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September 6, 2026 • Media Coverage

How People in Their 20s and Early 30s Build Savings on Entry-Level Pay

MoneyLion’s guide to building savings on an entry-level paycheck turned to United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila on a point most early-career savers miss: building savings doesn’t always mean earning more. Sometimes it means finding money that’s already leaving the budget. Avila recommended starting small while taking a hard look at debt payments. “Start with $10 and a hard look at what your debt is costing you each month,” he said. “Free up $50 by knocking out one balance, and that $50 becomes your savings. You don’t find money to save; you free it up.”

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on Yahoo Finance and AOL.

August 30, 2026 • Media Coverage

With Starter Home Availability Up, Here’s How to Accelerate Your First Mortgage Savings Plan

NTD News turned to United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila for the debt side of saving a first down payment, in a report on rising starter-home availability. Avila told NTD News to start with the credit file: “You’ll need to pull all three credit reports and dispute errors under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.” From there, he said, the order of operations decides how fast the savings actually build: “Attack high-interest revolving debt before aggressively stockpiling cash,” Avila said. “At an average 22.15 percent APR on cards assessed interest, paying that balance down is critical, as Experian estimates the average cardholder pays about $1,475 a year in interest. That is down payment money leaving the household.”

Read the coverage: NTD News

August 27, 2026 • Byline

Why Getting Out of Debt Is a Cash-Flow Problem, Not a Math Problem

Writing for Connectively, United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila argues that what keeps households stuck in debt is almost never the arithmetic. “After years helping people dig out from credit cards, medical bills, and personal loans, I’ve learned the math is rarely what keeps them stuck. Cash flow is,” Avila writes. The distinction he draws is between the plan on paper and the plan a household can actually sustain: “Math tells you what you should do. Cash flow decides what you actually can do this month, and next month, without falling behind on rent or groceries.” A payoff schedule that leaves no breathing room, he notes, gets abandoned the first time the car breaks down. His three-part fix is to map the whole picture first, writing down every debt with its balance, rate, minimum and due date before making any extra payment; to protect a cushion while paying down, because someone with zero cushion is one flat tire from a new credit-card balance; and to match the tool to the problem, since debt is not one problem and has no single solution. Results vary by situation.

Read the article: Connectively

August 21, 2026 • Byline

The Hidden P&L Line: Why Employee Financial Stress Is a CFO Problem

Writing for CFO Drive, United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila makes the case that employee financial stress belongs on the finance team’s ledger rather than in the benefits brochure, because it hides inside lost productivity, absenteeism, turnover, errors and healthcare claims instead of appearing as a line item. He prices it with the available research: employees lose more than seven hours of productivity a week to financial stress, costing U.S. employers an estimated $183 billion a year, per BrightPlan’s Wellness Barometer Survey; 56% spend three or more hours a week handling personal financial issues on the clock, per PwC; and 78% of organizational leaders say financial stress drove higher turnover in the past year, with replacing an employee running 50% to 200% of annual salary, per SHRM. Set against household debt of $18.771 trillion and an average card rate of 22.15% on accounts assessed interest, his argument is that the number is already in the financials, and the only question is whether it is being managed deliberately or paid by default.

Read the article: CFO Drive

August 20, 2026 • Media Coverage

6 Bills To Cut as Kids Head Back to School

MoneyLion’s back-to-school savings guide turned to United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila on the bill most households never think to renegotiate: cell phone and internet. Loyalty is not your friend there, the piece notes, because the discounted promotional period that got you in the door has expired, so long-tenured customers often pay more than newcomers. Avila said carriers typically keep retention departments whose entire job is to keep you as a customer, so telling yours you will go elsewhere unless it reinstates the promotional rate can win a discount. If that still does not work, follow through and switch to a competitor. A multi-line, new-customer promo on a family plan can save $40 to $80 per month.

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on AOL.

August 14, 2026 • Media Coverage

Tips for Getting a Mortgage and Buying a House With Bad Credit

USA TODAY turned to United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila for practical ways to improve mortgage approval odds with damaged credit. In a guide walking borrowers through credit-report cleanup, on-time payments and down-payment strategy, Avila pointed at the factor that moves fastest: “Start with credit utilization, because it has no memory. Get card balances under 30% of limits, ideally under 10%, and your score can respond within one or two billing cycles,” Avila said.

