Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

Claes Bell has covered banking, autos and a variety of personal finance topics for Bankrate since 2006. He blogs on autos, banking and CD rates.

Kay Bell is Bankrate's tax specialist and served on the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, which works with the IRS on customer service issues.

Sheyna Steiner covers rates and investing as well as a variety of personal finance topics.

Greg McBride , CFA, is the senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com and has appeared on hundreds of national television outlets and is widely quoted in the press.

Leslie McFadden is an associate editor at Bankrate.com who has covered the credit card industry for several years and is a sought-after expert on the subject.

Holden Lewis is an assistant managing editor at Bankrate.com who has covered the mortgage industry for more than 10 years. His mortgage blog has earned five national awards.

Marcie Geffner Marcie Geffner is an award-winning freelance reporter, writer, editor and blogger whose work has been published by MSNBC, CNBC, Yahoo! Finance, Fox Business, Bankrate.com, AOL Real Estate, ThirdAge.com, Fidelity.com, Inman News and dozens of major U.S. newspapers. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from UCLA and MBA from Pepperdine University.

Barbara Whelehan is an assistant managing editor at Bankrate.com and has a certificate of specialization in financial planning.

Jennie Phipps started reporting on retirement planning 6 years ago, when she and her husband were thinking about retiring. They haven't pulled the trigger yet, but she's still hoping.

Jay MacDonald has been a contributing editor at Bankrate.com for more than a decade, infusing humor and human interest into a broad range of personal finance topics.

Judy Martel is a Certified Financial Planner and the author of "The Dilemmas of Family Wealth." She was previously a senior editor at Bankrate.