From fast-casual chains to your fridge at home, artificial intelligence is stepping in where supply chains, labor markets, and budgets are buckling. If you’ve felt the pinch while ordering takeout or reading your grocery receipt, you’re not alone. With inflation lingering, labor costs rising, and potential tariffs threatening imports — 15% of the U.S. food supply is imported, including 32% of fresh vegetables, 55% of fresh fruit, and 94% of seafood — the cost of putting food on the table is surging. Dining out, once a weeknight convenience, now feels like a splurge. Even meal prepping is no longer cheap…

Student loan borrowers are facing an unprecedented credit damage crisis as the federal student loan repayment system remains mired in turmoil, delinquencies surge, and the Trump administration ramps up collections efforts. As a result, millions of student loan borrowers are seeing their credit score plummet as missed or late payments hit their credit report. For more than four years, borrowers were shielded from adverse consequences associated with missed student loan payments. Covid-era policies paused payments and interest accrual. When student loan repayment resumed in 2023, the Department of Education and loan servicers extended flexibilities for borrowers that avoided adverse credit…

As you get older, your budget gets more complex. You own more things and those things need maintenance. You might have a house, which includes a laundry list of associated bills. You have subscriptions you signed up for over the years and sometimes you forget you even have them! Today, we’ll cover ten ways you’re potentially wasting money without even knowing it. Use it as a checklist to scour through your budget to see if you’re wasting money in these ways. Not Earning Interest If you aren’t earning a high rate of interest on your savings account, you’re leaving money…

Taxes are often one of the biggest expenses retirees incur. With our progressive tax system, theoretically, the more you make, the more taxes you must pay. One of the biggest exceptions is income in your Roth IRA. Keep reading as we share how you can save $70,000 or more in this type of retirement account every year. This retirement income strategy could make you a Roth IRA millionaire. Picture your parents or grandparents complaining about the huge amount of taxes they are stuck paying on their IRA distributions and how this level of taxable income increases their Medicare premiums and…

IDR Application Processing Backlog Hits 2 Million Student Loan Forgiveness Borrowers A status report filed in federal court on May 15 reveals that 1,985,726 income-driven repayment applications were still pending as of April 30, 2025. That same month, only 79,349 IDR applications were processed. This means less than 4% of the backlog was addressed in April, leaving almost 2 million student loan borrowers still stuck waiting for their IDR applications to be processed and on the path towards lower payments and student loan forgiveness. April’s throughput is likely not representative, given that student loan servicers were only processing a portion…

The U.S. has been ignoring its fiscal condition and its credit rating for decades. Even now that Moody’s, following Standard & Poor’s (technically, S&P Global these days) and Fitch’s Ratings, downgraded the U.S. credit rating from the top AAA to AA+, many people won’t care. Nothing may happen immediately, meaning that politicians might not act, thinking that all will be well. In the short run, it might seem that way. In the long run, probably not. The drop in rating is ultimately important in itself, but the true issue is how the country treats its budgets and debts. I asked…

In August of 2021 hackers offered for sale on the Dark Web data of what they said was 100 million customers of phone carrier T-Mobile. This was the first indication that T-Mobile had been hacked. Soon hereafter T- Mobile confirmed the data breach but said that the number of people affected was approximately 76 million people. The information being sold included names, phone numbers, Social Security numbers and addresses. Also being sold were the PINS used by some T-Mobile customers to protect their accounts from identity theft. This type of information poses a tremendous threat of identity theft to victims…

Isn’t it ironic that the very systems meant to broaden our horizons – education, career, and finances – so often tend to box us in? I have two children currently in college, one who just completed his freshman year and the other, his junior year. And it’s amazing to me how much apparent certainty is expected of young people at a time in life when they have far more questions than answers. You choose the college, then the major, then the concentration, typically before gaining any hands-on experience. Not until then have you added an internship to your resume, only…

The Internet of Things is made up of a broad range of devices connected to the Internet including home thermostats, security systems, medical devices, refrigerators, televisions, smart televisions and toys. Our homes have become filled with these devices including Alexa and Siri. One device that people hardly give any thought to is your smoke detector. Newer, sophisticated smoke detectors have the capability to send data to your phone or the manufacturer which they do through your router and this makes them vulnerable to being hacked. There has even been a trend in recent years in the sex toy industry to…

Federal government workers have faced a lot of pressure, including mass layoffs, buyout offers that haven’t yet been approved or funded by Congress, and uncertainty about agency downsizings or even eliminations. Proposed changes to the Federal Employees’ Retirement System have added to the worry and anger among federal workers. Why FERS Changes Are A Concern People entering government service know they are accepting lower salaries than in the private sector for stronger benefits. FERS is an important example that is difficult to duplicate. There are three parts to FERS, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. One is Social…