The holiday shopping season is starting earlier than ever. Accenture’s 2026 Holiday Shopping Survey found that nearly one in five consumers began shopping before August—almost double the share recorded in 2025—as retailers and brands increasingly use events such as Labor Day to pull demand forward and extend the holiday spending season.
David Schneider is all for people having fun on the golf course — to a point. The 47-year-old reached said point recently on a rare three-generational outing with his father and son on a municipal course in San Diego. They got stuck behind a foursome of 20-somethings who were downing Coors Lights, smoking cigars, and playing at what he describes as a “snail’s pace,” oblivious to the groups piling up behind them. “They really didn’t care about pace of play,” says Schneider, who runs a curated golf experience company in Southern California. The situation reached a boiling point when the increasingly belligerent bros decided to tee off their finished beer cans. They even started taking mulligans (golf-speak for second tries) when their empties didn’t clear the tee box.
KEY TAKEAWAYS Gasoline prices have risen sharply in 2026 due to the conflict in Iran, driving inflation to levels last seen in 2022. Consumers are cutting back on services like dining and travel, but continue to spend on retail, supported by higher tax refunds....
Few married couples are aware of the significant financial pitfalls of the solo years. Even fewer retirement plans adjust for those years.
Evan Hale glanced at the clock on his phone: 15 minutes until his performance review. He sat at his cluttered desk, littered with diagrams and design notes, feeling the pressure of his divided attention. He had meant to prepare a list of accomplishments from the past year at Vitalisync, a Minneapolis-based firm specializing in precision components for the medical device industry, but his mind had been consumed all morning by his side hustle, Fritch Audio.
Turns out your boss might not want the fully authentic you.One of the many pieces of career advice that emerged years ago — when the job market was stronger for corporate workers — is the idea that you should bring your whole self to work. As employers across...
Are you unsure about whether you’re on the right track with your savings and investments? Finding yourself with new responsibilities, such as the care of a child or an aging parent?Facing other life events, such as marriage, divorce, the sale of a family business, or a career change? Too busy to become a financial expert but needing to make sure your assets are being managed appropriately? Or maybe you simply feel your assets could be invested or protected better than they are now.
Even if your asset allocation was suitable for you when you chose it, it might not be now. It may need to change as your circumstances do and as new ways to invest are introduced. Just as a piece of clothing you wore 10 years ago may not fit today; you might need to update your asset allocation, too.
Here’s an overview of the Act’s changes to the complicated rules that govern tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 first allowed taxpayers age 70½ and older to make tax-free charitable donations directly from their IRAs. The law was originally scheduled to expire in 2007, but was extended periodically through 2014 by subsequent legislation and finally made permanent by the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015.