Credit and debt
Scores, cards, loans, and the traps in each.
- beginner
Credit scores, decoded
Four bureaus score you from 300 to 900, every one of them owes you a free report each year, and most of what people repeat about scores is wrong.
14 min · reviewed 2026-08-11
- beginner
Credit cards without the trap doors
A card is a short free loan with trap doors: the minimum due, cash withdrawals and no-cost EMIs each cost far more than the sticker suggests.
16 min · reviewed 2026-08-11
- beginner
Education loans, eyes open
Who has to pledge collateral, why interest runs quietly all through the moratorium, and how the 80E clock starts years before your first EMI does.
15 min · reviewed 2026-08-11
- intermediate
Home loans: the 20-year arithmetic
Early EMIs are almost all interest, a longer tenure quietly doubles what the loan costs, and the repo rate reaches straight into your monthly payment.
16 min · reviewed 2026-08-11
- intermediate
Standing guarantor: what the signature says
A guarantee is not a character reference. Section 128 makes a guarantor liable for the whole debt, not a portion of it, and the paper is with the lender.
17 min · reviewed 2026-08-12
- beginner
Buy now, pay later — and the debits you forgot
Pay-later at checkout is a loan dressed as a payment button, and an auto-debit is a permission you gave once. Both switch on easily and off quietly.
16 min · reviewed 2026-08-12