If you care about your money, you should memorize the word “fiduciary.” It’s critical if you hire someone to help with your finances. And with the Fiduciary Rule on the chopping block, it’s up to you to make sure your financial advisor acts in your best interest.

When you spend money impulsively, it’s not necessarily on luxuries. We buy some pretty boring stuff: household cleaning products, for example. Research shows we like to buy practical, useful things, which makes spending impulsively even more dangerous.

You know it’s important to have cash on hand in case of an emergency, but when is it okay to dip into that aptly named emergency fund? Some scenarios are so obviously emergencies—you lose your job and rent is due—but others can be iffy.

When you ask for a raise, you’ll have more success focusing on the value you bring to the table as opposed to your own needs. You probably don’t want to blurt out, “Hey, I’ve got bills to pay and you haven’t bumped my salary in three years”—even if it’s true. So what do you say?

Warren Buffett has made a reputation for himself as the world’s greatest investor, and he’s a big fan of index funds. Funds are basically one big investment made up of a bunch of individual ones. If you’re into lazy, set-and-forget investing, you’re familiar with them. But how do you find out exactly what’s in your…

There’s no denying the gender pay gap. It’s there: the average pay for a man, the average pay for a woman, and space between. The gap exists regardless of whether or not you believe it exists. Wage gap deniers don’t deny the gap itself; they deny its significance. Women stay at home with children, so the numbers make…

Let’s say your bank sucks, treats you poorly, and you’re ready to break up with them. While you’re on the hunt for a new, better place to store your money, remember this: some banks will pay you to switch.

“What is a resort fee, exactly?” my friend asked, driving away from our quaint Palm Springs motel. We received a bill with a long, confounding list of taxes and fees. Too lazy to decipher each item, we paid without really knowing what we paid for. You’ve probably been there, too, so let’s explore what’s included in…

You’ve been waiting at the airport for two hours, you’ve had your Cinnabon fix, and you’re ready to board the plane. There’s just one problem: there is no plane. We’ve all been there. Flight delays are a massive headache, and Google Flights just updated with some features to help ease the pain.

Your credit score matters (especially if it’s low), but it’s not the only number that you should care about when it comes to your money. If you’re paying off debt, for example, you want to be aware of something called your debt to income ratio. It doesn’t just affect your ability to get loans; it’s also just a good…

A few years back, I finally opened up an individual retirement account, or IRA. (A small step in investing, a giant leap toward adulting.) After building my very own portfolio, I noticed something interesting. Every quarter, I found money “paid” into my account. They’re called dividends, and dividend investing is an…

It’s easier to give advice than it is to take it. You tell your friend she really needs to dump that jerk, but meanwhile, you can’t break things off with your own jerk. Most of us have been there, and that dynamic rings especially true when it comes to money. According to a recent study, we may overestimate the value…

That’s a wrap for this year’s Ultimate Money Challenge. In 2017, we asked you to negotiate, kick your spending weakness, and clean out your closets for cash, just to name a few. Some of you paid off your credit card debt and even started saving for retirement. Nice work! It’s time to recap our final challenge of the…

Need a new computer? Write it off! Lunch at a fancy French restaurant? Write it off! There’s a prevailing belief that, when it comes to deductible expenses, you can “write them off” and it’s like getting them for free. But that’s not exactly true. So how much do you actually save when you write something off? We…

Your budget won’t like this, but there are a number of goods and services you can expect to be considerably more expensive next year. The good news is, some stuff will be a lot cheaper, too.

Google Flights is my go-to for finding cheap travel, but they haven’t always been great at predicting the best time to book, which is why I also rely on other travel planning tools, like Hopper. However, Google just released a few useful upgrades to their travel planning suite that make it even easier to find cheap…

This week, the Federal Reserve is expected to increase the federal funds rate. It’s a move that can affect mortgage interest rates, but it can also impact credit card and student loan rates, too.

Thanks to a post-recession economy and lagging job market, Millennials inherited the reputation of being the “boomerang generation.” We all move back home with our parents and struggle to make ends meet because we’re too busy buying avocado toast, right? It’s a broad and unfair generalization. Still, boomeranging…

All year long, we’ve challenged you to save more, cut impulsive spending, and even earn some extra cash by cleaning out your closets. For this year’s final Ultimate Money Challenge, we want you to gift yourself—with savings. In other words, save a portion of your holiday spending.

“I don’t trust investing,” a friend said once. I asked her why. “Isn’t it kind of like playing the lottery?” she asked. Investing is intimidating enough for people as it is. Toss in something as unpredictable as cryptocurrency, and people give up on it altogether. It reinforces the notion that investing is like buying…