Personal Finance

Hass avocados are displayed in the produce section at a United Market on Feb. 7, 2022 in San Anselmo, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images The Federal Reserve is set to hike interest rates this year for the first time since 2018 to address the worst inflation in 40 years spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.

Andrii Zastrozhnov | iStock | Getty Images If you’re retiring and signing up for Medicare, there’s a chance you’ll be assessed extra monthly charges — at least at first. While most enrollees pay the standard premium amounts for Part B (outpatient care) and Part D (prescription drugs), about 7% of Medicare’s 63.3 million beneficiaries end

Steven Heap/EyeEm/Getty Images If you’re one of the millions of Americans still waiting on your 2020 tax return, you’ll need to take a special step to avoid a rejection for this year’s electronic filing, according to the IRS. When filing digitally, you validate your return with the previous year’s adjusted gross income. Typically, your tax filing

In this article EFX Scyther5 | Getty Images Your ticket to free credit monitoring for four years may be sitting in your inbox. If you signed up for this service a couple of years ago as part of the settlement from the 2017 massive data breach at credit-monitoring firm Equifax, you should have received information

Primary co-founders and co-CEOs Cristina Carbonell and Galyn Bernard shifted the online children’s clothing retailer to a four-day workweek during the pandemic and have no plans to go back to the longer week. Courtesy: Primary Millions of Americans are quitting their jobs and rethinking what they want when it comes to work and work-life balance.

James Andrews | iStock | Getty Images Things have come a long way from the peak of the pandemic, when rents in major cities were hugely discounted and concessions were common. Across the U.S., average monthly listed rents are up more than 14% from last year, according to real estate firm Redfin. In New York,

Throughout the pandemic, 529 college savings plans have only gained momentum — even as higher-education enrollment numbers sank. In 2021, the average account size jumped to a record of $30,287, according to the College Savings Plans Network, or CSPN. Total investments in 529s also reached a record $464.3 billion last year, up nearly 10% from 2020. More

Lauren Niesz purchased a new home with her boyfriend in January after they were able to save more cash during the pandemic. Source: Lauren Niesz Like many people forced to work from home after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lauren Niesz, 26, found the conditions were not necessarily ideal. Niesz, who rented a townhouse

Taiwanese ethnicity man looking at the home budget and sorting out bills using his laptop in his cozy living room SrdjanPav | E+ | Getty Images Americans are feeling the impact of surging inflation, which doesn’t appear to be easing up anytime soon. For many, that means it’s a good time to revise the family

Algerina Perna | Baltimore Sun | MCT | Getty Images If you plan to drop money on a Super Bowl bet this weekend, remember that the IRS will want a piece of your winnings. Americans are expected to wager $7.61 billion on Sunday night’s matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals in Los

It started with Melissa Houston buying small indulgences online — shoes, clothes, handbags. Then, she moved on to major purchases, renovating the family room and putting a swimming pool in the backyard. She says her spending spree spiraled her family’s finances into massive debt — and she hid it from her husband. “I went off

Your grocery bill has likely been going up. That’s because food prices are rising steeply, with the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing a 7.4% increase between January 2021 and January 2022. The cost of bacon has swelled by 18%, and peanut butter, 15%. It’s unclear when the uptick will relent.

Brothers91 | E+ | Getty Images Tax season is underway — and the IRS is warning of a likely increase in scams targeting taxpayers. Agency officials are sounding the alarm on “IRS impersonation scams,” in which criminals pose as IRS agents to try stealing money or personal information. The latter can lead to identity theft

Ariel Skelley | DigitalVision | Getty Images Municipal bonds, also known as muni bonds, have become a popular option for investors seeking security and tax-free portfolio income. However, these assets may also trigger a costly surprise for retirees.  Demand surged in 2021 amid President Joe Biden‘s proposed tax increases, with a record $96.8 billion of net money

staticnak1983 | E+ | Getty Images Millions of parents who’ve defaulted on their federal student loans may get part of their child tax credit seized this tax season. The federal government has long been able to collect past-due debts, like child support, owed to state and federal agencies. This occurs via the Treasury Offset Program,