Read the coverage: USA TODAY

August 5, 2026 • Media Coverage

Best Debt Relief And Settlement Companies Of 2026

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila sits on the “Ask the Expert” panel of Forbes Advisor’s guide to the best debt relief and settlement companies, alongside debt attorney Leslie H. Tayne, Esq. and financial coach Lisa Whitley, AFC®, CRPC®. Asked what a settlement program does to a credit score, Avila was direct about the trade-off: “Short term, expect a real [credit] drop because missed payments are how settlement works,” Avila said. “Long term, recovery is realistic, and I watch it happen constantly. Once the debt is resolved, your utilization falls, collection accounts age off, and with on-time payments and low balances, the score climbs back. The unpaid debt sitting on your report was doing more damage than the settlement will.”

Read the coverage: Forbes Advisor

August 4, 2026 • Media Coverage

Gen Z Are Delaying Weddings, Home-Buying and Having Children Because They Can’t Afford It

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told The Independent that Gen Z reads a delayed milestone differently than older borrowers do. Northwestern Mutual’s survey of 4,375 U.S. adults found 72% of those aged 19 to 30 have postponed at least one major financial or life goal, and Avila said the generational split is in how that postponement is understood: “The clearest difference I see is that Gen Z treats the delay as a plan rather than a setback,” Avila said. “Older clients tended to describe postponing a house as something that happened to them. Younger clients describe it as a decision they made because the math did not work.”

Read the coverage: The Independent

July 15, 2026 • Media Coverage

Balancing the Bills: How to Navigate Debt Consolidation While Unemployed

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila cautioned BestMoney against trading unsecured debt for secured debt just to chase a lower rate while out of work: “Rolling unsecured debt like credit cards (which can’t take your house) into secured debt like a home-equity loan, title loan, or 401(k) loan just to get a lower rate can be risky,” Avila said. “You’d be trading a 21.5% problem you can often negotiate or settle for one where a missed payment costs you your home or your retirement. With uncertain income, that can be dangerous.”

Read the coverage: BestMoney

July 15, 2026 • Media Coverage

Nearly 50% of Travel Card Holders Let Their Rewards Expire: What BestMoney’s Travel Credit Cards Survey Found

BestMoney’s survey of 1,000 Americans found 35.7% went into debt to pay for a trip and 45.1% of travel cardholders let rewards expire. United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila warned that a card’s perks are the bait: “‘No fees’ and the rewards are what get people comfortable putting a whole vacation on the card and then paying for it for a year,” Avila said. “So my one warning: pick the card for the fee savings, but treat it like a debit card. If you can’t clear it when the statement lands, the cheapest travel card in the world just turned into an expensive loan.”

Read the coverage: BestMoney

July 13, 2026 • Media Coverage

6 Money Mistakes Gen Z Is Making by Choosing Cars Over Homes in 2026

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told MoneyLion that a big car payment can quietly cost Gen Z a home. Dealers know young buyers fixate on the monthly payment, he said, so stretching to 72- or 84-month terms means “thousands more in interest” and keeps them “chained” to the car and its pricey insurance. With the average new-car payment now about $770 a month, per Experian, “a $770 payment can eat the exact room your mortgage needed, so the new car doesn’t just delay the house, it can disqualify you from it,” Avila said. “I’ve watched 25-year-olds get denied and have no idea the car was the reason.”

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on MSN and AOL.

July 12, 2026 • Media Coverage

Net Worth for Gen Z: How To Tell if You’re Poor, Middle Class or Rich

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told MoneyLion that the fastest way to climb the net-worth ladder is not a bigger salary but clearing high-interest debt. Using the average credit card rate, he framed a paid-off balance as the surest return most people can get: “paying off that card is a guaranteed 21.52% return, better than almost anything an advisor can sell you,” Avila said.

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on AOL.

July 9, 2026 • Media Coverage

Americans Are Learning About Money Everywhere, So Why Are Knowledge Gaps Growing?

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told MoneyLion that the financial-literacy problem isn’t a shortage of information but the gap between knowing and doing: “Knowing the right move and being able to make it under pressure are two different skills, and we only teach the first one,” Avila said. Citing the TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index, which found U.S. adults answered just 47% of basic money questions correctly while many rated their own knowledge far higher, he warned that overconfidence carries a cost: “That confidence keeps them from asking for help until they’re already in a hole.”

