Personal finance

Izusek | E+ | Getty Images Despite a strong year for the stock market, you could still be sitting on portfolio losses. But you can leverage down assets to score a tax break, experts say. The tactic, known as “tax-loss harvesting,” involves selling losing brokerage account assets to claim a loss. When you file your

Pekic | E+ | Getty Images Mortgage rates seem to have steadied. That may be a good sign for the market, experts say. The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the U.S. slightly dipped to 6.78% for the week ending Nov. 14, barely changed from 6.79% a week prior, according to Freddie Mac data via

97 | E+ | Getty Images As inflation has throttled back from pandemic-era highs, consumers have seen prices decline outright for many household items. This dynamic, known as deflation, generally doesn’t occur on a broad, sustained scale in the U.S. economy: With limited exceptions, businesses are generally loath to lower prices once they’ve increased, economists

Thomas Jefferson, 1848/1879. Artist George Peter Alexander Healy. Heritage Images | Hulton Fine Art Collection | Getty Images In “All The Presidents’ Money,” author Megan Gorman takes readers into a side of U.S. presidents that is often overlooked: how they managed their own money. Gorman writes about commanders in chief who were obsessively frugal, and

Collectively, Americans now owe a record $1.17 trillion on their credit cards, according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Credit card balances rose by $24 billion in the third quarter of 2024 and are 8.1% higher than a year ago. Despite that increase, credit card delinquency

A student student sits in a lecture hall while class is being dismissed at the University of Texas at Austin on February 22, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Brandon Bell | Getty Images Nearly a third, 30%, of federal student loan borrowers say they’ve gone without food or medicine because of their monthly bills. That grim

Maskot | Getty Images A bipartisan bill to change Social Security benefit rules for pensioners passed in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, with 327 lawmakers voting to support the measure. Now, the proposal heads to the Senate, where the chamber’s version of the bill has 62 co-sponsors, “surpassing the majority needed to pass the

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid for 2025-26 will be available for all students and contributors on or before Dec. 1, the Education Department says. Typically, students have access to the coming academic year’s form in October, but this year’s delayed release follows a “phased rollout” meant to address reported issues from the 2024-25

Jamie Grill | Tetra Images | Getty Images For investors who want income, dividends may provide an answer. Dividends are corporate profits that companies pay to shareholders in the form of either cash or stock. In comparison to other income-paying investments — such as certificates of deposit, bonds or Treasurys — dividends may provide the

10’000 Hours | Digitalvision | Getty Images A popular student loan forgiveness program may be at risk with the reelection of former President Donald Trump. During Trump’s first term, he called for the elimination of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness initiative. Since then, Project 2025, a set of proposals developed by The Heritage Foundation and

Americans tend to overspend during the holiday season. In fact, some borrowers are still paying off debt from last year’s purchases. To that point, 28% of shoppers who used credit cards have not paid off the presents they bought for their loved ones last year, according to a holiday spending report by NerdWallet. The site polled more

  A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Money 101 newsletter with Sharon Epperson, an eight-week series to improve your financial wellness with monthly updates. Sign up to receive these editions, straight to your inbox.  Stocks soared in the days after President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and the Federal Reserve announced

Mixetto | E+ | Getty Images The share of Americans with credit-card debt in retirement has jumped considerably — a worrisome financial trend, especially for those with little wiggle room in their budgets, experts said. About 68% of retirees had outstanding credit-card debt in 2024, up “substantially” from 40% in 2022 and 43% in 2020,

Trump supporters take photographs near the U.S. Capitol building as the sun sets the day U.S. President Elect Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2024.  Leah Millis | Reuters Now that Donald Trump has been elected president, many individual investors are wondering what that means for

Parade attendees wave Puerto Rican flags on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan during the annual Puerto Rico Day Parade.  Luiz C. Ribeiro | New York Daily News | Tribune News Service | Getty Images Young adults in Puerto Rico are on shaky financial ground, a study finds. About 47% of respondents in the U.S. territory are

Some consumers have been weighed down by a “vibecession” for a while now — and those feelings might get worse, experts say. A vibecession is the disconnect between consumer sentiment and economic data, said Kyla Scanlon, who coined the term in 2022. Scanlon is the author of “In This Economy? How Money and Markets Really

Bernd Vogel | Stone | Getty Images Brad Klontz was drawn to financial psychology after the tech bubble burst in the early 2000s. Klontz had tried his hand at stock trading after seeing a friend earn more than $100,000 in one year. But he felt immense shame after the market crashed and his investments evaporated.

Businessperson reviewing pie charts and data analysis documents in an office setting. Freshsplash | E+ | Getty Images The trend is clear: Investors continue to seek out lower fees for investment funds. The mass migration to cheaper funds has been a key driver of falling costs, according to Zachary Evens, a manager research analyst for

dowell | Moment | Getty Images Before the election, some advisors increased Roth individual retirement account conversions for clients amid the threat of higher taxes after 2025. Now, tax hikes are less likely under President-elect Donald Trump. However, demand for Roth conversions will continue as investors seek long-term tax planning strategies, experts said. “In general,

Nopphon Pattanasri | Istock | Getty Images Investors have been able to get the best returns on cash, as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to bring down the pace of inflation. Now that the central bank is lowering rates — with a new quarter point rate cut announced by the Fed on Thursday —