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Created as a result of the Great Depression, The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt in 1935; mainly due to the rise in poverty of the nation’s elderly population. The act was designed to provide retired workers ages 65 and older with a continuing income after retirement. The first Social Security card was created in November of 1936, with the numbers assigned by geographic region. To date, more than 450 million Social Security numbers have been issued since the program started.

In 2018, Americans’ debt hit $13 trillion, with the average American carrying more than $38,000 in debt – not including home mortgages. For many, debt is simply a way of life, with more Americans living from paycheck to paycheck.

For those consumed by debt, Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy is an option, with Chapter 7 wiping out eligible debt, and Chapter 13 reducing debt and allowing filers to make monthly payments to pay off the rest.

Personal finance, like just about everything else, is mainly common sense. Advice like “don’t spend more than you make; start investing while you’re young; don’t loan money to friends with the expectation of getting it back,” have been around for generations, and most likely will survive the next few generations as well. Even money mistakes that are corrected early enough will have little impact on your wealth going forward.  What you do want to avoid are money mistakes that can be hard to recover from. Here are just a few:

We all have certain causes that we choose to support monetarily. In fact, in 2017, Americans gave more than $410 billion to charities, breaking the $400 billion mark for the first time in history.

But anytime that we give our money to an organization, it’s important to do our due diligence, ensuring that the funds that we give will be used effectively.

Zombie debt is old debt that is typically written off as bad debt by the original creditor and then later sold to collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. Most of the debt sold is years old and cannot legally be collected, though many consumers are unaware of the statute of limitations for legal collection of this debt. In many cases, zombie debt is legally unenforceable, meaning that unlike your current creditors, zombie debt collectors cannot sue you in order to collect the debt.

Like health care, many of us continue with the same auto insurance policy for years, never bothering to find out whether another insurance carrier could provide better service or save us some money. But there are several reasons why shopping for another auto insurance policy can make sense. Here are just a few:

Reverse mortgages have been around for a long time, but in recent years they have become more popular. Though some experts consider a reverse mortgage a last resort of sorts, depending on your own financial situation, a reverse mortgage may be helpful.

The term beneficiary crops up every now and again. Usually you’ll see it on an insurance form or hear about it in relation to a will, but despite the nonchalance we toss the term around with, beneficiaries are incredibly important. Let’s break down the details on how and why beneficiaries matter.

Vacation season is almost upon us and, for many Americans who haven’t traveled abroad in several years, their vacations have been years in planning. However, even the best laid plans can quickly come unraveled if you don’t take some extra measures to ensure that your finances are protected before you leave on your trip.

If you’ve ever played the Game of Life board game, it becomes clear that compressed into the colorful path there are various stages of life. Each stage holds its own major financial challenges as well as prospective profits in addition to surprises (new baby!) and forks in the road.