John Waggoner

The problem with panning for gold: Once you find some, it’s hard to stop looking for more. John Mischler, 57, had a friend invite him out to look for gold nearly 20 years ago. “He took me up in the mountains in California and showed me how to do it, and I came home with a little bit of gold, which piqued my interest,” Mischler says. By the third time, he was hooked. “I have a little bit of gold fever.” Most of the gold panners in the California Gold Rush didn’t get rich, and you probably won’t…

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The growing volume of direct mail advertisements for reverse mortgages sent out during the pandemic, when home prices surged and interest rates were miniscule, disproportionately targeted older low-income homeowners who wouldn’t necessarily benefit from the complicated home loans, warns the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in a new report. How reverse mortgages work Reverse mortgages can be a good source of retirement income for some older homeowners who are house rich but cash p…

If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home, you may notice that the tenor of the housing market is changing. With mortgage rates now above 7 percent, the prospect of high monthly payments has pushed some buyers out of the market entirely . And homeowners who already have low-rate mortgages, many under 4 percent, are reluctant to move and give them up. What does all this mean for older homeowners? If you have paid off your mortgage and are happy where you’re living, you don’t have to pa…

October is here, and soon the leaves will turn color, everything will smell like pumpkin spice, and the payments on your student loan debt will return to full bloom. Student loan payments were halted in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic raced across the country. The repayment restart date has been moved many times, but there wasn’t another postponement this time. Fortunately, interest hasn’t built up on loans during the moratorium. If the loan moratorium helped you make ends meet, that’s gre…

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has a little gift for consumers this year: It’s not adding a holiday surcharge on packages. Last holiday season, the USPS temporarily raised rates from Oct. 2 through Jan. 22. It increased first-class package rates, for example, by 8.4 percent and Parcel Select Ground packages 4.2 percent. This year, however, there will be no extra charges for the holiday season, making the post office more competitive with UPS and FedEx. UPS, for example, will be adding a…

Somewhere in California, a very lucky person is wondering what to do with the $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot – the second-largest in history. In reality, the winner won’t pocket the full amount. Taxes will take a very large bite out of the total, of course, and the winner will face the choice between a lump sum or an annuity. The annuity would pay out the full $1.765 billion in annual payments over 30 years; the immediate lump-sum option would come to $774.1 million. Decisions, decisions…

Quizá recuerdes (o todavía tengas) un viejo refrigerador en tu garaje que se fabricó durante la Administración de Eisenhower. La mayoría de los electrodomésticos ya no duran tanto. “La respuesta breve y sin matices es que los electrodomésticos normalmente duran unos 12 años”, dice Myles Schmitz, director editorial de HomeServe. “Los estudios han demostrado que los modelos de más alta gama, efectivamente, duran más y funcionan mejor, pero esta es la regla general en la que se deben basar los comp…

You probably remember (or still have) an old refrigerator in your garage that was made during the Eisenhower administration. Most appliances don’t last that long anymore. “The short, unnuanced answer is that appliances will generally last around 12 years,” says Matthew Schmitz, managing editor at HomeServe, a company that sells home repair plans. “Studies have shown that higher-end models will, indeed, last longer and perform better, but this is what buyers can use as a rule of thumb.” Why are a…

Chris Woods didn’t grow up in a household that trusted financial institutions. His father grew up in the South when Jim Crow laws restricted where Black people could learn, eat, shop and bank. As an adult, when his father wanted to buy a house, he had to cope with redlining — the practice of denying Black homebuyers access to loans or entrée to particular neighborhoods. “African Americans who are aging now, the boomer generation, a lot of them didn’t seek that financial advice because of their…

You may think that because you’ve drafted a will, you don’t have to worry about your possessions being divided up according to your wishes after you die. Not so. There are other precautions you must take to ensure that your wishes will be followed. Here’s a checklist to help you make sure your estate is settled the way you want. Get a will The backbone of your estate is a will. It directs how you want your goods split up and can include unusual provisions, such as one stipulating an annual séanc…

A 401(k) plan is a great way to increase your retirement savings. Your employer will deduct your pretax contributions from your paycheck, and your savings will be tax-deferred until you take withdrawals during retirement. (The exception is a Roth 401(k), which is funded with after-tax dollars and from which withdrawals in retirement are tax-free.) Thanks to some recent adjustments by the Internal Revenue Service, your 401(k) will get a bit better in 2024. Savers will be able to contribute as…

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are one of the most popular tools for building retirement savings. About 42 percent of U.S. households have an IRA, according to the Investment Company Institute. But each year, the IRS adjusts the rules for IRA eligibility based on inflation. In 2024, those adjustments will make a big difference in who can contribute to a Roth IRA, and who can deduct contributions to a traditional IRA from their taxable income. For both traditional and Roth IRAs, yo…

Even though we’re still in the 2023 tax year, you’re probably thinking to yourself, Gosh! I wonder what the tax brackets are for the 2024 tax year? We’ve got you covered — and there’s actually some good news, thanks to inflation. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) adjusts tax brackets for inflation each year, and because inflation remains high, it’s possible you could fall into a lower bracket for the income you earn in 2024. Your standard deduction — the amount you can use as a deduction on yo…

Take this quiz to see if you are prepared with knowledge and a strategy to find the best deals on great gifts during the 2023 holiday shopping season.

For consumers, the return of high inflation in 2021 was about as welcome as a new COVID-19 variant. Gasoline hit an all-time high of $5.02 a gallon in June 2022; a dozen eggs sold for nearly $5 in January 2023. The government’s main gauge of inflation, the consumer price index (CPI), which increased by less than 2 percent a year on average through the 2010s, jumped up 9.1 percent for the 12 months ended June 2022. Inflation, however, cooled to a 3.1 percent increase in the 12 months ended Novemb…

This online calculator estimates your Social Security benefits, based on your earnings history and the age when you start to claim benefits.

Approximately 4.7 million taxpayers are in line for an unexpected break from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): Relief from some tax penalties incurred for the 2020 and 2021 tax years. The $1 billion in penalty relief, which works out to an average of $206 per eligible return, will go largely to individual taxpayers or businesses with less than $100,000 in income who owed late-payment penalties. For many, the relief will reduce the balance owed to the IRS. Those who already paid off their f…

As we look forward to 2024, we can mark significant dates on our calendars: birthdays, anniversaries and, of course, the deadlines the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sets for filing and paying federal income taxes. Bear in mind that we are filing taxes for income earned in 2023, even though we file those forms in 2024. To keep confusion to a minimum, tax experts refer to 2023 as the tax year and 2024 as the filing year. Most, but not all, of the deadlines in 2024 refer to tax year 202…

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finalized a rule that would cap late fees on credit cards, lowering the typical charge to $8 from $32. The agency says that the new rule would save cardholders more than $10 billion in late fees, or $220 a year on average, for each of the more than 45 million people hit yearly by late fees. “For over a decade, credit card giants have been exploiting a loophole to harvest billions of dollars in junk fees from American consumers,” said CFPB Di…