By Erin El Issa, NerdWallet

It’s nearly the end of the year and a majority of Americans have regrets about their money moves, or lack thereof, in 2024. Whether they set New Year’s resolutions that didn’t work out, or just thought they’d be further ahead than they are now, a new NerdWallet survey, conducted in Oct. 2024 by The Harris Poll, finds that 69% of Americans have financial regrets for 2024.

The youngest adult generation — Gen Z (ages 18-27) — is most likely to be remorseful about money this year. Nearly 9 in 10 Gen Zers (89%) say they have financial regrets for 2024, compared to 80% of millennials (ages 28-43), 73% of Gen Xers (ages 44-59) and just 46% of baby boomers (ages 60-78).

Among the top regrets are not saving, overspending and not working on credit score improvement.

If you count yourself among those with regrets, here are some actions you can take starting today to avoid such remorse next year and beyond.

Regret: Not saving for emergencies and financial goals

Nearly 3 in 10 Americans (29%) regret not saving for emergencies and 27% regret not saving enough for their financial goals, like retirement or a down payment on a home, this year.

Take action: Set up automatic transfers to a savings account. Many of us try to save by seeing what we have leftover at the end of the month and transferring that over to savings. But with an endless array of things and experiences to spend on, it takes an immense amount of willpower to end the month with a chunk of money to throw into savings. Instead, flip the order by automating your savings first, and spending what’s leftover.

This could mean setting up a transfer between your checking account and savings account once a month or on each payday. Or, you could see if your employer allows you to set up direct deposit to multiple accounts and send an amount or percentage of your paycheck straight to savings without the detour to your checking account.

Regret: Overspending on entertainment

A quarter of Americans (25%) regret overspending on entertainment, like dining out and recreation, this year. This is a more common regret for Gen Zers (35%) and millennials (32%) than Gen Xers (25%) and baby boomers (14%).

Take action: Set a limit on your outings, not your spending. If setting a budget for the amount you have to spend on entertainment isn’t working out for you, try giving yourself a set amount of outings. For example, instead of “I have to keep my dining out under $200 this month” try “I can go out to dinner twice a week.” Or instead of “I need to make coffee at home more often” try “I can go out for coffee on Fridays.”

This intentional planning can help you prioritize which outings are more important to you — like choosing to forgo takeout on a Tuesday in order to meet friends at a restaurant on Thursday — and will likely lead to lower spending as well. Try it out for the remainder of 2024: Track your spending during this period to determine whether this approach was more effective for you than budgeting a specific amount.

Regret: Neglecting their credit score

More than 1 in 5 Americans (21%) regret not improving their credit in 2024.

Take action: Ensure your payments are on time and your credit utilization is in check. Generally there are five main factors that go into calculating your score, but on time payments and credit utilization are the most important ones. On time payments are self-explanatory and you can ensure you pay on time, every time, by setting up automatic payments or reminders to pay your bills by the due date.

Credit utilization is the percentage of credit you’re using at any given time, both per loan account and overall. So let’s say you have two credit cards with limits of $10,000 and $5,000 and balances of $2,000 and $4,000, respectively. This would make the first card’s utilization 20%, the second card’s utilization 80%, and the overall utilization 40%.

While the long-term goal should be avoiding carrying credit card debt from month to month, you might choose to strategically pay down the second card faster than the first to get its utilization rate lower in service of your credit score. A general, though contested, rule of thumb is to keep utilization below 30%, but we say the lower, the better.

If your credit score is suffering despite making on time payments and keeping utilization low, there may be an error on your credit reports. Pull your reports from annualcreditreport.com for free and make sure there aren’t mistakes bringing down your score.

The complete survey methodology is available in the original article, published at NerdWallet.

Erin El Issa writes for NerdWallet. Email: erin@nerdwallet.com.

The article Survey: Majority of Americans Have Money Regrets in 2024 originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By Sara Rathner, NerdWallet

A nearly $90 million ruling this week against Apple and Goldman Sachs — who together brought the Apple Card to market in 2019 — is the latest chapter in a dramatic breakup reportedly brewing between the two companies.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered the tech giant and the bank to pay more than $89 million combined in penalties after it determined that customer service issues surrounding their co-branded credit card led to consumer harm.

