Financial News Features

“Ask a trusted friend or financial advisor to look over your budget and ask them to be brutally honest,” said Howard Dvorkin, chairman at Debt.com. “Take their suggestions and revisit them in a month to check on your progress.”

According to Howard Dvorkin, Chairman of Debt.com, the best window for holiday shopping is between October 1 and December 1. If you do your shopping in this period, you’ll still be able to take advantage of holiday sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and you’ll also give yourself enough time to shop without feeling the pressure of a time crunch.

If you owe a significant amount of money on your credit card, your minimum payment will likely be around 2% to 3% of your balance, Debt.com resident expert and certified public accountant Howard Dvorkin told CNET. However, it could also be as low as 1%.

If you carry a balance, suddenly, 20 percent off that TV doesn’t seem so appealing. “You should be looking at the interest rate, but most shoppers don't look at that; they look at deals,” says Howard Dvorkin, a CPA and chairman of Debt.com. “You’ve got to be very, very careful."

Howard Dvorkin, chairman of Debt.com, says BNPL can be a useful tool—or a harmful one. Dvorkin says that you might come out ahead if you use a BNPL loan and pay it off before interest charges kick in instead of carrying a balance on a high-interest credit card.

"If you're at a dealership ready to buy a car, and the dealer says they can help you pay for that car with an in-house loan, that's an example of captive financing," says Howard Dvorkin, an author, certified public accountant (CPA) and chairman of Debt.com.