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Millions of Americans face economic hardships today due to the financial crisis. The Great Recession made a big impact on the financial lives of consumers. Unemployment was high and many struggled to make ends meet, forcing them to tap into their savings and live off credit to survive. Now that our economy is recovering, we believe that education is the key for consumers to unlock the door that leads to financial success and opportunity.

Grab a pen and paper. Jot down some differences between the Northeast and Midwest. What came to mind? Maybe it was the bright city lights of the Northeast versus the Midwest’s starlit farms? Or maybe it’s the city’s busy streets compared to quiet open fields? What you may or may not have written down is that Northeasterners prefer to drive more import vehicles than the folks in the Midwest. According to Experian Automotive’s mid-year review of automotive market trends, in the first half of 2013, the top five new vehicle models in the Northeast region were all import brands. Conversely, as one might have guessed, American-made vehicles dominated the Midwestern roads. In the Northeast, the list was made up of the Honda Accord, Honda CR-V, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic and Nissan Altima. Out in the Midwest, Ford vehicles made up four of the top five and the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 filled out the list. The top five in order included the F-150, Fusion, Escape, Silverado 1500 and the Focus.

In the personal finance world, credit is one of the hottest topics to talk about and there are many resources available to consumers. To further empower consumers to take a more active role in managing their credit, Experian provides a number of solid consumer education programs. As a positive extension to those, in 2011 we developed Experian Credit Educator, a consumer-education service that offers personalized, live, one-on-one, telephone-based credit education sessions to consumers and customers of Experian’s clients. Experian recently announced that we’ve added new features to this service in order to give consumers insights into specific actions which may produce an improvement to their credit score.