Besides the colleges your child is interested in, the scholarship world is wide open. Virtually thousands of scholarships are offered each year by the federal government, individual states, and a wide variety of local, state, and national organizations. Although it is impossible to research them all, a tailored search is possible.
Many IRA and retirement plan limits are indexed for inflation each year. Several of these key numbers have increased once again for 2026.
You may donate money to charitable organizations throughout the year, simply because you wish to support causes that you care about. However, beginning in 2026, a new set of tax rules will determine the deductibility of your donations and might affect how much you can afford to give — for better or worse.
Every year, the College Board releases new college cost data and trends in its annual report. The numbers represent average costs for in-state public colleges, out-of-state public colleges, and private colleges and are based on a survey of approximately 4,000 colleges across the U.S.
In times of crisis, you don’t want to be shaking pennies out of a piggy bank. Having a financial safety net in place can help ensure that you’re prepared when a financial emergency arises. One way to accomplish this is by setting up a cash reserve, a pool of readily available funds that can help you meet emergency or highly urgent short-term needs.
The holiday season is a time for celebrating with those closest to you, but it’s also prime time for holiday scams. Unfortunately, fraudsters ramp up their efforts at this time of year to exploit holiday cheer for financial gain, so it’s important to stay alert and protect yourself from falling victim to a scam.
With the enactment of the OBBBA in July 2025, a new deduction for tips is effective for tax years 2025 through 2028. Here is a summary of the new provision and the occupations that will be affected.
For nearly a quarter century, employers have been able to offer their retirement savings plan participants age 50 and older a valuable opportunity — the chance to make additional catch-up contributions to their plan.1 Thanks to the SECURE 2.0 Act passed in 2022, that opportunity became even more valuable: Employers may now allow plan participants age 60 to 63 to contribute even more than their other catch-up eligible peers through “super catch-ups.”
On September 17, 2025, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) lowered the target range for the benchmark federal funds rate by one-quarter percentage point — the first rate cut in nine months. This brought the range to 4.0%–4.25% and resumed the process of lowering it from a high of 5.25%–5.5%, where it stood from July 2023 to September 2024.
ith the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, Congress introduced a new class of tax-advantaged savings vehicles for minors known as Trump accounts. Here’s a breakdown of the key features.