How to Master Your Finances in 2017

  A new year brings a chance to start fresh with just about anything. If your midnight toast included a resolution to improve your financial health, here’s how to make it happen. Get on a budget To get ahead, it’s important to know where you stand and to create a plan with realistic goals such… Read More

Five Easy Ways to Avoid Debt During the Holidays

Five Easy Ways to Avoid Debt During the Holidays Between buying gifts, hosting parties, and working fewer hours, it’s easy to add on debt during the holidays. So easy, in fact, most Americans tack on additional $1,000 to their credit card bills according to a national survey by MagnifyMoney. To help you this holiday season,… Read More

How Much Will it Cost to Prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse?

Thanks to mainstream entertainment like The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later and World War Z, you’ve probably thought about what you would do, where you would go (*ahem*…highly secure military base or Winterfell) and how you would survive if a zombie outbreak rendered our world helpless. “Zombie attacks” made the list of disasters people worry… Read More

Cyber Security Awareness Month

October is National Cyber Security Awareness month. Here are five tips to keep your money safe: 1)  Set up account alerts. This is an easy and effective way to both manage your finances and alert you to possible fraudulent transactions through email or text message. Click on the heading “Settings & Alerts” to enroll for… Read More

Seven Tips to Prepare for Maternity Leave

Saving Up for Your Time Off According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, August has the highest number of births. What’s more, September 16th represents the most common birthday of the year. While we can only speculate about why so many babies are born this time of year (insert cheeky remarks about too many glasses… Read More

Building a Credit Score From Scratch

Young adults often bump into a cold fact of financial life: Having no credit history can limit your options just as much as having bad credit does. Lenders, rental offices and insurance companies use your financial track record to judge how likely you are to pay debts and bills — and if you’re a blank… Read More

Why We’re Crazy About A Guy With A Squeegee

One of FirstBank’s missions is to help businesses get big. It’s one of the reasons we feature our customers on billboards, use their products or services for promotions like Capture the Cube and why we regularly feature customers on our blog, including A Guy With Squeegee owner, Denny Wetmore. But full disclosure: We also find… Read More

The Skinny on Skimming: 5 Tips to Protect Your Money at the ATM

A recent report finds that illegal card skimming continues to grow and has costed consumers more than $2 billion. Skimming is big business, netting crooks an average of $50,000 ($50,000!) each time. Unfortunately, skimming is an increasingly popular method for thieves to steal credit or debit card numbers and PINs, where cardholders swipe to pay… Read More

Six Tricks to Stress Less About Money and Sleep More

62 percent of us worry about money so much it regularly impacts our sleep, according to a recent survey by CreditCards.com. This means that two out of three people are lying awake at night thinking about their finances. When you consider that the combination of anxiety and sleep deprivation can impair your judgment or lead… Read More