• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Free From Broke

A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks

  • Home
  • Personal Finance
  • Debt
  • Saving
  • Investing
    • Best Online Brokerages
  • Taxes
  • Credit Scores

Kevin Mulligan

How to Improve Your Credit Score Fast

Published or updated January 22, 2019 by Kevin Mulligan

Having a good credit score impacts many areas of your life: the interest rates you pay on debt, your car insurance rates, and what types of credit card offers you get in the mail.

If you find yourself with a poor credit score, but have a need to improve it quickly, there are a few tips you can try.

However, the only true way to drastically improve your score is to use debt responsibly for a long period of time. There are some ways that can help speed up how you improve your credit score. Do these right and you might just raise your credit credit score by 100 points fast!

What Goes Into a Credit Score?

Before you can improve your credit score you need to know what exactly goes into your credit score in the first place.  Once you know what goes into the credit score you can work to make changes in those specific areas.

credit score factorsWe have a full post that dissects what goes into your credit score, but here’s a brief breakdown:

  • 35% – Payment History
  • 30% – Amounts Owed
  • 15% – Length of Credit History
  • 10% – New Credit
  • 10% – Types of credit used

How to Improve in Each Credit Score Area

[Read more…] about How to Improve Your Credit Score Fast

Filed Under: Credit score

What is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and How Does It Impact Your Taxes?

Published or updated March 24, 2015 by Kevin Mulligan

What is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)?

There are few things in the world of taxes more terrifying than the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

After taking all of that time with your W-2s, donations, and various deductions the AMT steps in and tells you that none of that matters; you suddenly owe thousands more in tax.

That’s scary enough for me.  Here’s an overview of the Alternative Minimum Tax and what can trigger it to impact your taxes.

What is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)?

[Read more…] about What is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and How Does It Impact Your Taxes?

Filed Under: Taxes Tagged With: alternative minimum tax, amt

Save Money – Ask About Bundling Insurance Policies

Published or updated October 24, 2014 by Kevin Mulligan

Save money by bundling your insurance policies.

How many insurance companies do you have?

Not just insurance policies, but how many insurance companies are you juggling?

If you are working with multiple insurance firms you might be missing out on significant savings that you can get by bundling your insurance policies.

Most Americans have several lines of insurance to cover various aspects of their lives: car insurance, homeowners or renters insurance, and life insurance are some of the most common policies.  Price shopping is common by consumers and often the lowest bid company wins.

But is that the best strategy?

How Does Bundling Insurance Policies Save Money?

[Read more…] about Save Money – Ask About Bundling Insurance Policies

Filed Under: Insurance Tagged With: bundled insurance, bundling insurance policies

When Does It Make Sense to Automate My Finances and How Do I Get Started?

Published or updated July 25, 2014 by Kevin Mulligan

When does it make sense to automate your finances?

Automating your finances is one way of simplifying your financial life.

When your automate your finances you use your bank, credit card, or service provider’s website to set up automatic transactions on your behalf.  You can automate paying your utility bills, paying your credit card, investing your retirement funds, and many other tasks.

Finance automation is often touted as one of the top ten things you should do to improve your finances.

While having your bills paid on time does help you save time and avoid late fees, completely automating your finances is foolish and nearly impossible to do.

How Automating Your Finances Improves Your Finances

Late fees.  Overdraft fees.  High interest rate penalties.  Missed payments.

All of these items are the result of mismanaging your finances.  Missing one payment can result in your interest rate on your credit card going sky high.  Missing the payment due date on any bill will automatically reward you with a late fee on top of what you already owed.

In short, mismanaged finances end up costing you thousands of dollars with all the fees and higher interest rates you pay.
[Read more…] about When Does It Make Sense to Automate My Finances and How Do I Get Started?

Filed Under: Personal Finance

Should I Buy Travel Insurance for My Next Trip – Pros and Cons to Consider

Published or updated June 23, 2014 by Kevin Mulligan

Should I Buy Travel Insurance

Travel insurance is one of those up-sell services you see tacked on to your flight and hotel reservations when you book through most online travel sites.

You stop and think about it for a minute, but it can be frustrating.

Is insuring your trip worth the price asked?  What are the odds you need to use travel insurance?  Do you really need this type of insurance or is the travel company just looking to pad their pockets with your hard earned cash?

As is the case with most insurance questions, the answer to whether or not you need trip insurance is maybe.

Read on and you’ll see some compelling reasons for and against buying travel insurance for you next trip.

Pros of Buying Travel Insurance

[Read more…] about Should I Buy Travel Insurance for My Next Trip – Pros and Cons to Consider

Filed Under: Insurance Tagged With: travel insurance

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 14
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

A Little About Me

Glen CraigI'm Glen Craig - I used to live paycheck-to-paycheck, drowning in credit card debt. I turned that all around and now I build wealth rather than debt.

My goal is to make personal finance easy for you.

More ABOUT me.

Join our email list (FREE) and never miss an article!


Free From Broke as seen on

Follow Us

FacebookGoogleTwitterRSS



Follow @freefrombroke

Top Articles

  • Use Google Calendar To Pay Your Bills On Time
  • 9 Things to Do When You Retire
  • Side Hustle-Make Extra Money Cleaning Homes
  • Four Ways You Can Pay Off Your Home Mortgage Faster
  • Don’t Forget Your 401(k) When You Leave Your Job! Here’s What You Can Do With It
  • Your 4 Step Guide on How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck
  • What Is A Mortgage Escrow Account?
  • This is Why Your House Isn’t Selling – Here’s How to Finally Get Your House Sold
  • 7 Ways to Get Rich Quick
  • What is Renter’s Insurance and Why You Need It
  • What Is a Probate Lawyer and When Would You Use One?

Recent Articles

  • Money Market Account VS Savings Account – What’s the Difference?
  • Five Ways Fantasy Baseball is Like Personal Finance
  • Tools to Help Organize Your Taxes
  • Don't Let Your Goals Fizzle Out! - 5 Reasons Goals Fail, and What You Can Do To Make Yours Succeed
  • What Do You Think of New Year's Resolutions?

Tools to Improve Your Finances

  • Online High Yield Savings
  • All About Online Checking Accounts – Why Pay More Fees Than You Have To
  • Personal Capital Review - A One Stop Financial Center
  • Online Brokerages That Won't Break Your Bank
  • Credit Karma Review - Get Your Credit Score and More
  • CD Rates
  • Savings Rates
  • Mortgage and Refinance Rates
TurboTax Review HR Block Review Shoeboxed Review

Follow Us On Pinterest!

Follow Free From Broke's board Most RePinned and Popular {Free From Broke} on Pinterest.

Footer

More

  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact Us
  • Get Our Newsletter

More Recent Articles

  • Think Long Term When Shopping Black Friday and Cyber Monday
  • 10 Essential Tips For Shopping Black Friday And Cyber Monday That Will Save You Money
  • How to Improve Your Credit Score Fast
  • What is a Refund Anticipation Loan (RAL) and is it Worth It?
  • Paying Taxes with a Credit Card: Pros and Cons

Disclaimer

Free From Broke is for general information or entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Be smart and do your own research or contact an independent financial professional for advice regarding your specific situation.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that we have a financial relationship with companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways.

© 2007–2025 Free From Broke A Personal Finance Blog For Regular Folks – All rights reserved.

No content on this site may be reused in any fashion without written permission from FreeFromBroke.com | Privacy Policy | Sitemap

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Go to mobile version
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.