The College Investor Audio Show

​Credit scores are the gatekeepers of credit. They determine how much credit you’ll receive and under what terms. Credit scores have also become more influential and are now used for job and apartment applications. Credit scores are obviously an area that none of us can ignore. But what impact do credit scores have on our money? Generally, the higher your credit score, the more credit you’ll receive. As we’ll see, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to how much credit a lender may extend to you. From the worst scores to the best, there are score ranges that much of the population falls into. What those ranges mean for your money is what this article will dive into. Read the full article here >>

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Dividend investing involves investing in stocks that pay dividends. Dividends can be a source of income for investors. They can also indicate solid, growing companies whose stock might constitute a solid investment. And dividends have been a popular investment strategy for decades — but it can be hard to do the research, know what companies to invest in, or know what products might be worthwhile. That’s why we’ve partnered with Emperor Investments to help you learn a bit more about dividend investing, and see how their platform makes it easy for you to get started. Check out Emperor Investments here. Read the full article here.

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Do you remember where you filed your tax return? What about your tax return from 3 years ago? The IRS recommends that you keep at least 3 years of tax returns on hand. But what if you can’t find your tax return in your black hole filing cabinet? Tax Transcripts are the answer. And if you want to check on the status of your tax return early, your tax transcript can also help. Read more here.

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If you’ve struggled with bounced checks, regular overdrafts, or closing an account with a negative account balance, you may have run into issues opening a new account. The issue of being unbanked or underbanked can lead to many issues for people who have struggled with poverty, economic instability, or those who tend to use cash to the exclusion of bank accounts. In certain circumstances, some banks won’t allow you to open an account due to a checkered banking history. But if you’re trying to make headway towards economic stability, getting a checking account in place can go a long way towards reducing check-cashing and other nonsense banking fees. In these circumstances, a second-chance checking account may be your best option. Here’s what you need to know about them. Read the full article here.

A Health Savings Account (HSA) allows you to contribute funds into the account and use those funds to pay for medical expenses. A flexible spending arrangement (FSA) allows you to contribute funds into the account and use those funds to pay for medical expenses. Did we just repeat ourselves? On the surface, an HSA and FSA don’t seem any different. But there are differences. There are differences in contribution amounts, employer contributions, and qualifications based on your health plan and employment status. Read the full article here >>

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There are so many opinions about millennials and how they are either shaping or destroying our economy. Recent news headlines suggest millennials are being too thrifty, and thereby killing consumerism. Others say millennials are ruining their chances of buying a home and incur more debt by overspending on luxuries, lattes and avocado toast. While overgeneralizing a select group is rarely accurate, in order to understand millennial spending habits and risks, we have to examine the actual age range and economic climate surrounding the individuals called “millennials.” Read the full article here.

You probably know that homeowners have home insurance to cover damage to their house and the contents inside. But what about people who rent apartments? After all, someone else might accidentally start a fire in one apartment that ends up burning down the whole apartment building. In that case, you had nothing to do with the fire. That’s where renters insurance comes in. Renters insurance is also called personal property or personal articles insurance. Since you don’t own the apartment, it isn’t insured by a renters policy. Only your possessions in the apartment are insured. This makes rental insurance extremely affordable. Because the cost is so low, there’s really no reason not to insure your items. In case you’re wondering, the landlord has the building insured, which is not anything you need to worry about. Read the full article here.

You earned a big raise, your side hustle took off, or you managed to find a great new job with an even greater new salary. Now that you’ve got the big paycheck, what should you do with it? Here are five money moves to make when you double your salary. Check out the full article here.

For married couples with student loan debt, one of the most popular strategies for lowering your monthly student loan payment and potentially qualifying for more student loan forgiveness is to file your taxes "married, filing separately". For both Income Based Repayment (IBR) and Pay As You Earn Repayment (PAYE), your monthly student loan payment is calculated based on your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).​ If you're married and file a joint tax return, your monthly student loan payment is calculated on your joint AGI. So, a simple way to potentially lower your student loan payment and increase your potential student loan forgiveness is to lower your AGI - and married couples can potentially do this by filing separately versus jointly. Read the full article here.

Have you ever heard of anyone complaining about making more money? If you have, they probably grumbled about moving up a tax bracket. Many people assume that when they “move up a tax bracket” every dollar they earn is taxed at a new, higher rate leading to lower take-home pay overall. Thankfully, that isn’t the case. When you “move up a tax bracket” you only pay a higher tax rate on the income above a threshold. The rest of your income is taxed at the same rate (or rates) as before. In this episode we explain what it really means to move up a tax bracket, how to calculate your tax bill, and the possible downsides of earning more. Read the full article here.

