Sticking to your new year’s resolution is often a time-consuming proposition. Want to get fit? Be ready to spend hours at the gym. Considering a side hustle? Goodbye, weekends. But if your resolution is to save more, there’s one quick way to start: Open a high-yield online savings account. You can do this at many banks in less than 15 minutes, and you’ll earn at least 20 times more interest than you would in a traditional savings account. Maggie Germano, a Washington, D.C.-based financial…

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“Why am I running out of money?” That’s the question students ask most when they visit the student money management center at University of North Georgia in Dahlonega, Georgia. “When I ask them about a spending plan or a budget, they’ll typically say, ‘Yeah, I know what I spend my money on,’” says the center’s coordinator, Jean Cyprien. “But when I show them a spreadsheet with different categories for spending, they’ll say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize I was spending that…

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Wells Fargo agreed Friday to pay $1 billion in penalties after the bank was fined by two federal regulators — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. If you have had an auto or home loan at the bank, you could get money back for any wrongfully charged fees. The fines, the highest ever imposed by the CFPB, are in response to abusive practices from about 2005 to 2017 that cost thousands of…

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Good news: Spending time with dogs can be as good for your bank account as it is for your soul. Just ask Melanie Lewis, who has earned up to $2,500 a month from taking care of and walking dogs through Rover, a popular dog boarding and walking service. (She has over a hundred glowing reviews on the site.) Lewis lives in Phoenix with her husband, 1-year-old son and two poodles, Rye and JoJo. She fell into dog sitting after leaving her full-time job as a director…

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Venmo takes the anxiety out of splitting brunch and utility bills. With a linked bank account and someone’s username, you can send and request cash in a few taps. But some wonder if the app makes it a little too easy for people to hit each other up for money. Just ask Soham Maniar of Houston. He was hosting a friend for a weekend, and the two took an UberPool to dinner. Later, Maniar was surprised to receive a request…

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Many basic principles about saving and investing don’t change. But plenty of other things do, including the economy, tax law and employment trends. So we asked leading personal finance experts to share with us the best money advice they ever received, as well as what they would tell today’s new graduates. Here are their responses, edited for length and clarity: Michelle Singletary Michelle Singletary (photo courtesy of Michelle Singletary) Washington Post personal finance columnist and author of “The 21 Day…

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Most financial literacy efforts in schools don’t improve people’s behavior later in life. That could be because we’re focusing on the wrong things. Trying to teach teenagers how to shop for a mortgage, for example, may be an exercise in futility. The information simply isn’t relevant to them — yet. By the time they are ready to buy a home, the loans available and the rules surrounding them may have changed. Instead, we should be teaching kids the habits that make…

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Over the past few years, Meghaan Lurtz has had to turn down two destination bachelorette parties for dear friends. She was in graduate school and didn’t have the money to go. “It felt really crappy, because these are people that I know and I love and I care about, and I absolutely wanted to be there,” she says. “But finances are what they are. You have a budget, and budgets have restraints.” Lurtz is the president-elect of the Financial Therapy…

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Tax season — and tax refunds — can be a financial lifeline for many Americans. But the season can pose challenges for those who owe money to the IRS. Over 18 million Americans owed taxes in September 2014, according to the most recent data from the IRS. Meanwhile, an estimated 10 million face tax penalties each year, the IRS found. Here are three tips to help you handle your tax debt to lessen penalties and properly resolve your obligation. 1….

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The proposal was perfect. You’ve told friends and family the exciting news and shared pictures of the sparkly new ring on Instagram. Now it’s time to plan the wedding. Setting a realistic budget is a smart first step. But throwing out a number is one thing; sticking to it is the hard part. According to The Knot’s 2017 Real Weddings Study, 45% of couples who married in 2017 reported spending more than they had planned. “The last thing you want to do is…

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