your credit score
Credit-card holders who pay only by the due date may be unknowingly inflating the balance that credit bureaus use to calculate their scores. The figure...
You can pull all three credit reports free every week at the official annualcreditreport.com
Every person with a credit file in the United States can now pull a free report from each of the three major bureaus, Equifax, Experian,...
FICO’s new 10T model weighs 24 months of your credit history, and buy-now-pay-later loans now count
Homebuyers and consumers who have used buy-now-pay-later services face a new reality: FICO Score 10T, now adopted by FHA and the government-sponsored enterprises for mortgage...
The CFPB is erasing $49 billion in medical debt from 15 million Americans’ credit reports automatically
About 15 million Americans carrying medical debt on their credit reports were set to see roughly $49 billion in collections erased automatically under a Consumer...
Paid medical bills and debts under $500 stay off your credit report, even after a federal rule fell
Consumers who have paid off medical bills or owe less than $500 on medical collections can still expect those items to stay off their credit...
Fifteen states now bar medical debt from your credit report entirely
Consumers in fifteen states can no longer have medical debt dragged into their credit histories, a protection that now extends across jurisdictions from the Pacific...
Paying a credit-card bill before the statement closes can lower your score
Cardholders who rush to pay off their credit-card balance before the billing cycle ends may be surprised to learn the move can temporarily drag down...
A 529 college plan can also pay up to $10,000 toward the student’s loans, tax-free
Families holding leftover 529 college savings balances can now direct up to $10,000 of those funds toward repaying a student’s education loans without owing federal...
443,048 people burned by a credit-repair pyramid are getting $10.9 million in FTC refund checks
The Federal Trade Commission is distributing more than $10.9 million in refund checks to 443,048 consumers who paid money to a credit-repair pyramid scheme run...
Families are taking on double-digit more debt to cover back-to-school shopping this year
American families heading into the 2026 back-to-school season face a sharper financial squeeze than in recent years, with revolving credit expanding at a double-digit annualized...
Nearly 7 million SAVE borrowers must choose a new repayment plan within 90 days
Starting July 1, federal student loan servicers will begin notifying roughly 7.5 million borrowers that the SAVE repayment plan is being shut down and that...
Your buy-now-pay-later loans from Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay can now move your credit score
Millions of Americans who split purchases into installments through Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay are about to see those transactions show up where it counts: on...
Nonprofit credit counselors can fold your cards into one lower-interest payment, often for little or no fee
Consumers juggling multiple credit card balances can combine them into a single monthly payment with reduced interest rates and fees through a debt management plan...
Americans trimmed credit-card balances by $25 billion in the first quarter, though the total still sits near $1.25 trillion
American households paid down roughly $25 billion in credit-card balances during the first quarter, a seasonal pullback that still leaves the national total near $1.25...
Stop most pre-screened credit-card and insurance offers for free through OptOutPrescreen
Consumers who receive stacks of unsolicited credit-card and insurance pitches in the mail can shut most of them off for free through OptOutPrescreen.com or a...
Disputing an error on your credit report is free, and the bureau must investigate and fix or remove it within about 30 days
One in five consumers had an error on at least one of their credit reports, according to a Federal Trade Commission study, and five percent...
Paying your credit-card bill before the statement closes, not just by the due date, can lower the balance that shapes your score
Millions of cardholders who pay their full balance by the due date each month still see their credit scores fluctuate, sometimes dropping right before they...
$5,000 on a card at 22% takes over a decade to clear at the minimum payment
Cardholders carrying a $5,000 revolving balance at 22 percent annual interest face a repayment timeline stretching well beyond a decade when they send only the...
Checking all three of your credit reports is now free every week at AnnualCreditReport.com
Americans can now pull free copies of their credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion every single week, not just once a year. The shift,...
Keeping your credit-card balances under 30% of your limit helps lift your credit score
Consumers carrying credit-card balances above 30 percent of their available limits face a direct drag on their credit scores, and that penalty now carries higher...