If youve been asked to swipe your credit card lately, you may have noticed a new machine at checkout. Or perhaps you opened the mail to find a brand-new Visa with a shiny microchip embedded in the front. In fact, by the end of the year, your whole wallet will have undergone an overhaul, with all your old credit cards replaced with new-and-improved chip cards. Here are the details: Whats a Microchip Card? These microchip cards have been around in Europe awhile, but are relatively ...

Happy Spring! With Sunday marking the first official day of spring, we naturally got to thinking about spring cleaning. Since we recently outlined all things tax-related, we felt it only appropriate to start with ways to spring clean your wallet. (You know, that catch-all for paper receipts, membership cards, pictures and spare change.) 1. Ditch the Social Security Card If your social security card is in your wallet, remove it immediately. Not only is it unnecessary, but if someone ...

When planning a summer vacation, the question of whether or not to purchase travel insurance is a tricky one. Most credit card companies offer some form of travel insurance to cardholders who use their card when booking a vacation. (Thats an important caveat: you can only purchase travel insurance from the credit card company from which the vacation was booked.) Recently, WalletHub compared the travel insurance offered by 92 different credit card companies. Of those 92 companies 93% offered ...

The holiday season is here! And so is the holiday shopping season. Those last-minute deals online are too good to pass up: 40% off and free, 2-day shipping? Quadruple rewards points? And no long lines at the mall? Online shopping is a great way to snag great deals -- all from the comfort of your own home (and in your pjs with your favorite warm drink!). However, the like any transaction, there are security issues to keep in mind when buying online -- but by following a few basic guidelines,...