Swipe Right
This three-letter acronym represents the yearly cost of borrowing money on a credit card (including interest and fees).
What is the APR (annual percentage rate)?
Making up 35% of your FICO score, this is the single most important factor in determining you creditworthiness.
What is your payment history?
It's your share in a company or what you'd use to flavor homemade soup.
What is stock?
This simple budgeting rule allocates half of one's income to needs, a bit more than a 1/4 to wants, and the rest to savings.
What is the 50/30/20 rule?
A purchase made on a whim while gaining the support of your team members regarding a particular idea.
What is an impulse buy-in?
To avoid paying a single cent in interest charges, you must pay this in full by the due date every month.
What is the statement balance?
This term describes the percentage of your total available credit limit that you are actually using; keeping it under 30% is ideal.
What is credit utilization?
This is another name for the dollar amount you originally borrowed or the person whose office you were sent to if you misbehaved in grade school.
What is the principle/principal?
Financial experts recommend having this stash of money, ideally covering 3 to 6 months of living expenses for unexpected crises.
What is an emergency fund?
A way of living that lowers the risk of being seriously ill or dying early accompanied by the psychological phenomenon describing the tendency to increase your spending as your income increases.
What is a healthy lifestyle creep?
This is the standard 21-to-25 day window between the end of a billing cycle and your payment due date during which no interest accrues.
What is the grace period?
This specific type of credit check occurs when a lender reviews your credit for an application, temporarily dropping your credit score by a few points.
What is a hard inquiry?
In finance, it is the amount of money remaining to be paid off, whereas physiologically, it can refer to your equilibrium.
What is balance?
These largely account for the difference between your gross pay and you net pay, and like death itself are unavoidable.
What are taxes?
Fresh out of Folsom Prison, this singer was "Hurt" when he "Walked the Line" to the mailbox and found this reward check from Discover was missing.
Who is Johnny Cashback?
In a pinch, you can make one of these by using your credit card at an ATM to withdraw physical cash, but doing so immediately trigger high interest and fees.
What is a cash advance?
Opening too many new accounts quickly shortens this factor, which makes up 15% of your credit score and rewards long-term cardholders.
What is the credit history (or average age of all accounts)?
This is a financial arrangement where one party provides a sum of money to another party with the legal expectation that it will be paid back, or a common descriptor for the star of Texas.
What is loan/lone?
Your regular hometown bank likely does not offer one of these, a place to deposit your assets online where you will enjoy a competitive interest rate.
What is a high-yield savings account?
It sounds like the least amount of effort Winnie-the-Pooh might put into something plus the smallest sum of money a credit card company is willing to accept from you each month.
What is the bare minimum payment?
Often spiking drastically after only a few months, this is the name for the temporarily low APR that credit card companies use to entice you to sign up.
What is an introductory rate?
Having a mix of credit cards and installment loans, such as these common college-related debts, helps maximize your score.
What are student loans?
This is a standing order for your bank to automatically make a payment on your behalf each month, or the annual event where professional teams select players to join their rosters.
What is a draft?
Not to be confused with a popular music format of the 90s, this savings instrument offered by most banks pays out a decent interest rate but only if you leave it alone.
What is a CD (certificate of deposit)?
This describes a probability with equal chances plus the maximum amount of money a credit card user is legally liable for if their card is stolen and used fraudulently.
What is fifty-fifty dollars?