Christy Rakoczy

In October 2010, Irene Williams, the owner of a marketing firm in Nashville, Tennessee, walked into small claims court and won a judgment in full against a defendant who failed to pay for her services the previous summer. By Williams’ account, she…

Stressing about money as you make your holiday gift list — and shell out hundreds of dollars for holiday travel? While it’s easy to overspend in December, you don’t have to let the holidays gut your finances. In fact, now is a great time to make…

Does the idea of entering a store on Black Friday make you shudder? If so, you’re not alone. Three out of four shoppers in an October eBay survey said they’d rather make a sacrifice or give something up than endure Black Friday lines — including one…

Thanksgiving and Christmas may be two of the happiest days of the year, but they can also be the most stressful if you’re traveling to visit friends, family or just want to get out of Dodge one last time this year. Thanksgiving can be especially…

With all the different kinds of insurance out there, it can be hard to figure out which policies you actually need and which you can skip. You already know you need health insurance, both because it’s required by law to avoid a tax penalty and…

A great interview is essential to landing a job. But is it really the most important factor? Perhaps not, because by the time you get to the interview, the likelihood of getting hired may already be predetermined based on how you came across in the…

More than a year after Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the national anthem following several high-profile shootings of black men, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers has not been rehired by the National Football League.…

Your credit score is one of your most important money numbers, so it’s important to have a good one. But what does that mean? Should you aim for a perfect score or is there a lower number that’s good enough? Around 1% of Americans have achieved…

Remember how you felt on the first day of your exciting new job? If that glow has faded, you might be experiencing workplace burnout or brownout. What’s brownout? While burnout is extreme enough to make you totally check out, brownout might be a…

Women in the United States have taken a step closer to closing the wage gap, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s new report on income, poverty and insurance coverage in 2016 released Tuesday. In 2016, women earned $0.805 for every dollar earned by…

It seems like every day, there’s news of a data breach at a major company that puts your information at risk. The recent breach of Equifax data, however, was a little different both because of its massive scope — the majority of U.S. adults were…

So you’re leaving your job, or have already moved on to an exciting new career opportunity, but you have some unfinished business with your old employer: You still have a 401(k) account with a tidy pile of money in it. The big question is: What…

Plenty of data suggests that immigrant workers are a boon to the United States’ economy — contributing valuable innovation, job-creation, labor and even tax revenue. But many hard-working and talented people, both inside and outside of the United…

Perhaps your doctor retired, you’re moving to a new city or you simply decided to finally switch to a caregiver who is a better fit. Now, you need to get ahold of your old medical records. No idea where to start? The good news is, getting a copy of…

Labor Day isn’t just another day off to enjoy fun three-day weekend activities. It’s a holiday that began in the 1800s to try to boost union organizing — and to fight the problem of long work hours. That might be painfully ironic to learn if you are…

There’s one pesky number that pretty much defines you as a credit-worthy consumer — or not: your credit score. Affecting everything from whether you can get a loan or good credit card to how much you’ll pay in interest, those three digits have an…

Many know that merging money with a romantic partner or relative is not a choice to be taken lightly, and that there are risks of combining credit cards, for example, in that your credit score — crucial for financial independence — could become…

Imagine what you’d do with a million dollars. What about $10 million, roughly the annual salary of a CEO like Apple’s Tim Cook? Then think: What would you do with $89 million, the value of company stock a Monday SEC filing showed Cook has just…

When interviewing for a job — or even once you’ve started your new gig — there’s a lot of pressure to watch what you say to your hiring manager, boss or company executives. You know you have to be cautious when responding to a difficult question,…