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on AOL.

July 5, 2026 • Media Coverage

The Salary Needed for Gen Z To Finally Stop Relying on Their Parents in 2026

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told MoneyLion that the salary Gen Z needs to stop leaning on their parents hinges less on income than on debt, pegging independence at roughly “$55,000 to $65,000” in lower-cost metros like San Antonio and Memphis. He noted Gen Z student-loan borrowers are “paying about $526 a month on average, nearly double the typical borrower,” while the average Gen Z credit card balance has climbed “roughly 30% in three years to around $3,500.” As Avila put it: “Two people can earn the same $70,000, and one is independent while the other is still asking dad to cover the car insurance. The only difference between them is what they owe.”

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on AOL and Yahoo Finance.

July 1, 2026 • Media Coverage

Buy Now, Pay Later Debt Consolidation: What to Do When BNPL Balances Start to Multiply

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told BestMoney that rolling scattered Buy Now, Pay Later balances into one payment can restore control: “When you’re juggling several plans across multiple apps and you’ve missed or nearly missed dates, rolling them into one fixed monthly payment, usually a small personal loan, can buy back control,” Avila said. “You consolidate BNPL for cash-flow sanity, one payment on one date, not because the interest math always wins.” He cautioned that it only works if you stop opening new plans, or the balances start to stack up again.

Read the coverage: BestMoney

June 28, 2026 • Media Coverage

5 Money Habits That Look Responsible But Are Actually Costing You Thousands

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila told MoneyLion that closing old credit cards to avoid temptation can quietly backfire: “The problem is your credit score doesn’t read it as discipline,” Avila said. “It reads it as less available credit and a shorter history, and both of those push your score down.” He noted a lower score can bump a borrower into a pricier mortgage tier, where on a $300,000 loan a rate just half a point higher could add more than $11,000 over 10 years, “almost nobody connects that choice to the mortgage rate they’ll be quoted two years later, because the cost shows up far away from the decision.”

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on MSN and AOL.

June 27, 2026 • Media Coverage

7 Price Trends That Could Blow Up Gen Z Budgets

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila was quoted throughout MoneyLion’s rundown of the price trends most likely to blow up a Gen Z budget, warning that energy is “the headline driver right now, up more than 20% over the past year,” that auto insurance “climbs on autopilot” so re-quoting it once a year is “one of the highest-return budget moves a 25-year-old can make,” and that rent is “the single biggest line in almost every young person’s budget.”

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on AOL.

June 25, 2026 • Media Coverage

Banks Are Approving More Credit Cards. Is That Good News?

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila was quoted throughout U.S. News & World Report’s report on rising credit card approvals, explaining that easier approvals “aren’t charity” but “a signal that the math works in the lender’s favor,” and that a new card or higher limit only pays off when the balance is cleared in full every month.

Read the coverage: U.S. News & World Report

Also featured on WTOP News.

June 17, 2026 • Media Coverage

The New Middle-Class Trap: Summer Bills Outrunning Raises

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila was featured throughout MoneyLion’s look at why a summer raise can still leave middle-class families short, explaining the assistance-gap squeeze on cooling bills, how childcare “gets repriced the day school lets out,” and his fix of treating summer like a “13th month” with a monthly auto-transfer.

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on MSN and AOL.

June 15, 2026 • Media Coverage

Why a $75K Salary Doesn’t Go as Far for Single Earners This Summer

United Debt Relief founder Nick Avila was featured throughout MoneyLion’s analysis of why a $75,000 salary stretches thin for single earners, unpacking the “singles tax,” the summer “squeeze season,” and how solo earners shoulder every fixed cost and financial risk alone.

Read the coverage: MoneyLion

Also featured on AOL.

July 2026 • Industry Recognition

United Debt Relief Named Among Leading Providers in the U.S. Debt Settlement Market

In its 2026 Debt Settlement Solution Market report, Persistence Market Research identifies United Debt Relief among a group of leading providers that combine strong marketing reach with technology and analytics to serve large customer bases and manage complex portfolios at scale. The report examines the global debt settlement market’s size, growth, and competitive landscape through 2033. United Debt Relief is a nationwide debt relief company serving all 50 states; results vary by situation.

