# Jared Castellano — Accredited Financial Counselor® | PayKedge > An AFC-credentialed counselor boasting 8 years in nonprofit credit guidance, Jared Castellano specializes in payday loan alternatives and military financial wellness. Источник: https://paykedge.com/authors/jared-castellano/ --- # Accredited Financial Counselor® Jared Castellano As PayKedge’s Senior Financial Educator, this Accredited Financial Counselor brings 8 years of nonprofit credit counseling to bear — clarifying small-dollar lending and its substitutes in accessible language. JC **Jared Castellano, AFC®** · AFCPE-accredited **On this page** Background Summary Credentials Held Expertise Areas Verified Content Disclosure Details Contact Details ## Professional Background Jared Castellano is the Senior Financial Educator at PayKedge, where she leads the development of educational content for working-class households navigating short-term cash gaps. She holds the Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) designation from the AFCPE and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017. After graduating, Jared joined a community-action agency in Durham as a financial coach, where she ran intake assessments for households facing eviction, utility shutoff, and payday loan rollover cycles. In 2018 she completed her NFCC certification and moved into a senior counselor role, supervising a team of three coaches and developing the curriculum used by the agency's monthly financial-literacy workshops. From 2019 through 2023 Jared was Lead Counselor at FairFinance Florida, a Tampa-based 501(c)(3) credit-counseling nonprofit. There she facilitated more than 1,400 one-on-one counseling sessions, built a debt-management plan template later adopted by three sister agencies, and delivered military-financial-readiness briefings on bases in Florida and Georgia under contract with Military OneSource. She joined PayKedge in 2023 to scale the educational mission to a national audience: the same plain-language explainers, the same alternatives-first framing, served at the moment a household searches for "payday loans near me." Jared authors the money pages and reviews state-specific cost content for accuracy and tone. ## Certifications & Designations **Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®)** AFCPE Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) · Active since 2018 **NFCC Certified Credit Counselor** National Foundation for Credit Counseling · Certified 2018 **BA Economics** University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · 2017 **Years of experience** 8 years in nonprofit credit counseling and financial education ## Field Specialties - **Payday lending** — cost structure, rollover mechanics, state regulatory variation - **Debt management plans (DMPs)** — eligibility, creditor concessions, plan design - **Small-dollar alternatives** — PALs, employer EWA, nonprofit hardship grants - **Military finance** — Military Lending Act, relief-society programs, deployment budgeting - **Household budgeting** — low- and moderate-income cash-flow planning ## Publication Reviews by Jared Jared authored or reviewed the following pages on PayKedge: - [Payday Loans Online — Compare 23+ State-Licensed Lenders (2026)](/payday-loans/) - [15 Payday Loan Alternatives Ranked by Cost](/beyond-payday/) - [What is a Payday Loan? Plain-English Explainer](/money-guides/what-is-a-payday-loan/) - [Payday Loans in Texas: Laws, Rates, Limits & Alternatives](/by-region/texas/) ## Ethical Disclosures **Disclosure.** Author owns no securities in companies covered. Compensated by PayKedge salary; no per-loan referral incentives. No outside consulting relationships with lenders, lead generators, or debt-relief firms. Pro-bono volunteer with the local NFCC-affiliated agency in her area. ## Contact Information For editorial questions, corrections, or interview requests, contact editor@paykedge.com. #### About our authors Each page on PayKedge is created by a qualified author and receives a final check from an independent reviewer. [View all 6 authors](/authors/) --- #### Editorial standards [Review our editorial policy →](/editorial-policy/) [How we check facts →](/fact-checking-policy/) [Record of updates →](/corrections/)