The White House is exploring ways to forgive federal student loan debt. Bloomberg Creative | Bloomberg Creative Photos | Getty Images Under pressure from Democrats, advocates and borrowers, the White House is looking at actions it might be able to take to forgive federal student debt. The country’s outstanding federal student loan balance exceeds $1.7

Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images States can forgo clawing back pandemic-era unemployment benefits in a broader set of circumstances than previously allowed, the U.S. Department of Labor said Monday. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, states implemented new federal benefit programs created by the CARES Act to support the jobless. That quick turnaround,

Signage outside the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images The IRS on Monday announced it will stop using a controversial third-party service for facial recognition to verify identity for online accounts. The move comes amid bipartisan backlash over the collection of biometric data through video selfies for

Muhammad Yungai’s ‘We Shall Always March Ahead’ mural is displayed on the side of Privado Grooming Barbershop in Atlanta’s Vine City neighborhood. Raymond Boyd | Michael Ochs Archives | Getty Images Legendary civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up and preached in the Old Fourth Ward of Atlanta. Soon, that neighborhood will

Steve Debenport | E+ | Getty Images People who got raises last year might not see their paychecks stretch much farther. That’s because those increases in pay are up against the worst inflation in 40 years. Employers struggling to retain talent amid the so-called Great Resignation anticipated giving out larger pay increases and bonuses in

PeopleImages | E+ | Getty Images Millions of Americans are quitting their jobs and rethinking what they want when it comes to work and work-life balance. Companies are responding, meeting their employees’ needs in areas like remote work, flexible hours, four-day workweeks, compensation and more. This story is part of a series looking at the

Pekic | E+ | Getty Images The $1.7 trillion outstanding federal student loan market tends to get most of the headlines, but another type of education debt has also been on the rise: private student loans. Many college students have likely heard about the financing option. “Private lenders advertise all over, including on TV, radio

A job seeker receives information from a recruiter during a job fair in Miami on Dec. 16, 2021. Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images Long-term unemployment fell significantly in January, continuing a downward trajectory from its pandemic-era peak after having plateaued in recent months. The number of Americans out of work for at least six

Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images Used-car prices may be starting to soften, research suggests. After surging through the pandemic by as much as 50%, prices in the used-car market showed some easing in the last three weeks of January, according to car-shopping app CoPilot, which tracks daily prices at dealerships across the country.

Getty Images The roughly 50 million American consumers who either don’t have credit history or have a limited record are in luck.   In recent years, many financial services companies have come out with programs to establish and build credit for those who have struggled to access the traditional banking system. There are even ways

designer491 | iStock | Getty Images By the looks of it, state-run retirement programs for private-sector employees are generally working as intended. Those with no access to a 401(k) plan or similar workplace option have collectively saved more than $400 million in individual retirement accounts through such programs. To date, there are three states that

Tetra Images | Tetra images | Getty Images This tax season, millions of American families who received advance child tax credit payments are calculating what they got in order to submit their 2021 returns. Some may be worried that they were sent more money than they were owed in the monthly payments from July to

Kwangmoozaa | iStock | Getty Images Student loan payments have been on pause for nearly two years. Come May, they’re scheduled to resume. Many of the tens of millions of borrowers will find themselves in a different financial situation then they were in March 2020, and a different payment plan may make more sense for

pixelfit | E+ | Getty Images Women earned just 84% of what men made in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. And that difference — dubbed the gender wage gap — has stayed consistent for about 15 years. The discrepancy is often attributed to education, occupation and experience. However, research from economists at the

A woman shovels her car out of the snow during a major snowstorm on Jan. 29, 2022 in Stony Brook, New York. Andrew Theodorakis | Getty Images After a few months of winter and two major snowstorms pounding much of the eastern U.S. in January, many Americans may be realizing they’re in for elevated heating