Read the report: Persistence Market Research

September 1, 2026 • Press Release

United Debt Relief Urges Households to Set a Holiday Budget Before the Borrowing Starts

Americans carried $1.263 trillion in credit card balances in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and cards assessed interest averaged an APR of 22.15 percent in May 2026, according to the Federal Reserve. Heading into the fourth quarter, United Debt Relief is urging households to decide how they will pay for the holidays before the spending starts rather than after the statements arrive.

"The debt people call us about in February is almost always debt they took on in November and December without a plan," said Nick Avila, Founder, United Debt Relief. "Deciding in September what you can actually afford is the cheapest financial move available to you all year."

The company points households to three facts worth understanding before any borrowing decision. Under the Federal Trade Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, a debt settlement provider cannot charge a fee until a debt has been renegotiated under an agreement the consumer signed and the consumer has made at least one payment under that agreement. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, charge-offs and collections are generally reported for seven years measured from the original delinquency, and bankruptcy for up to 10 years. And the IRS generally treats canceled debt as taxable income regardless of amount, with a Form 1099-C filed once the forgiven amount reaches $600 and exclusions available for bankruptcy and insolvency. Program services are performed by stringently vetted in-network providers and law firms, each BBB Accredited with an A rating. Individual results vary.

Read the full release: PRLog • Qwoted

Free consultation: uniteddebtrelief.com/free-consultation

August 1, 2026 • Press Release

United Debt Relief Urges Consumers to Weigh the Full Cost of Debt

With total U.S. household debt at $18.771 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the average APR on credit card accounts assessed interest at 22.15 percent in the second quarter of 2026, per the Federal Reserve, United Debt Relief is urging consumers to evaluate debt relief as a two-sided cost rather than a single number.

"The cost of getting out of debt is real, and it is almost always smaller than the cost of staying in it," said Nick Avila, Founder, United Debt Relief. "A debt settlement program will lower your credit in the short term, and I will always say so plainly. What matters is whether it gets you out of a hole you could not climb out of otherwise."

The release maps the three costs consumers should understand before enrolling in any settlement program: fees, which under the Federal Trade Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule cannot be charged until a debt has been renegotiated under an agreement the consumer signed and the consumer has made at least one payment under that agreement; a credit-score impact, with charge-offs and collections generally reported for seven years measured from the original delinquency, and bankruptcy for up to 10 years, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act; and possible tax on canceled debt, which the IRS generally treats as income regardless of amount, with a Form 1099-C filed at $600 or more and exclusions available for bankruptcy and insolvency. Individual results vary.

Read the full release: PRLog • Qwoted

Free consultation: uniteddebtrelief.com/free-consultation

July 5, 2026 • Press Release

As Unsecured Debt Gets More Expensive, United Debt Relief Explains the Three Paths to Resolve It: Consolidate, Settle, or Validate

Unsecured debt is the costliest slice of household debt: $1.263 trillion in credit card balances at rates above 20%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Federal Reserve, with cards among the fastest debts to fall behind. In this release, founder Nick Avila lays out the three paths United Debt Relief helps households navigate: a debt consolidation loan when you can pay but the rate is the enemy, debt settlement when the balance is beyond reach, and debt validation when a collector cannot verify the debt is yours. United Debt Relief is a company that charges no upfront consultation fees and does not guarantee outcomes; results vary. Current figures are published on our U.S. Debt Statistics page.

Read the full release: PRLog • Qwoted • openPR

June 3, 2026 • Press Release

Americans Enter Summer 2026 Owing a Record $18.79 Trillion, United Debt Relief Analysis Finds

Our June data briefing examines the newest Federal Reserve Bank of New York figures: total household balances opened the summer at an all-time high, with credit card debt up $70 billion year over year and the typical card-carrying household owing $10,895 at a 21.52% APR, roughly $195 a month in interest before any principal is paid. The briefing draws on the continuously updated research published on our U.S. Debt Statistics page.

Read the full release: PRLog • openPR

July 22, 2026 • Syndication

What Is a Debt Validation Letter? FDCPA Rights Explained

United Debt Relief republished its explainer on debt validation letters and consumer FDCPA rights to Medium, with the canonical link pointing back to the original United Debt Relief blog post. The piece breaks down what a debt validation letter is, what it should require a collector to verify, and how to send one. United Debt Relief is a debt relief company; this is general information, not legal advice, and results vary by individual circumstances.

Read on Medium: Medium