Personal finance is a term that covers managing your money as well as saving and investing. It encompasses budgeting, banking, insurance, mortgages, investments, retirement, tax, and estate planning. The term often refers to the entire industry that provides financial services to individuals and households and advises them about financial and investment opportunities.
Whether buying furniture, planning retirement, or just filling your gas tank, uncertainty doesn’t just shake market numbers—it rattles confidence. Yes, it is about money, but ultimately it is about emotion. And that, perhaps more than stock prices or interest rates, shapes behavior. The field of psychology suggests that when feeling fear, people typically pursue one of three options: fight, flight, or freeze.
Fraudsters are using social media (like X, formerly Twitter) and messaging apps (like WhatsApp and Telegram) to promote fake investment opportunities. They often impersonate financial professionals, advisor firms, or public figures to appear credible, luring victims into so-called “exclusive investor groups.”
Amid the global turmoil of this young new year comes a flurry of welcome developments that will help many people — especially retirees and those close to retirement — supercharge their savings, cut prescription drug costs, keep more of the money they earn and, possibly, raise their credit scores.
When it comes to financial planning, there are many different approaches. One of the biggest challenges people face is prioritizing their needs. Often, individuals confuse importance with urgency, assuming that the closer a deadline, the more important the task. While this mindset is understandable, it may not be the best way to approach financial planning.
“Credit-card companies can get away with charging high rates of interest because consumers aren’t necessarily paying attention and marketing doesn’t focus on that.”
The IRS recently released the 2025 contribution limits for health savings accounts (HSAs), as well as the 2025 minimum deductible and maximum out-of-pocket amounts for high-deductible health plans (HDHPs).
Global coffee drinkers who’d hoped the price of their daily fix would soon stop rising are due for a bitter wake-up call: it’s about to get even worse.
Reconstructing lost records and filing tax returns may not be at the top of most people’s to-do lists in the wake of a disaster like a hurricane, a fire, or earthquake.
Conventional wisdom casts trusts, wills, and estate plans as the exclusive domain of the ultra-rich. Supporting this notion, data reveals that two-thirds of Americans lack an estate plan, a figure that climbs higher to 80% among Gen-Zs. However, Matt Watson, CEO of the all-in-one financial management app Origin Financial, offered a compelling counter-narrative to this trend when I spoke to him recently.