Personal finance

Gwen Merz of Fiery Millennials cites restaurant spending as an easy place to cut back and save big. Source: Gwen Merz Don’t forget the coffee. No need to give up avocado toast. People love to blame high-end coffee drinks as the reason you’re not rich, but maybe just as key is the latte in reverse.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, leave Canada House on January 7, 2020, in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage) Samir Hussein | WireImage | Getty Images Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are getting closer to severing financial ties with the Royal Family, but there’s one entity that will always be

Former Vice President Joe Biden (L) greets Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) before the Democratic presidential primary debate at Drake University on January 14, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa. Scott Olson | Getty Images Top Democratic presidential candidates all want to boost Social Security benefits. But two of the candidates — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and

Tom Werner | DigitalVision | Getty Images Investing a pot of tax-free cash for medical expenses is a great idea, with apparently few takers. Health savings accounts, which are offered alongside high-deductible health-care plans, come with a bevy of tax benefits. You can contribute to an HSA on a pretax or tax-deductible basis and have

If you think bringing a new human into the world is daunting, wait until you see what he or she will do to your budget. It will cost a middle-income married couple an average of $233,610 to raise a child from birth through age 17, according to 2015 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Jose Luis Pelaez Inc | Getty Images Lawmakers passed a bill last week that would allow seniors to fight age discrimination in the workplace more easily — and that could help protect older Americans at a precarious time in their financial lives. The House of Representatives passed the Protecting Older Workers against Discrimination Act on

Anastasia Usenko Student debt is consuming an ever larger share of household budgets. Today, more than two-thirds of college graduates have student debt, compared with less than 50% in the early 1990s. And, back then, the average balance was $9,000 – now it’s $30,000. The typical monthly bill is nearly $400. Americans are more burdened

Tera Images If you play your cards right, small everyday purchases put on plastic can add up to big savings over time. That’s thanks to increasingly generous credit card cash-back rewards programs — provided you pay your bills promptly — according to one credit-card comparison website. In addition, the right card for you likely depends

Most American adults own life insurance, yet the buying process can be perplexing and pose traps for the unwary — and cause financial problems years down the road. Around 57% of adults in the U.S. own a life insurance policy, according to a joint study by Limra, a trade group, and Life Happens, a nonprofit

Tom Steyer speaks during the Democratic presidential primary debate at Drake University on January 14, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa. Six candidates out of the field qualified for the first Democratic presidential primary debate of 2020, hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register. Scott Olson | Getty Images Billionaire Tom Steyer is calling for

Getty Images Earlier this month, scores of high school seniors submitted their applications to college. Now comes the worst part: waiting. In the wake of a college admissions scandal and as the super-low admission rate at many top colleges receives widespread attention, the business of getting in to college is more intense than ever. However,

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

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

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

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