The following are posts by staff writer, , who is a professional personal finance blogger, and the owner of his own personal finance blog, OutOfYourRut.com. He has backgrounds in both accounting and the mortgage industry.


When you think about giving gifts to your loved ones, there’s an excellent chance that you never think of life insurance as a consideration. Even though it’s a financial product, it’s also a gift in the truest sense. Life insurance is your last best gift to your loved ones. Not sure it’s really a gift? […]

Having a bankruptcy on your credit report, especially recent one, can affect much of what you will do in life. It can certainly have an impact when you apply for a loan, whether it’s a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card. But it can also have an effect on an application for a […]

Virtually everyone needs life insurance. But if you’re self-employed, you really need life insurance, even more so than people who are employed by others and are paid a salary. That’s because nearly everything connected with self-employment tends to be more complicated than it is for a salaried person. The self-employed person simply has more loose […]

With the new year, people contemplate making all kinds of changes. Sure, they could implement those changes at any time during the year. But the new year tends to be a catchall of resolutions. The change from one year to the next seems like a convenient time to take actions that we’ve been avoiding all […]

Let’s face it, unless you work in the business, life insurance is not a favorite topic. It certainly doesn’t make the rounds on the dinner and cocktail circuit. Other types of insurance might, but since life insurance is closely associated with death, it isn’t exactly considered polite conversation. That may not be a problem when […]

Cost is always a factor in everything we do. That’s because you have only a limited amount of income, and you need to cover all of the expenses in your budget on whatever amount that income provides. There are large expenses, and small ones. People often try to economize by cutting small expenses in order […]

Unfortunately, when you are applying for life insurance, it isn’t just your health that comes under the microscope. Your family history is also a factor. That means that even if your personal health history is flawless, you can still be charged a higher premium if a member of your direct family lineage has a history […]

Some people scoff at the idea of having life insurance. Often, their dismissal of this financial product is rooted in the fear of their own death. Other times, they disregard the possibility that that day will ever come. And other times it’s a cost issue – they simply feel that there are better ways for […]

If you have an enlarged heart, getting life insurance can present some challenges. The severity of your condition is critical, as is the specific life insurance companies that make application to. If you do have an enlarged heart, it will be very important that you have a competent agent working on your behalf. This is […]

College is an enormous expense, particularly if you have more than one child who will be attending. But what will happen to those educations in the event that you should die before or during the process? Even if you have saved money for your kid’s college educations there are always additional expenses. That can include […]