Editor's pick
BankingGuide
High-Yield Savings vs CDs vs Money Market
Three accounts, one question: how soon do you need it, and what does waiting pay? On $20,000 the spread between the best and worst place to put it is $774 a year.
7 min read
Tag
Start-Here
34 posts
Editor's pick
RetirementGuide
The 401(k) Match Is the Best Return You Will Ever Get
A 50% match is a 50% return before the money is invested in anything. On a $70,000 salary, not contributing enough to capture it leaves $2,100 a year on the table, which is $132,823 over a career.
6 min read
Editor's pick
CreditGuide
What Actually Moves Your Credit Score
Two of the five factors are worth 65% of the score. The other three get argued about far more than they are worth, and one of them you cannot change at all.
7 min read
Budgeting
Pay Yourself First, and What the Order Actually Buys
Saving what is left over produced $2,245 across a year. Saving the same amount first produced $6,720, on identical income and identical spending habits. The mechanism is not discipline.
6 min read
Debt PayoffGuide
Invest or Pay Off Debt First?
There is a rate above which paying the debt wins and below which investing does, and it sits exactly at the return you expect. Three households, $500 a month, ten years, and three different answers.
8 min read
BudgetingGuide
Budget Categories That Actually Work
Most category lists are too fine to survive February. Here are the sixteen that hold, what belongs in each, and the four that are missing from almost every budget that failed.
8 min read
Investing
The Three-Fund Portfolio
Total market, international, bonds. What each one is doing, what the ratio changes on $50,000 in a bad year, and why a fourth fund usually adds cost rather than diversification.
8 min read
Editor's pick
InvestingGuide
Index Funds Explained Without the Jargon
An index fund is a rule, not a manager. What the rule costs, what it buys, and why 0.85% instead of 0.04% takes $70,624 off a thirty-year balance.
11 min read
Editor's pick
SavingGuide
The Emergency Fund, Sized Honestly
Every article says three to six months. None of them says three to six months of what, and on one household that reading is worth $10,410. The sizing test, worked at two incomes.
11 min read
Editor's pick
BudgetingGuide
How to Build a Spending Plan That Survives Real Life
A budget tells you what you meant to do. A spending plan survives the month it meets. The four-bucket method, worked through one household's real $4,800.
11 min read