Tip 1: Put your savings on autopilot When it comes to saving, the first step is to make it a habit. Many financial advisors recommend beginning with an emergency fund, which is the key to keep from reaching for a credit card when something unexpected pops up, such as a broken appliance or a medical
Personal finance
Conversations with kids can be adversarial at the best of times. Combine teens, money and something they want, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a situation. If your family hasn’t been in the habit of holding regular financial chats, the risk is even higher for the talk to turn negative, says Thomas Henske, a
Jacobs Stock Photography Worried about your debt? Consider this: The U.S. is $23 trillion in the red. Today, the country owes over four times more than it did in 2000, when the national debt stood at around $5 trillion. How did we get here? “Like any budget that you have in your household, we have
Senior couple going through their financial bills while paying them online on a terrace. Focus is on woman. skynesher Retirement income is often thought to come from three sources: Social Security, pensions and savings. That combination is often called a three-legged stool, a metaphor for the money retirees use to support themselves once they are
John Fedele This year, the IRS will let you slide on a penalty if you didn’t have health insurance in 2019. Your home state, on the other hand, may not be so forgiving. The 2019 tax year marks the first time that filers won’t be required to carry qualifying health-care coverage under the Affordable Care
Ariel Skelley Personal finance website WalletHub is out with another list of the best states in which to spend your retirement. Factoring in affordability, quality of life and health care, Florida came in first. Yet a recent ranking by Business Insider dubbed Mississippi the winner. Nebraska took the title in another list last year compiled
People line up outside the Social Security Administration office in San Francisco. Getty Images If you collect Social Security benefits, you’re probably already eagerly waiting to see what your cost-of-living adjustment will be next year. New, early estimates from The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group, point to a possible 1.5% COLA increase for
Guido Mieth Americans are spending more with digital payments and credit cards than ever before, as convenience and technology have relegated cash and checks more to the periphery. Online shopping has proliferated on retail websites such as Amazon, mobile payment apps like Venmo have become more popular, and banks have made it as easy to
Rene Carillo, 51, regrets not investing more when the stock market dropped. Rene Carillo We all have financial regrets. Things we bought, bills we paid late, decisions we didn’t research. Turns out, according to personal finance site MagnifyMoney, investing brings a host of bad feelings. The top one is not investing at all, according to
It’s becoming a common scenario: You’re creeping closer to your 65th birthday, which means you’ll be eligible for Medicare, yet you already have health insurance through work. Sound familiar? If so, you might have options. While workers at businesses with fewer than 20 employees generally must sign up for Medicare at age 65, people working
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks to guests during a campaign stop at Fisher Elementary School on January 12, 2020 in Marshalltown, Iowa. Scott Olson | Getty Images Presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren said on Tuesday that she would begin to forgive student loan debt on the first day of her administration, using
Sutthipong Kongtrakool Investors looking to impact society in a positive way, and hopefully turn a profit in the process, shoveled money into so-called sustainable funds in record amounts last year. Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds with a focus on sustainability raked in $20.6 billion of total new assets in 2019, according to Morningstar. Last year’s
Retirees can boost their Social Security payments substantially by avoiding one costly, yet common, mistake. Americans can claim Social Security benefits as early as age 62. While it may be tempting to begin receiving that monthly income as soon as possible, retirees could leave a lot of money on the table by doing so. That’s
Sam Edwards | Getty Images Retirement is often called the golden years. Many elderly Americans probably wouldn’t describe it that way. Recent research from the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging at the University of Massachusetts Boston found that many older Americans don’t have enough money to get by. The report estimates that
Tony Elion, Jr. taught himself how to invest by utilizing free resources Tony Elion, Jr. When law student Tony Elion, Jr. decided he wanted to take on investing, he knew he could learn how to do it without spending a ton of money. In fact, a lot of what he came across he found for
SuperStock | Getty Images Finding someone to turn to for financial advice should be as easy as finding a doctor. But it turns out the credentials which financial professionals use to represent themselves are often not clear. And getting the wrong guidance can be costly. Misguided advice costs investors about $17 billion in wealth annually,
Retirement is not what it used to be. Whether by choice of necessity, many Americans anticipate extending their working years, according to recent research from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. A majority of workers said they expect to stop working sometime after age 65 or never retire at all, the research found. A separate
kate_sept2004 The legal and financial fortunes of gay and lesbian Americans have changed beyond recognition. That’s largely thanks to the legalization and rapid public acceptance of same-sex marriage and antidiscrimination protections, as well as other civil rights shifts, for LGBTQ people across the U.S. in recent years. Whereas same-sex couples, unable to marry, once had
Halley Bondy and daughter Robin, 2 Halley Bondy Halley Bondy loves being a freelance writer. And the 35-year-old journalist, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, earns more working for herself than she did as a full-time employee. Now, a proposal in New York state that could require companies to classify more of their freelancers as
Older Americans heading toward retirement can face a conundrum: They’ll need income when they leave work, yet they want to delay taking Social Security for as long as possible so they can maximize those benefits. For clients who have other assets available, some advisors recommend that instead of gradually withdrawing from those accounts — i.e.,