The financial news that actually matters
June 15, 2026, is 21 days away, and for the roughly 64 million Americans who earned freelance or gig income last year, according to a McKinsey estimate, it carries a price tag most of them would rather not think about: the second quarterly estimated tax payment of the year is due. Miss it or come…
Open your latest credit card statement and look at the interest charge line. If you’re carrying a balance, that number has almost certainly climbed over the past three years, and it has not come back down. The average annual percentage rate on credit cards that assessed interest stood at 21.52% as of the most recent…
Roughly 8 million people were enrolled in the federal SAVE repayment plan before courts blocked it. If you are one of them, a 37-day countdown is now running. On July 1, 2026, your loan servicer will mail you a transition notice and start a 90-day clock. Pick a new repayment plan before that clock runs…
Somewhere in the United States, roughly 544,000 people logged into their Fidelity 401(k) accounts at the end of the first quarter of 2025 and saw a balance of $1 million or more. That is the highest count Fidelity has ever recorded. By mid-2026, that data point is more than a year old, but it remains…
Every month, millions of conventional mortgage borrowers send a payment that includes a line item they no longer owe. Private mortgage insurance, the surcharge lenders require when a buyer puts down less than 20%, can legally be canceled the moment a homeowner’s equity reaches 20% of the home’s original value. But the overwhelming majority of…
You are halfway through the TSA line, shoes in one bin and laptop in another, when a stranger 2,000 miles away punches your Social Security number into a store credit card application. You will not find out for weeks, maybe months, long after the vacation photos are posted and the suitcase is unpacked. The Federal…
For years, families who oversaved in a 529 plan faced an uncomfortable set of options: pay for something that didn’t qualify and absorb a 10% federal penalty plus income tax on earnings, change the beneficiary and hope another family member could use the funds, or simply let the balance sit. That changed when Congress passed…
A cleaning-supply bill for $387. A domain-renewal notice for $199. A “past due” invoice for an SEO package nobody remembers buying. Small businesses across the country are pulling these out of their mailboxes, and the senders are banking on one thing: that someone in accounts payable will assume a coworker placed the order and cut…
Picture this: a 17-year-old sits down to apply for a first student loan and discovers $14,000 in credit card debt already attached to their name. They have never opened an account. They have never signed anything. But someone, years earlier, got hold of their Social Security number and used it to build a credit history…
Open your latest credit card statement and look at the line labeled “interest charged.” If you carry a revolving balance, that number has probably been climbing for three years, and it has not come back down. The average credit card annual percentage rate sits at roughly 21.5% as of late May 2026, according to Bankrate’s…