Lauren Clifford

Lauren Clifford is a staff writer at LendingTree, where she covers loans and personal finance. Her most recent work includes independently pitching and executing a nationwide personal loan shopping study that earned televised coverage from multiple media outlets.

She has written popular LendingTree articles including Best Personal Loans and Fast Food, Slow Pay: Fast Food Workers Can’t Afford the Basics in Every Large U.S. Metro. Lauren is also responsible for developing the rating methodologies for several personal and auto loans pages.

Lauren helps readers connect the dots between where they are financially and where they want to be. She is passionate about using clear, concise language to empower readers as they make important financial decisions.

Specialties

• Consumer loans
• Credit cards
• Personal finance and debt

Achievements

• 100+ articles written for LendingTree
  
• 8+ years of professional writing and editing experience

Education

• BA, University of California, Los Angeles
• MA, New York University

Bringing work home

“My four-year-old son has recently shown an interest in money. I’ll sometimes chat with him about the basics, but I wasn’t sure how much he was retaining until he offered to sell me a piece of his pizza for $100,000 at dinner last week. When I countered with $2, he told me I could ‘just get a loan’ to pay him the full $100,000.”