Your Pulse On America: Live And Unfiltered
How much should I save in an emergency fund? Vanguard, the big mutual fund company, suggests setting aside $2,000, or half of one month’s expenses, whichever is greater, as a buffer to cover unexpected but common “shocks,” like a car or home repair or medical bill. Then, to protect against a possible job loss, it…
Before Zygmund Furmaniuk’s aunt Mary died in 2023, she set up a trust to hold her assets and to distribute her estate, which was valued at nearly $1 million. A retired chemistry teacher, Mary Furmaniuk was single and had no children. Creating the trust, Mr. Furmaniuk said, was her way of making sure her assets…
Last month, four Republicans from the House and Senate sent letters to the presidents of Ivy League schools demanding years of data about how they decide what to charge. These institutions, the letters said, “establish the industry standard for tuition pricing, creating an umbrella effect for all colleges and universities to justify higher tuition costs…
After a five-year reprieve, the Trump administration will restart forced collections on federal student loans in default, which could include garnishing a portion of borrowers’ paychecks. With collections in place, the last piece of the student loan machinery has been turned back on, officially ending pandemic-era relief, which began when President Trump paused federal student…
Stock market gyrations. Inflation. Layoffs of federal workers. A possible recession. Children may overhear their parents talking about these things and not fully understand what’s going on or how it may affect their family’s finances. But if the children have questions, parents should be ready to talk, experts say. “Parents are the biggest influence on…
Investing in choppy markets, especially with an unpredictable president at the helm, can be distressing. It can be even more so if you are relying on these investments to pay for something as important as your child’s college tuition, and you need the money in the foreseeable future. Plenty of busy parents found themselves in…
Last weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on television and said people who wanted to retire right now were not paying attention to the stock market. On the NBC program “Meet the Press,” referring to those who have “put away for years in their savings account,” he said the following: “I think they don’t look…
Add this to worries about the likely impact of tariffs: costlier car insurance. The new tariffs on imported cars, metals and parts announced by the Trump administration are expected to raise vehicle prices by thousands of dollars if they remain in place. And because parts used in auto repairs will also become more expensive, the…
If the on-again, off-again tariff announcements by President Trump have struck you as unusual, that’s for good reason. Nothing like this has ever happened before. That’s the estimation of Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth economic historian whose 2017 book, “Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy,” is the leading work on the subject. I…
A haunting childhood moment defined how John Kakuk would think about investing his own money when the time came. During the 2008 financial crisis, his mother asked him if he would be willing to contribute the meager savings in his piggy bank to his family’s grocery fund should his father, a lawyer, lose his job….