By Joseph Nicholson
A credit inquiry occurs any time you or a legitimate business checks your credit. Before a lender can make an offer, they almost always first check your credit history, and use the information there to determine how much they're willing to lend, for how long, and at what interest rate. From a lender's point of view, a borrower is only attractive when they borrow within his means to repay. ...
By Richard Thomas
Credit card companies want your business just like any other enterprise, so they compete for it. Part of that competition is attracting customers away from rivals by offering special balance transfer APR rates, which encourage borrowers to move debt from other cards onto their cards and the lower, special APR. Sometimes the balance transfer is a good money management practice, but that depends on ...
By Gregory Hamel
The time value of money is the concept that a given amount of money at a certain point it time is not worth the same as an identical amount of money at a different point in time. The reason for this discrepancy is that money is able to earn more money in the form of interest or gains from investments. Money is said to be worth more today than it is at some point in the future. For example, if you ...