Personal finance

A Poudre Valley Hospital ICU Nurse shows off her vaccination card after getting the first round of Covid-19 vaccines at UC Health Poudre Valley Hospital on December 14, 2020 in Fort Collins, Colorado. Helen H. Richardson | The Denver Post | Getty Images It’s tempting to tell the world as soon as you receive a

SolStock | E+ | Getty Images When Tim Maurer’s two teenagers burst into his home office last week, excitedly talking about how a bunch of kids had taken on Wall Street, the Charleston, South Carolina, certified financial planner knew it presented a great opportunity to teach his boys about investing. Lecturing doesn’t usually work, Maurer

Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg | Getty Images GameStop, AMC Entertainment, BlackBerry, Dogecoin and silver – all have been subject to epic rallies and falls in recent days, spurred by droves of retail investors driving up prices and then selling. While it may be tempting to pile into an asset that’s seen such rapid growth, financial

Protestors call for a $15 minimum wage outside of McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Chicago on Jan. 15, 2021. Scott Olson | Getty Images A $15 per hour federal minimum wage may be closer than ever, as Democrats in Congress push to pass legislation that includes the pay boost through a sped-up process that doesn’t require

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Reddit users and other retail investors who piled into GameStop stock aimed to take down Wall Street. Pension funds, which support ordinary Americans in retirement, may be an unintended casualty. Some hedge funds have sustained big losses as a result of bets against GameStop stock. Melvin Capital, for example, lost

Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images It can be hard to look away from the constant stream of financial success stories and tips on TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and other social media platforms. Users on WallStreetBets and other forums brag about the tens of thousands of dollars they’ve made over short periods of time by

Home ownership has long been considered a staple of the American dream. During the pandemic, it has also become a dividing line between the haves and have-nots. As the coronavirus outbreak and rise of remote work pushed Americans to move from the city to the suburbs, those who could afford a single-family home have been

Juanmonino | E+ | Getty Images If you are counting on a tax refund, you could be sorely disappointed this filing season. A new W-4 form and a pandemic-dominated 2020 may have millions of Americans receiving smaller refunds, or even owing money to the government, this year. “I’ve already seen people upset that they owe

Stimulus checks printed at the Philadelphia Financial Center in Philadelphia. Jeff Fusco | Getty Images Many Americans are waiting for their second stimulus check and others want to know when they could possibly get a third payment.  The $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan pushed by President Joe Biden includes a third round of  $1,400 stimulus

The headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Washington, D.C. JHVEPhoto | iStock Editorial | Getty Images The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to become a more aggressive consumer watchdog under the Biden administration and while the coronavirus pandemic hurls financial challenges at millions of Americans. Consumer advocates say the bureau was almost

Serhii Shleihel | iStock | Getty Images Here’s what you probably shouldn’t do with that extra money now that you don’t have to pay your student loan bill until October: Sink it all into shares of GameStop. But there are financially sound actions you can take with the additional cash, and you’ll likely thank yourself

Aimee Dilger | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images Maybe you’ve heard by now that an army of retail investors has managed to use one of hedge funds’ common investment strategies against them. That is, short-selling. It generally involves selling borrowed shares of a stock with the belief that the price will drop, at

Not wanting to touch anything is having a dramatic impact on consumer habits. Amid the coronavirus crisis, Americans are abandoning cash almost entirely in favor of “tap and go” transactions and have finally embraced contactless and digital payment methods after years of reluctance.  Fewer and fewer adults use printed or minted U.S. currency at all any more.

martin-dm | E+ | Getty Images Vacations may be back on Americans’ calendars later this year — especially if vaccines help suppress the Covid-19 pandemic — but business travel won’t bounce back for quite some time, according to a forecast from the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Fifty-six percent of Americans say they are likely

Digital Vision | Photodisc | Getty Images If you tied the knot last year, it may be worthwhile checking what your new status will mean for your 2020 taxes. While many couples see their tax bill drop post-nuptials, some face a “marriage penalty” — that is, paying more in taxes than if they had remained

Gabriela Bhaskar | Bloomberg | Getty Images If you’ve been holding shares of GameStop, AMC Entertainment or other so-called “meme” stocks that have shot up to the stratosphere recently, it may be time to take the gains and move on. While it’s uncertain where those stocks will go from here in the short-term, experts say

Ariana Drehsler | AFP | Getty Images A shift in federal health-care policy appears to be underway. As early as Thursday, President Joe Biden is expected to issue executive orders to temporarily reopen the health insurance exchanges and to address roadblocks encountered when low-income households try to access Medicaid. Although details are slim, the actions

Signage stands in a GameStop Corp. store in Peru, Illinois. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images It’s the stock rally no one quite predicted. In recent years, GameStop, a video game retailer, has been shrinking its retail presence by closing hundreds of stores. Yet this week, its stock popped dramatically. On Wednesday, GameStop shares

In times of financial distress, credit cards are one of the easiest ways to access cash. During the coronavirus crisis, more than half, or 51%, of adults with credit card debt — roughly 51 million people — added to their balances, according to a report by CreditCards.com. And 44% blame the pandemic, the report found.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images What a long year of Covid it’s been. Twelve months after the first case was confirmed in the U.S. in January 2020, American life and family finances continue to look different than they did pre-pandemic. While wealthier households — mostly college-educated and White — have largely rebounded