About the author
Kristen Kuchar is an editor at Bankrate with the Wealth team. She has written for personal finance publications for 15 years, covering a wide range of money topics throughout her career, including how to save money, debt management strategies and protecting your money while traveling. As a writer and editor, Kristen hopes to help create content that makes money and finances easier to understand, less stressful and genuinely beneficial. She strives to help readers reach their money goals whether it’s saving more money, getting out of debt or saving for retirement.
Outside of Bankrate, Kristen enjoys her other passions such as travel, food and beverage and hiking.
Kristen wants you to know
Regardless of your financial goals, creating a budget to know where your money is going is imperative. Once you have a better idea of your spending, you can choose to make cuts where you can or find creative ways to save on the things that matter most to you.
Kristen's recommended readings
How to Budget and Save for a Weekend Getaway
7 simple ways to build good money habits
How to make a zero-based budget
There are so many options when it comes to bank accounts for spending (checking), saving and even growing your money. Consider what is most important to you when it comes to choosing an account that is right for you.
— Kristen Kuchar
A financial glow-up is essentially a money makeover. It’s taking a thorough look at your finances and following up with actions to meet your money goals. “Glow-up” may be a trendy term, but taking [...]
This budgeting rule of thumb can help make tracking everyday spending easier.
Subscriptions are easy to lose track of, but these apps can help restore order.
Bank failures had been relatively rare since the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, but that all changed last year when First Republic and Silicon Valley Bank both collapsed and sent shockwaves through [...]
I’ve often referred to 2024 as the year of the certificate of deposit (CD). In tracking CD rates on a daily basis, I’ve seen how yields remain at an overall high, thanks to the Federal Reserve raising [...]
Truist Bank, the financial-services giant born out of the merger of SunTrust and BB&T, offers two CDs with competitive yields.
Learn why a bank could close your account.
