Personal finance
Saving, investing, tax and retirement, explained plainly.
-
Buy, refinance or rent: how to weigh a soft US housing market
US mortgage rates opened the week lower, Goldman Sachs expects a weaker housing market, and a reader is resolved to rent for life. The practical question underneath: buy, refinance or rent, and how to decide on what you control rather than a forecast.
-
Investing for income: what yield figures and monthly payouts don't tell you
US investors are being sold more income and more ways to trade: monthly payouts from covered-call funds, fat dividend yields, round-the-clock options. The question behind the pitches: what does a yield actually measure, and what does reaching for it cost?
-
Retirement is a chain of trade-offs: where your attention actually pays off
Five US retirement stories, from a sceptical 25-year-old to a couple weighing a $15,000-a-year policy, point to one question: across a retirement that can last decades, where does your attention actually pay off? These are the choices, the trade-offs and the traps.
-
Retirement is four questions, not one: saving, tax, care and purpose
Four recent US retirement stories trace one arc: the pot you build, the tax you pay to use it, the late-life care costs that can drain it, and the life it is meant to fund. The account names are American; the trade-offs they describe are not.