Lauren Nowacki

About the author

Lauren Nowacki joined the Bankrate Loans team in 2024, bringing more than a decade of experience writing about personal finance. As a former writer and editor for Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Loans and One Reverse Mortgage, Lauren is passionate about helping people confidently navigate their finances — at every age and stage in life. With expertise in home loans, personal loans, student loans and reverse mortgages, she strives to simplify complex loan products and processes.

There’s nothing Lauren enjoys more than finding data that tells a story that can educate and inspire a reader. Her reporting on previous studies has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Forbes, GOBankingRates, MSN and Yahoo Finance.

When she isn’t writing articles or balancing her budget, Lauren enjoys camping with her family, hiking, traveling and telling anyone who’ll listen how she strategically obtained a perfect credit score.

Lauren wants you to know

When it comes to financial independence, preparation is key. Creating a strategy and giving yourself time can help you avoid having to borrow money. However, life is expensive and unpredictable. When necessary, loans can be a great financial tool — but, like any tool, they can either build or they can disassemble. Approaching your borrowing armed with knowledge and a plan can set you up for success and even help in other ways, like improving your credit score.