Credit card types explained: is yours really credit?
Your card says CREDIT, which settles less than you'd hope. Four card types, and where each one catches you out.
Money Management
Everyday money skills: budgeting, saving, credit, tax, and the fintech tools that, on a good day, make all of it less of a chore.
Money Management is the part of personal finance that happens every month whether anyone plans it or not. Pay arrives, bills leave, and something in between decides what’s left. This section is about that something.
For now it’s mostly budgeting and saving: why saving feels hard, what to do on payday and in which order, a handful of budgeting methods, and where to keep money once you’ve got some. Credit and tax belong here too, and the section grows as those articles get written.
The rules differ by country, so when a figure depends on where you live, the article says which country’s figure it is. Nothing here is personal advice. It’s the working-out, shown in full, so you can check it against your own numbers.
Featured
Our best attempts.
The payday running order: what to do when you get paid
The euro payment system shuts four days straight every Easter. Move the payments nobody else is waiting for to at least five days after payday, on a date at or below the 28th that your own bills have already cleared.
How much should you have saved by 30, 40 and 50? The European answer
One year's salary by 30, three times by 40. That rule is American, and it assumes you fund half your own retirement yourself. Most of Europe already funds more, and most countries have a free government site where you can look yours up.
Your Christmas budget starts with last December's statement
Your banking app already holds what last December cost you on top of an average month. Use it to set a Christmas ceiling you can clear by the January due date without touching the emergency fund.
Budgeting & Saving
How to get back on track after overspending, without starting over
The bad month cost you one month. The nine you didn't go back cost nine times more. Restart at a figure that survives December, and keep the balance.
How to audit your spending and find where it went
A bank statement is a diary you didn't mean to keep. Here's how to read it back and find where the money actually went.
The 50/30/20 budget rule: a simple plan for European savers, and where it breaks
The 50/30/20 budget rule for European savers, explained plainly: how to split take-home pay, what a need is, and what to do when rent breaks the 50% ceiling.
Loud budgeting: how to turn down plans you can't afford without shame
Someone's booked a hen weekend that costs a week's groceries. Loud budgeting is how you say no to it without sounding cheap, broke, or mean.
Fix your savings, stay flexible, or build a ladder?
Rates fell, then the ECB hiked. Nobody can call the next move, and a savings ladder is built for exactly that uncertainty.
Why you can't save money (it was never willpower)
You keep failing the willpower test because it was never a willpower test. Change the set-up, automate one transfer, and saving happens without you.
Credit & Debt
What is buy now, pay later? Credit files and new EU rules
Buy now, pay later is a small loan from a provider such as Klarna or PayPal. Whether it reaches your credit file depends on the country, and often on the provider.
Working with credit instead of against it: scores, cards, loans, and clearing debt without paying the lender a euro more than required.
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