Credit card rates are already at a record high of 17.85 percent, on average, according to Bankrate. Most credit cards have a variable rate, which means there’s a direct connection to the Fed’s benchmark rate. As the federal funds rate rises, so does the prime rate, and credit card rates follow suit. Cardholders would see

On average, women should have 11.6 times their last annual salary saved by age 67 in order to retire, according to Aon’s analysis. However, based on current savings rates, they’ll only have an average of about 7.6 times their salary saved by that age. They’ll face a steep shortfall. In order to beat that hurdle,

Everyone’s got money goals. We want houses, vacations, healthy bank accounts — the things that make life worth living. You probably know people with great salaries who have all these things. But don’t let your smaller salary or lack of knowledge stand in your way. You can have them, too. It just takes learning some

In the search for fixed income, financial advisors are looking beyond bonds to alternatives — from the commonplace to the more arcane. Some view certificates of deposit as an alternative to individual bonds in the current environment. “If I don’t want to outguess the direction of rates, the CD option gives me a very low

It’s only natural that parents want to help their children succeed in life, but many may be jeopardizing retirement in doing so. In fact, parents are spending twice as much on their adult children than they are putting away to live out their golden years, according to a recent study by Merrill Lynch and Age

If you’re a first-time home buyer and looking at cities in California, you may want to rethink your plans. Some under-the-radar metro areas in other areas of the country may provide more value. That’s according to a new study from personal finance website Bankrate, which ranked the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. for

When it comes to passing on wealth to heirs, family dynamics can be the biggest obstacle. Indeed, nearly 8 out of 10 financial advisors polled by Key Private Bank said that navigating tricky familial relationships is the most difficult part of estate planning. The bank surveyed about 130 of its own advisors online in December

If you and your estranged spouse are leading separate lives in separate homes, you might be thinking of filing your taxes that way, too. Most married couples residing together under the same roof would see fit to file their income taxes on one joint return. A number of couples have sought the alternative, which is

Source: Robin Coccomo Robin Coccomo, and her son Paul, 18, at home. However, all of those schools are expensive. The cost for tuition plus room and board at a four-year private school hit $48,510 for the current school year, according to the College Board. At public four-year institutions, the total was about half of that,

IN THE CAR WHERE Paula Hanson lives, often parked outside a local sheriff’s station in Lancaster, California, her phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Hanson tried to explain to the employees at Discover Bank all that had happened to her. First, she had been laid off from her job, and then her father fell ill and she

Helping kids get into college is a big business — and it’s growing fast. The industry gained some unwelcome notoriety early this week when dozens of people — including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin — were arrested in an admissions bribery scheme. The person behind it was William “Rick” Singer, founder of the Edge

“Nearly everyone has engaged in some kind of financial planning, whether they know it or not,” Ramassini said. Wedding planning is a good example. “If you want to have a reception, different elements go into that,” he said, and it all goes toward the prime goal of getting married. “As everyone starts coming together, there

For starters, because you only get one shot at this, make sure you know what you’re signing up for if you choose another plan. That includes ensuring that your medications are covered and that your favorite doctors or other providers are in-network. Roberts said that even if you see your doctor listed on a plan’s

Congressional Democrats have been talking about providing an extension to the April 15 deadline for filing your tax return. The rules under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the five-week government shutdown earlier this year are good enough reasons for granting some extra time to taxpayers this year. Just don’t count on it.

Anna Moneymaker | Bloomberg | Getty Images Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, speaks during a hearing with Robert Lighthizer, U.S. trade representative, not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. The alleged college admissions cheating scam unveiled earlier this week has already

Source: Jason Edwards Jason Edwards and his wife, Amber, and his son, Robbie Jason Edwards, a communications professor at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, learned seven years too late that he didn’t qualify for public service loan forgiveness. The Providence, Rhode Island, resident had been paying his debt for that long when the dreadful discovery

The IRS is sitting on $1.4 billion in unclaimed tax refunds, and taxpayers are running out of time to grab their cash. These tax refunds are from 2015, and they belong to about 1.2 million taxpayers who didn’t file a return that year, according to the IRS. In order to claim the money, taxpayers must

Under the CRADLE Act, parents would be required to notify the Social Security Administration that they plan to take paid parental leave benefits. That written notice would have to be submitted to the agency between six months to one month before a new child is expected to arrive, either through child birth or adoption. At

If the IRS can show that the parents intended to defraud the government by claiming these payments as charitable deductions, there could be a civil fraud penalty, Blank said. Civil tax fraud penalties can add up to 75 percent of the portion of the tax underpayment. The IRS must show that the offending taxpayer willfully

Between groceries, gas and going out, Americans cough up a lot of dough in a single day — $164.55, on average, in fact. That’s according to a recent report by GOBankingRates, which analyzed necessary and discretionary spending data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine out how much the average person spends every day.

Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty Images Copies of President Donald Trumps budget for Fiscal Year 2020 are prepared for distribution at the Government Publishing Office in Washington on Thursday, March 7, 2019. Two groups of people are most likely to benefit if Medicare beneficiaries are able to contribute to these tax-advantaged accounts,

The proposal also calls for a $1 billion fund that would be used to help workers and employers create child-care programs. On Tuesday, Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) unveiled their own new proposal for paid leave that would give new parents anywhere from one to three months off, provided they delayed their

An exchange-traded fund, or ETF, is a cousin, if not a sibling of these funds, says Kip Meadows, CEO and founder of Nottingham, a Rocky Mount, North Carolina fund administration firm. An ETF’s composition — a diversified collection of securities — is similar to that of a mutual fund. But this type of fund has

Some retirees with lower income get extra help to cover the cost of their medicine. Others, however, have too much income to qualify for assistance but nevertheless struggle to pay the cost of their prescriptions — which can lead to drastic choices. “They start cutting tablets in half to stretch out their medicine, or use

If your child is deciding between two schools based on a financial aid package, be sure to weigh the taxes that may accompany the offer. Families depend on scholarships, assistantships and grants to help them afford higher education. Indeed, the annual cost of tuition, fees, room and board at a public four-year college hit $19,080

President Donald Trump’s budget proposal unveiled on Monday would slash funding for the U.S. Education Department by more than 10 percent. The plan, titled “A Budget for a Better America,” requests $62 billion for the Department of Education, or $7.1 billion less than the agency’s allowance in 2019. The budget eliminates subsidized student debt, in

A spousal IRA lets you put away retirement funds on behalf of a spouse, even if they have little to no earned income. But you must have wages or earned income in order to make that investment. Other restrictions apply, depending on whether you are investing in a traditional or Roth IRA. If you plan

“Once they report this to the IRS, the agency will initiate a formalized complaint process and attempt outreach to the employer,” said Stephen Dombroski, senior manager, payroll tax compliance at Paychex. In this case, the IRS will send you Form 4852 so that you can estimate the data that would otherwise be on your W-2

Yet to land one of today’s most in-demand positions, particularly tech jobs, which often come with the highest salaries, your interpersonal skills may matter most. Employers increasingly are seeking employees with so-called soft skills, such as communication, organization and attention to detail, according to CareerBuilder. “Rather than having hard skills, employers are looking more generally,”

The nation’s high school students are well aware that it’s never been harder to get into a top college. Just last year, Yale’s acceptance rate hit 6.31 percent, near an all-time low. Princeton offered admission to just 5.5 percent of a record 35,370 applicants and at Harvard, the admission rate fell below 5 percent for