In the United States, all people adhere to a single tax code. Whether you have a high income or a low income, your taxation is governed by the same set of rules. But that doesn’t mean that all people pay the same tax rates. In the absurdly byzantine rules of the tax code, different types of income are taxed differently. Plus, taking certain actions can help you legally avoid paying taxes. Ultimately, how you earn income, and what you do with your money once you earn it will dramatically influence how much you have to pay in income taxes. Understanding how to arrange your finances to minimize your taxes can reward you with hundreds or even thousands of extra dollars to spend, invest, or give away as you see fit. Even if you’re not a high income earner (yet), knowing the tax code can be helpful. Your knowledge can help you grow your income in a tax-efficient way. Want to learn more about minimizing your taxes? These six tax breaks are among the most accessible for everyday people. Plus, we’ll give you action steps to take so you can take advantage of them today. Find the full article here.

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Bitcoin is still incredibly popular, and every now and then it will make the national news. The price is still highly volatile, but it's not as crazy as it was years ago. But picking a winner with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency is near impossible. That's why we need to talk about Bitcoin alternatives. The bottom line is that Bitcoin has limitations (we talk about some here). And there are other currencies that are working to overcome those limitations. And over the last few years, Coinbase (the most popular Bitcoin investment platform) has also released other coins that you can invest in. Note: You get $10 free when you deposit $100 on Coinbase the first time. In this episode, we break down the most popular Bitcoin alternatives, and whether you should invest. Check it out here. Why Bitcoin Dominates Bitcoin (BTC) is by far the most valued cryptocurrency available, according to coinmarketcap.com rankings, where it is ranked #1. Its market cap is $179,802,817,673 and it trades for $10,072.92 per coin. Bitcoin’s market cap makes it nearly eight times more valuable than ETH, the second most valuable cryptocurrency. Bitcoin dominates the cryptocurrency market because it was the first crypto coin and became well-entrenched by the time other crypto currencies arrived on the scene. BTC showed up in 2008. The next cryptocurrencies weren’t created until 2011. By that time, BTC was already proven as a cryptocurrency. Below are the most popular Bitcoin alternatives by rank. Ethereum $23,307,528,005 market cap Currently trading at $217.56 Symbol is ETH ETH is a relative newcomer in the cryptocurrency world compared to BTC. It was launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin. Shortly thereafter, ETH reigned as #2 and continues to hold that position with authority. ETH’s goal was to provide smart contracts and dApps or distributed apps. These are features that BTC lacks. Smart contracts trigger when specific conditions are met. They act as a moderator, overseeing transactions, and making sure parties comply with the terms they originally agreed to. For example, someone may agree to pay a software developer $500 after a job is completed. Once the developer submits code to GitHub, the submission triggers the contract to release the $500. Whatever the terms are, both sides must first agree, and then the contract is set up to execute on those terms. Learn more about Ethereum here. XRP (Ripple) $0.319937 market cap Currently trading at $0.319937 Symbol is XRP Ripple was created as a fast method of payment exchange. Ripple is a platform and XRP is the coin used to transact on the platform. Ripple shines in its ability to facilitate international transactions. It is able to find the shortest path between two people wanting to transact. Transactions can even be performed in other coins. Ripple charges commissions as low as $0.00001, which is needed to prevent DDoS attacks. If Ripple has its own coin, why would it allow others coins on its network? The answer is to become more valuable. As currency moves from one country to another, it incurs various transaction costs. Banks and other financial institutions can use Ripple to avoid those costs. Ripple is also more efficient than BTC with an average transaction time of four seconds. Learn more about Ripple here. Litecoin $6,204,711,536 market cap Currently trading at $98.63 Symbol is LTC Litecoin is very similar to BTC but much faster and cheaper. The creators of LTC even admitted their coin is a clone of BTC. LTC uses an open-source protocol. Like BTC, LTC can be mined using proof of work (PoW). PoW makes miners solve a puzzle and verify it. PoW consumes tremendous amounts of energy. To get around the huge energy use from mining, LTC introduced the scrypt algorithm. Scrypt basically allows regular computers to mine LTC, rather than having the pools of powerful computers needed to mine BTC. The average block mining speed of LTC is 2.5 minutes compared to BTC’s 10 minutes. LTC also uses atomic swaps. With atomic swaps, non-LTC coins can be exchanged for LTC without going through an exchange and incurring commissions. For example, Person A wants to exchange 10 BTC with Person B for 1,000 LTC. Instead of going through an exchange to complete the swap, they simply exchange directly and avoid commissions. Learn more about Litecoin here. Bitcoin Cash $5,853,854,080 market cap Currently trading at $326.62 Symbol is BCH It’s no coincidence that Bitcoin Cash has Bitcoin in its name. BCH is a hard-fork of BTC. This means the community decided to fork the BTC code into a new coin, which increased the block size from 2MB to 8MB. BCH was created on August 1st, 2017. One of the main reasons for creating BCH was to increase the speed of transactions. Little can be done about BTC’s average seven-second transaction speed. Compared to Visa, which processes transactions at 24,000 per second, the only choice was to update the BTC codebase by forking it. Forking allows BTC to continue with minor updates whi

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