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Money expert Clark Howard recommends that all credit card rewards chasers have one of these no-annual-fee options as a solid base of return on all types of spending. Knowing you can swipe one card in any situation and earn 2% back is huge. (Assuming you pay your bill in full each month to avoid interest charges.) And if you want to join him in that card membership, now might be a good time to do your research on the card.

Money expert Clark Howard recommends target date funds more often than any other investment. Pick the fund with the year closest to when you plan to retire, put your retirement money into it and let the fund handle the rest. That part is well covered. But target date funds have some quirks that surprise even people who have owned them for years. A few of these quirks can cost you real money if you get them wrong. Here are six things you may not know. This is the big one.

Do you use your bank or credit union’s “bill pay” function to pay your bills each month? You may want to consider changing this strategy. Using bill pay, especially when a paper check is involved, exposes your payment to a few different risk factors: Potential delayed delivery of your payment. Inability to track the status of your payment. Checks lost or stolen in the mailing process. Payments lost or misapplied by the recipient.

For a limited time, new customers joining Ultra Mobile can save 15% on eligible six-month plans or 30% on eligible annual plans. Options start at $9.10/month for 4GB of high-speed data or at $23.80/month for unlimited data. In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know about Ultra Mobile’s latest deal. I’ll include what you’ll get for the price and how Ultra Mobile compares to other prepaid phone plans.

For a limited time, new customers can switch to Mint Mobile (Team Clark’s Review) and get any plan for $15/month. This deal includes Mint Mobile’s annual unlimited plan at 50% off its regular price! In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know about Mint Mobile’s latest deal, including what you’ll get for the price and how it compares to other affordable phone plans. Now through September 30, new customers can switch to Mint Mobile and choose any plan for only $15/month.

This month only, new customers switching to Visible (Team Clark’s Review) can grab its top-tier annual unlimited plan for $75 off the first year. That brings the price to $31.25/month! In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know about Visible’s latest deal. I’ll include what you’ll get for the price, as well as how the plan compares to other prepaid unlimited plans. Now through July 31, Visible is offering a $75 discount on its best unlimited plan.

A week at the beach for twelve people. Flights for three generations. A cruise where you rent a block of cabins and take over the pool deck. These trips run into the thousands or tens of thousands, and plenty of families can’t make the math work. The ability to fund a big family vacation is a privilege, and for many people, it stays out of reach no matter how carefully they save. For the families who can afford it, the question changes.

When it comes to college costs, we have entered the bad and the ugly. The cost of borrowing money for college used to be relatively friendly. Not anymore. Recent changes to the federal student loan program have become incredibly tough on families. Interest rates on federal student loans are hovering above 6.5%. That is a massive carry cost for families. If you qualify for subsidized loans, you don’t have to worry about that interest building up until your child completes their studies.

There’s an urgent warning from the federal government that every single person using payment apps needs to hear. If you store money inside a payment app, you need to know right now that there is no FDIC insurance protecting that cash. Regular listeners and readers know I’ve been sounding the alarm about peer-to-peer payment apps for years, usually focusing on rampant fraud, theft, and a lack of consumer protections. But this is a completely different kind of danger.

Is “subscription creep” sneaking into your life? More and more Americans are falling victim to the modern financial pitfall thanks to a combination of the requirement to “subscribe” to so many everyday services and the ease with which these services let you “set it and forget it” with automatic payments. This is particularly easy to do with “small fee” services like video streaming services.