Biography

Rachel Mensah is the Senior Personal Finance Writer at Big Daddy Loans, where she authors the explainer guides, product comparisons, and borrower-focused narratives that make up the site's editorial core. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2012 and is currently completing the AFCPE Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) coursework.

Rachel began her career at the Memphis Commercial Appeal as a consumer-beat reporter, spending three years covering overdraft-fee disputes, payday-to-installment loan conversions, and the practical money pressures facing the city's hourly workforce. That daily-newsroom training — deadline pressure, fact-checking, and writing for readers who are in a hurry — shapes her work to this day.

From 2016 through 2023 she worked as a freelance contributor and then staff writer at The Penny Hoarder in St. Petersburg, Florida, leading the outlet's debt and credit coverage. There she wrote in-depth guides on prepaid debit cards, bank-fee traps, and the real math behind cash-advance apps — including side-by-side cost comparisons that became templates still used by the editorial team.

Rachel joined Big Daddy Loans in 2024 to focus her work squarely on small-dollar lending: the products, the costs, and the alternatives. Her editorial standard is straightforward — if a page can't help a reader decide faster or more safely than they could without it, the page isn't finished yet.

Credentials

BA Journalism
University of Missouri School of Journalism · 2012
AFCPE Accreditation (AFC®)
In progress · Expected completion 2026
Years of experience
12 years in consumer-finance journalism
Prior outlets
Memphis Commercial Appeal · The Penny Hoarder (St. Petersburg, FL)

Areas of expertise

  • Small-dollar lending — payday, cash-advance, and short-term installment cost comparisons
  • Overdraft economics — opt-in rules, per-item fee structures, linked-account safeguards
  • Irregular-income budgeting — bi-weekly pay lumpiness, cash-flow gap strategies for hourly workers
  • Consumer installment loans — rate structures, prepayment penalty disclosure, lender licensing
  • Plain-language financial journalism — explainers, comparison tables, borrower-focused narratives

Articles reviewed by Rachel

Rachel authored or contributed to:

Conflict of interest disclosure

Disclosure. Rachel holds no ownership interest in any lender, fintech platform, or lead-generation network reviewed on Big Daddy Loans. Her compensation is a fixed editorial salary with no referral or per-application component. She has no current freelance agreements with lenders, debt-settlement providers, or financial-services companies. All prior outlet affiliations are on file with the Big Daddy Loans editorial board.

Contact

For story pitches, source introductions, or interview requests, contact [email protected].