Discover it® Chrome for Students is a student credit card with a cash back rewards program focused on gas station and restaurant purchases, plus some nice fringe benefits for current college attendees. With 2% cash back (up to $1,000 per quarter) on gas station and restaurant purchases, plus 1% cash back on everything else, it’s quite similar to the
When you make a new acquaintance, often the first question you’re asked is, “What do you do for a living?” This line makes sense as an icebreaker because work occupies such a central place in our lives. If you work a standard 40-hour week, you’re devoting over 35% of your waking hours to your job
The term “financial independence” gets thrown around a lot in personal finance articles and blogs, and not everyone uses it the same way. To some people, financial independence simply means earning enough to pay your bills, so you don’t have to depend on help from your family or the government. To others, it means being
For most Americans, housing is the single biggest expense in their personal budget. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average household spends more than 30% of its after-tax income on housing expenses, including rent or mortgage payments, utilities, maintenance, and furnishing. For single people, the figure climbs to more than 40% of after-tax income. One
If you pick any 10 people at random off the street and ask them all whether they’d like to be rich, chances are all 10 will say yes. But if you ask those same 10 people what they mean by “rich,” you’re likely to get 10 different answers. One person, perhaps, would say that a million dollars
Whether you go to a used car lot or a high-end boutique, you know that the employees are working on commission and are thoroughly trained to sell you products. However, did you know that the personal bankers at your local bank operate in much the same way? Many folks think a bank is a service
Sometimes it appears that everything just keeps getting more and more expensive. That’s certainly the impression you’d get from reading the news – every time you open the paper, it seems, there’s another story about how to cope with the rising costs of food, education, or healthcare. But if you dig deeper, you can actually
Picture a business district in your area with a lot of stores sitting empty. It shouldn’t be too hard to think of one: A 2014 study by the National Association of Counties (NACo) shows that six years after the official end of the Great Recession, most local economies still struggle to regain lost ground. Neighborhoods are recovering,
When you’ve recently graduated from college, the world can seem like your oyster. After four years of unpaid internships or part-time jobs, you suddenly can see full-time employment with a full-time salary on the horizon. But sometimes, finding a full-time job can be more difficult than you thought it would be – and you may find
We may think that an ever-advancing, high-tech society means our standard of living is improving. However, many people insist that the present-day quality of life isn’t what it used to be – at least not for the middle class. This is because it doesn’t always matter whether people earn more money than in years past
Country wisdom is the collection of practical experiences gained by generations of pioneers, farmers, and ranchers as America transformed from a vast frontier to the world’s greatest economy. That experience – the result of constant trial and error – was passed from parent to child in plain language that left no room for misinterpretation. Living
Nothing is quite as American as a good rags-to-riches story, and it’s safe to say that many folks also enjoy the occasional macabre tale of the riches-to-rags variety. But despite all the attention paid to financial failures and cautionary tales, there are many hardworking people who have managed to rebound from the brink of financial
