Personal finance

When markets hit a slump, investors are often tempted to head for the exits in search of safer places to put their money. There are always reasons investors may get spooked. In the latest example, the failure of Silicon Valley Bank rattled investors and sent stocks lower on Friday. Signature Bank was seized by regulators

In this article SBNY Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A man walks by the headquarters of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, 2023 in Santa Clara, California. Liu Guanguan | Getty Images The unexpected shutdowns of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank have prompted new questions about the level of protection for bank deposits

Grady Hendrix Albert Mitchell After Louise’s parents unexpectedly die in a car accident, she returns home to Charleston, where her plans to get her childhood home ready for sale are soon complicated. There’s her parents’ endless stuff, including the hundreds of dolls her mother owned. There’s her estranged brother, Matt, trying to cheat her out

Visualspace | E+ | Getty Images Small business owners today may feel they’re getting pulled in two directions: stuck between wanting to offer a retirement benefit to their workers but feeling unable to afford costs associated with a 401(k) plan. But entrepreneurs scared by the affordability of maintaining a 401(k) plan can instead consider an

In this article WU Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT The author in Argentinian Patagonia in February 2023. Here, the Spegazzini Glacier cascades into Lago Argentino, the third largest lake in South America. Waiting in an hourlong line at a Western Union wasn’t on my initial itinerary when planning a recent trip to Argentina. Yet

Luis Alvarez | Digitalvision | Getty Images The pace of wage growth seems to be decelerating, according to the February jobs report issued Friday — but workers still have bargaining power in a cooling but strong job market, economists said. “Workers have a very strong negotiating position,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The

Parents and children participate in a demonstration organized by the ParentsTogether Foundation in support of the child tax credit portion of the Build Back Better bill outside of the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13, 2021. Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty Images President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for fiscal 2024 includes a host of proposals

gilaxia If you’re in the market for a new car, be prepared for the possibility of paying more than sticker price. The average new-car price in February was $45,296, compared with the average manufacturer’s suggested retail price, or MSRP, of $41,637, according to new research from iSeeCars.com. An estimated 31% of new vehicles were sold

In this article AUTO-GB LNC MSFT AMZN GOOGL AAPL META Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Several large companies have announced significant job cuts in recent months: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies collectively laid off more than 70,000 employees in the last year and there are no signs of that trend slowing down.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about his budget for fiscal year 2024 at the Finishing Trades Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 9, 2023. Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters Days after introducing a new plan to shore up Medicare, President Joe Biden called for “protecting and strengthening” Social Security with the introduction of his fiscal 2024

More consumers are leaning on credit cards to afford increasingly expensive necessities such as food and rent. That helped propel total credit card debt to a record $930.6 billion at the end of 2022, an 18.5% spike from a year earlier, according to the latest quarterly report by TransUnion. The average balance rose to $5,805

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his plan to protect Americans access to affordable health care in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Feb. 28, 2023. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images President Joe Biden this week called for higher taxes on wealthy Americans to boost Medicare as part of his 2024 budget, aiming to help

Willie B. Thomas/Hinterhouse Productions | Getty Images When it comes to retirement security for women, marriage may not give them the leg up it once did. Women who have spent the majority of their adult life single — whether due to divorce or never marrying — are now generally as well prepared for retirement as

asiseeit | Getty Images These days, students and their families have to be proactive about cutting college costs. “It used to be, get into the best school you can get into and then figure out how to pay for it,” said Kalman Chany, a financial aid consultant and author of The Princeton Review’s “Paying for

In this article FIS Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT In the end, 2022 was not kind to retirement savers. Average 401(k) balances plunged 23% over the course of the year to $103,900, according to a report by Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) plans. Individual retirement account average balances sank 20% year

Getty Images Moving in retirement can unlock a big pot of money to help fund those post-work years. In 2019, the typical homeowner age 60 or older who sold their home and relocated to a cheaper housing market accessed nearly $100,000 in home equity, according to new research published by Vanguard Group. The typical person

While the thought of funding your retirement adequately might be daunting, if you start planning now you’ll certainly be thankful later. It also might not be as difficult as you think. Retirement usually entails replacing your onetime annual salary from a workplace with other income sources to maintain your current lifestyle. While Social Security may

Demonstrators in favor of canceling student debt gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 28, 2023. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images As the Supreme Court deliberates whether or not to allow the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan to go through, tens of millions of Americans are stuck in an

Drakula & Co. | Moment | Getty Images After a year of soaring prices, the IRS made annual inflation adjustments for dozens of tax provisions, including the federal income tax brackets for 2023, which may affect next year’s taxes, experts say. While the rates didn’t change, the brackets show the federal income taxes you’ll owe

During the coronavirus pandemic, child reading and math competency rates plummeted across the country. The National Assessment of Educational Progress found two decades of improvements were wiped away. The declines were widespread, but were most pronounced among the students who had already been struggling well before 2020. In a race to overcome the Covid-19 learning