A 48-year-old engineer earning $400,000 with his spouse posted a question on a personal finance forum last month: with the 401(k) already maxed and a backdoor Roth in place, where should the next tax-advantaged…
Dave Ramsey delivers his core message on mortgage debt with characteristic bluntness: “Your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. Don’t surrender it to debt. Debt is acid that eats your wealth.” Inside the…
When President Trump was running for office, he made Social Security a pretty notable talking point. And one thing he promised to do was get rid of taxes on Social Security benefits. There’s a…
You may think you can’t afford estate planning, or that you don’t need it. But can you afford not to? That was the question estate planning attorney Allison Harrison recently asked on the Catching…
Speaking to reporters before departing for Beijing, President Trump was asked whether American financial pressure from rising gas prices might shape his approach to ending the Iran conflict. His answer, captured on Bloomberg’s “Balance…
A 60-year-old single retiree sitting on $2.2 million in a traditional 401(k) and $400,000 in a taxable brokerage has roughly five quiet years before Medicare enrollment changes the tax math forever. Those years are…
A 67-year-old single retiree sits on a $1.4 million traditional 401(k), just turned on a $30,000 annual Social Security benefit, and spends roughly $70,000 a year. On paper the plan works. The portfolio yields…
There are a lot of warnings about the future of Social Security. Both the Social Security trustees and the Congressional Budget Office have sounded the alarm about the program’s trust fund running dry. An…
The Couple, the Cliff, and the $200,000 Spend A married couple, both 65, sits on $2.4 million in a traditional 401(k), $750,000 in a Roth IRA, and $400,000 in a taxable brokerage. They plan…
Picture a 64-year-old who has been receiving $1,800 a month in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) since age 56. The check has paid the mortgage, kept the lights on, and covered the Medicare premium…
A couple in their late sixties with $3.2 million in combined traditional 401(k) assets and a healthy spending plan can write a clean check to the IRS every April and still get hit with…
A 73-year-old single retiree sitting on $2.5 million in a traditional 401(k) is about to learn that the IRS does not care whether the income is needed. The first required minimum distribution lands at…
It’s an unfortunate truth that getting divorced, no matter the age, can have a devastating impact on your finances. This is even more true as you get older, when it can significantly alter your…
George Kamel watched a TikToker break down the startup costs for a vending machine side hustle and landed on a number: $3,330.22. His advice was direct: save it in cash, not borrowed or on…
A caller phoned The Clark Howard Podcast on May 11, 2026 with a marital bet on the line. He had an 810 credit score. His wife wanted to help his brother, sitting at 690,…
