Back in the day, I used to write a quick thing I called Your Weekend Reads, where I shared the top aviation stories I read during the week. I'm bringing it back, but this time I'm sharing some of my favorite
Bankrate
stories of the week.
If you follow me on X at @benetwilson, you'll see my daily post of top financial stories of the week. With all the craziness going on in the financial sector, information is power, and my Bankrate colleagues are doing a great job covering it all. Let's get started!
- Men are from mars, women are from Venus — even in the world of finances. Contributor
Michelle Clardie
writes about how gender continues to impact nearly every aspect of personal finance, including earning, spending, investing and consumer debt. (https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/debt/men-women-and-debt-does-gender-matter/)
- Who better to know which credit cards to consider than the Bankrate cards team? I had fun polling our team of credit cards writers and editors for the one card they can't live without. One colleague has 55 — yes, 55 — credit cards and it was painful for him to choose just one! (https://www.bankrate.com/credit-cards/advice/bankrate-staffers-favorite-credit-cards/)
- It happens to the best of us -- you dread opening those monthly credit card statements, afraid of the balances that await you. In this story, contributor Michelle Clardie is at it again, this time explaining how you can negotiate those balances via a debt settlement. (https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/debt/striking-a-deal-with-a-debt-collector/)
- I'm happy to report that I have a nice amount of money in my emergency savings fund. This wasn't always the case, and there are plenty of people who currently don't have one. Personal finance writer
Lane Gillespie
dug through data in Bankrate's 2025 Annual Emergency Savings Report, where he found 33 percent of Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings — down from 36 percent in both 2024 and 2023. Another 13 percent of people don’t have credit card debt, but don’t have any emergency savings, either. (https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-report/)
- I'm going to assign you a weekend assignment — check out this post of Best investing books for beginners, written by
Brian Baker, CFA
, Bankrate's senior writer, investment and retirement, then choose at least one to read. On my list are numbers 7, 9, 10 and 11 (I really like to read). (https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-investing-books-for-beginners/)
