The financial news that actually matters
Millions of borrowers who were parked in the Biden-era SAVE repayment plan are now on a countdown clock. After federal courts struck the plan down, the U.S. Department of Education began notifying enrollees in July that they have 90 days to move to a legal repayment plan, or be switched automatically into one that can…
A push that began in the White House is reshaping what can sit inside a workplace retirement account. An executive order signed in August 2025, followed by a string of actions at the U.S. Department of Labor, is clearing the way for 401(k) plans to offer private equity, real estate and cryptocurrency — asset classes…
The largest Ponzi scheme in Georgia’s history has ended where its architect insisted it never would: in a federal prison cell. On August 14, 2026, a judge sentenced Todd Burkhalter, the founder and chief executive of the Georgia advisory firm Drive Planning LLC, to 20 years — the maximum the law allows — for running…
Paying off a mortgage is supposed to be the moment a home becomes untouchable. It is not. Every home carries an annual property-tax bill owed to the local government, and that obligation never ends, no matter how long ago the last loan payment cleared. Fall far enough behind on those taxes and the taxing authority…
A grandparent who names a young grandchild as the beneficiary of a life-insurance policy usually believes the arrangement is the simplest and most loving choice possible. In practice it can be one of the most complicated. Insurers will not hand a large death benefit directly to a child, and when nothing else is set up,…
Few savings instruments carry a promise as clean as the one attached to a Series EE savings bond: hold it for 20 years and the U.S. Treasury guarantees it will be worth at least double what was paid for it. That guarantee has made EE bonds a quiet fixture of conservative savings for decades. But…
The pitch behind a reverse mortgage is a powerful one for a house-rich, cash-short retiree: turn home equity into monthly income or a lump sum, and make no mortgage payments for as long as the home is the borrower’s primary residence. What the pitch tends to underplay is the fine print that keeps that arrangement…
The day a frail parent moves into a nursing home is rarely a moment for careful reading. A family arrives stressed, a staff member slides over a thick stack of admission paperwork, and a relative signs page after page to get the process moving. Buried in that stack is often a document with outsized consequences:…
A fixed-rate mortgage is supposed to hold the monthly payment steady for the life of the loan, so a sudden jump in the amount due can feel like an error. Often it is not. The principal-and-interest portion of the payment really is fixed, but most homeowners also send their lender money each month for property…
When a bank customer dies, the money sitting in a checking or savings account does not automatically follow the instructions in a will. What usually controls it is a single line on the account record: a payable-on-death designation, often abbreviated POD and sometimes labeled “in trust for.” That one entry lets the balance pass directly…