The Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey 2025 found that 46% of American investors maintain a main investment portfolio alongside one or more smaller, separate portfolios designated for different financial goals, while 39% still rely…
The most consequential Social Security decision most married couples will ever make has almost nothing to do with the person making it. When the higher earner decides whether to claim at 62 or wait…
A Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey 2025 finding that 57% of Americans agree modern investment portfolios are more sophisticated and require more professional guidance sits at the center of a broader shift in how…
On a recent Animal Spirits Podcast episode, co-host Ben Carlson summed up the AI capex worry plainly: “If there’s one obvious risk that’s going to cause excesses to happen in a big downturn, like…
The Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey 2025 found that cryptocurrency now accounts for 10% of the average American investor’s portfolio, compared with 6% for exchange-traded funds and 8% for bonds. For investors in their…
The math looks fine on paper. A 65-year-old retires with $95,000 a year in income: $36,000 from Social Security, a $30,000 pension, and $29,000 pulled from a $725,000 portfolio at the standard 4% rate.…
A mother of two called into The Ramsey Show with a dilemma. She and her husband had finished the show’s suggested Baby Steps for financial freedom three years earlier. They owed only $160,000 on…
Sixty years old, $1.6 million saved, and a plan to never punch a clock again. For many couples, that feels like the finish line. The problem is the five years between retirement and Medicare…
There are millions of older Americans today who rely on Social Security for monthly benefits. And without those checks, many retirees would no doubt struggle. Claiming benefits isn’t necessarily a tricky process. Anyone who’s…
The way we were raised and our early childhood memories can affect us throughout life. Growing up in poverty can shape the way we think about finances decades after we’ve left our childhood home,…
There’s a reason lawmakers voted years ago to make Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, automatic. Without those yearly increases, Social Security benefits would be guaranteed to lose buying power over time. Now, Social…
A 62-year-old couple retires with $2 million saved, plans to draw $80,000 a year using the classic 4% rule, and assumes the standard retirement-calculator inflation rate of 2% to 3%. Then inflation settles in…
If you try to retire on Social Security alone, you may end up struggling financially. That’s because the average recipient today only gets about $2,079 per month today. But you should know that Social…
A 23-year-old with $25,000 in federal student loans has grown his brokerage account to $25,000. Should we pay off his debt at a 4.5% rate? Or should he continue with his stock market investments?…
The single biggest design shift inside the American 401(k) this decade is about taxes, more than fees, target-date funds, or auto-escalation. According to Vanguard’s 2025 How America Saves report, 86% of plans now offer…
