You like to drive, have some spare time and need to make some extra cash — but you don’t want to shuttle people around. Amazon is looking for people like you. If you have a car and an open schedule, you can make money delivering packages for the e-commerce giant. Amazon Flex is the company’s courier service. You can deliver for Amazon.com, AmazonFresh, Prime Now and Amazon Restaurants, which means you could spend a shift delivering dinner, groceries or gifts. Here’s a…

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Yes, buying that wide-eyed Shiba Inu puppy with your partner may bring loads of joy to your family. But this dog — we’ll call him Balto — may also come with a taste for pricey kibble and, down the road, a surprise $500 surgery. Ultimately, Balto and his needs are expenses that you and your significant other will share. Determine Balto’s costs, as well as how you’ll split and budget for them, before you’re fighting over that surgery bill. Start…

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The argument over whether you should invest or pay off debt usually focuses on financial numbers, such as rates of return and interest charges. Maybe happiness should be part of the equation as well. Studies in several countries, including the U.S., Norway, Ireland and Spain, have found high levels of financial satisfaction among elderly people. Happiness with our money situation tends to rise with age, even though our income peaks in midlife and then generally declines. Why is that? Further…

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It’s a familiar — and frustrating — experience: Planning a trip and checking airfares every few days, waiting for the perfect price to appear. Finding the opportune moment to buy is no easy feat. Plane ticket costs fluctuate constantly. In fact, during the typical 11-month period a flight is listed, the price changes every four and a half days on average, according to CheapAir.com’s annual airfare study. So when is the optimal time to book? That depends on where and when…

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You might have pumpkins on your porch, but it’s already time to make room for the year-end holidays in your budget. “I was at Costco the other day, and I already saw Christmas trees, [so] we need to be thinking about it right now,” says Nick Givogri, a California-based regional executive for investment service Merrill Edge. Here’s how to get started. Work backward Your past holiday spending is the best indicator of what you’ll spend this season, says Robert P. Finley,…

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Would buying a nice gift for a wedding or birthday strain your finances for the month? How about an unexpected expense, like a car repair — could you handle it easily, with some difficulty, or not at all? Do you usually have money left at the end of the month? In a fresh approach to helping consumers understand their money, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has developed a quiz to measure financial well-being. Answering 10 simple questions yields a score between 0 and…

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A typical student loan horror story goes something like this: You’re a millennial with crippling, six-figure debt; you’re underemployed; and you’re on the brink of default and living in your parents’ basement. But while that’s the case for some student loan borrowers, it doesn’t have to be the case for you. Here are seven ways to minimize and manage your debt — and avoid those worst-case scenarios. 1. Exhaust federal student aid first Scary stat: 47% of private loan borrowers took out less…

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Sometimes the dark side is too strong to resist, urging you to splurge on that second, even more perfect pair of brown boots or upgrade to a more stylish pair of wireless headphones. But the fleeting satisfaction you get from succumbing to these seductive I-didn’t-know-I-needed-it-until-just-now purchases can fade to a sense of financial failure when you get your credit card statement. Overspending is like looking for love in all of the wrong places. No matter how many boots you have,…

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Popular budgeting advice like the 50/30/20 rule — which allots a set percentage of income to necessities, wants and needs — is meaningless for people whose paychecks go up and down. Freelancers, the self-employed, and those who depend on tips or commissions can have a great-paying month or a bad one, and that leaves them vulnerable. A Federal Reserve report released in May found that nearly a third of U.S. adults had irregular incomes in 2016 — and 40% of those struggled…

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  Wells Fargo said Thursday it may have opened as many as 3.5 million unauthorized accounts, a sharp increase from the 2.1 million it previously announced as part of a $185 million settlement in September 2016. That could mean many more consumers are eligible for refunds and credits. The bank has agreed to pay out another $2.8 million, according to a Wells Fargo news release. This is in addition to more than $3 million in payments announced after the first review. The increased…

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