The Apple Card was a big bet for both Apple and Goldman Sachs, neither of which had a significant imprint in the consumer credit card market. The relationship between the two companies has been tumultuous at times, and indeed some of the CFPB’s findings seem indicative of that tumult and lack of experience.

In 2023, Apple reportedly proposed exiting their contract in the next 12 to 15 months, and while the company hasn’t yet found a new issuer to take Goldman Sachs’ place, it has reportedly met with potential replacements.

What happened to affected Apple Card users

On Oct. 23, 2024, the CFPB said it had found that Apple and Goldman Sachs failed to properly handle disputed charges, and that cardholders were misled about payment plans and refunds for Apple product purchases. Here’s a breakdown of the CFPB’s findings:

Issues with cardholder disputes

By law, consumers can dispute a credit card charge within 60 days when they see a fraudulent or incorrect charge on their credit card bill, or if a merchant fails to resolve an issue with a purchase. Following an investigation, the issuer will refund the consumer if it finds the dispute to be valid. Issuers must acknowledge receiving your complaint in writing within 30 days, and must resolve the dispute within 90 days.

Apple Card users could dispute charges through the Apple Wallet app, but in some instances, Apple didn’t send disputes to Goldman Sachs, according to the CFPB. The regulator said this left consumers on the hook for tens of thousands of disputed transactions. And when Goldman Sachs did receive disputes from Apple, the CFPB claims, it dropped the ball on both notifying consumers that their dispute was received, and also on explaining the results of their investigation later on. This meant that Goldman Sachs illegally placed incorrect information on consumers’ credit reports, the CFPB said.

Issues with Apple Card Monthly Installments

With Apple Card Monthly Installments, you could opt into a 0% APR payment plan when buying eligible Apple products with your Apple Card. However, according to the CFPB, unclear marketing for Apple Card Monthly Installments led consumers to believe they automatically got no-interest financing when buying Apple products, rather than having to proactively opt into it. Consumers also faced “confusing checkout options.” This resulted in thousands of consumers unexpectedly paying interest when financing Apple devices.

Additionally, affected consumers had two card balances: the installment plan balance and the revolving credit card balance. The CFPB states that more than 10,000 consumers were misled by Goldman Sachs when it came to how refunds would be applied to those balances. At times, the regulator said, refunds that should have been issued to the revolving credit card balance (which accrued interest) were actually issued to the interest-free installment plan balance, resulting in additional interest charges.

The consequences for Apple and Goldman Sachs

“While we strongly disagree with the CFPB’s characterization of Apple’s conduct, we have aligned with them on an agreement,” an Apple spokesperson said in an email.

That agreement comes out to more than $89 million in penalties. Apple must pay $25 million into the CFPB’s victims relief fund, which assists those harmed by companies that break federal consumer protection laws. Goldman Sachs must pay at least $19.8 million in redress to victims, plus a $45 million civil money penalty.

Should Goldman Sachs want to issue any new credit cards in the future, it will be subject to additional scrutiny from the CFPB. “The CFPB is banning Goldman Sachs from offering a new consumer credit card unless it can demonstrate that it can actually follow the law,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement.

Goldman Sachs doesn’t appear to be rushing into any new credit card partnerships, though. If anything, it seems to want out of the market entirely. Independent of the Apple Card, Goldman Sachs has moved to drop the My GM Rewards® Mastercard®, which it also issues. Under a partnership agreement announced this month, Barclays will be taking over as General Motors’ credit card partner next summer.

What should consumers do?

According to the CFPB, consumers who are eligible for redress don’t have to take any actions. You may have already gotten the compensation you’re owed, but if not, expect to receive communication about it from Goldman Sachs.

Otherwise, keep an eye on your monthly credit card statements for unexpected charges, and report them to your credit card company quickly. You can also check your credit reports for free once a year at annualcreditreport.com, and dispute any errors to the credit bureaus.

If a card issuer isn’t responsive to your disputes, you can file a complaint with the CFPB online, or by calling (855) 411-2372.

Sara Rathner writes for NerdWallet. Email: srathner@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @sarakrathner.

The article What the Latest Bad News for the Apple Card Means for Customers originally appeared on NerdWallet.