Studio Romantic / Shutterstock.com Budgets can be a big pain. But, like much in life, we’ve got to work with reality. It’s true that the entire new bathroom or kitchen you yearn for may be out of reach for now. But if you have $5,000, there are many ways to scratch your itch to improve your home with a smallish budget. Pick the project that’s going to improve your home life most, be it new tile on the laundry room floor or a new ..read more

F01 PHOTO / Shutterstock.com If you don’t regularly monitor your credit report, consider this a wake-up call: Nearly half of people — 44% — recently found mistakes in their credit report when they participated in a Consumer Reports survey. Related: 7 Things You Should Do Before Claiming Social Security Consumer Reports and the nonprofit WorkMoney combined forces for the survey, asking 4,300 people to check their credit ..read more

baranq / Shutterstock.com Americans — including members of the middle class — are mighty unhappy about the U.S. economy today. A New York Times poll this spring found that 74% of Americans view the state of the economy as either “poor” or merely “fair.” Just 26% said things were “good” or “excellent.” So, what is bugging folks? Recently, Gallup asked Americans the following question: The question was open-ended ..read more

pixelheadphoto digitalskillet / Shutterstock.com This will be a piece of cake, I told myself as we prepared for our move from Baltimore to Waterford what now seems like a lifetime ago. How different can Ireland be from the United States? My husband, my daughter, and I, we’ll slide right into Irish life. I discovered quickly, though, that I’d been overly optimistic. The Irish speak English (sort of), but they operate differently from ..read more

Ground Picture / Shutterstock.com Health care bills can put a major crack in your nest egg during retirement. Some experts suggest that these costs can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars during your golden years although others have questioned those numbers. Still, no matter your view, medical expenses almost certainly take some type of bite out of your budget if you are retired. So, finding ways to contain these costs ..read more

voronaman / Shutterstock.com You can’t win them all — not in investing or many other things. But on the whole, Americans have done pretty well over the past few years. Every three years, the Federal Reserve puts out something called the Survey of Consumer Finances. The latest one covers changes in family assets from 2019 to 2022. Among its findings are that many assets commonly held by American households have seen ..read more

UfaBizPhoto / Shutterstock.com When you’re passionate about advocating for others, it’s natural to explore jobs that make a difference. Thanks to shifting job trends, many opportunities exist to build a meaningful career that offers the work-life balance you want. From healthcare to life coach jobs, there is ample opportunity to find jobs that help people and pay well. You can build a career that supports your values in ..read more

Khosro / Shutterstock.com You’ve probably noticed how anger can spike your heart rate. The negative effects on the body aren’t as fleeting as the emotion itself, though. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association is the first to show that anger is linked to impairment of blood vessels. Specifically, frequent anger limits blood vessels’ ability to widen. Such impairment is a precursor to ..read more

Krakenimages.com / Shutterstock.com Advertising Disclosure: When you buy something by clicking links on our site, we may earn a small commission, but it never affects the products or services we recommend. Just like a dollar, time can be spent. But, unlike a dollar, you can’t earn more. That can make it more valuable to us than what our bank accounts often reflect. Empower, a retirement planning service, recently surveyed 2,200 ..read more

Iammotos / Shutterstock.com Every day, the scene plays out in hospitals across America: Older men and women lie on gurneys in emergency room corridors moaning or suffering silently as harried medical staff attend to crises. Even when physicians determine these patients need to be admitted to the hospital, they often wait for hours — sometimes more than a day — in the ER in pain and discomfort, not getting enough food or ..read more