Tyler Foster
Latest Articles by Tyler Foster
You can deduct up to $2,500 of student-loan interest even if you don’t itemize
Millions of borrowers paying down student loans can trim their federal tax bill by up to $2,500 each year, and they do not need to...
Money inside a 401(k) or IRA is shielded from most creditors, even in bankruptcy
Millions of Americans carry both retirement savings and consumer debt, and many face the question of what happens to a 401(k) or IRA if they...
Term life insurance costs a fraction of whole life for the same coverage
Households shopping for life insurance face a stark price gap between term and whole life policies, even when the death benefit is identical. A healthy...
The IRS must pay you 7% interest if it holds your refund longer than 45 days
Taxpayers still waiting on federal refunds from the 2026 filing season have a financial backstop most people overlook: if the IRS holds a refund longer...
Nearly 40% of households earning under $50,000 say they struggle to pay their energy bills
Nearly 40% of U.S. households earning under $50,000 report difficulty paying their energy bills, according to preliminary microdata from the federal government’s most detailed household...
A Chinese national was sentenced to 12 years for a $27 million scam that targeted U.S. seniors
Zhao Wang, a Chinese national who orchestrated a $27 million fraud and money laundering operation targeting approximately 2,000 older Americans, was sentenced to 151 months...
Credit card balances fell for the first time in years, dropping $25 billion to start 2026
American households paid down credit card debt by $25 billion in the first three months of 2026, snapping a streak of quarterly increases that had...
An emergency-room visit can’t be billed above your in-network share, even if the hospital is out of network
Patients who end up in an emergency room at an out-of-network hospital cannot be charged more than their plan’s in-network cost-sharing amount for that visit....
Holding both stocks and bonds cushions a portfolio when one market drops
Investors holding a traditional mix of stocks and bonds got a fresh warning this week: the cushion that fixed income provides during equity selloffs is...
A new bill in Congress would raise Social Security checks, but it still has to get through the Senate
Millions of Social Security and veterans benefits recipients could see an extra $200 added to their monthly checks under a bill now working its way...
The FBI’s “phantom hacker” scam uses three fake callers: tech support, then your bank, then the government
Older adults across the United States are losing entire retirement accounts to a scam that deploys not one, but three successive impersonators, each building on...
Gas is cheapest in Indiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, each under $3.55 a gallon
Drivers in Indiana, Texas, and Oklahoma are paying less than $3.55 a gallon for regular gasoline, placing these three states at the bottom of the...
Homeowners can buy federal flood coverage even when they live outside a mapped flood zone
Homeowners who live outside a federally mapped high-risk flood zone can still buy coverage through the National Flood Insurance Program, and a substantial share of...
Arizona faces the nation’s steepest summer power bills, around $1,060
Arizona households entering summer 2026 confront electricity costs that dwarf the national average, with estimates placing the typical three-month cooling bill at roughly $1,060. That...
Consumer prices climbed faster than electricity only recently, with power costs up over 6% in a year
American households paying electric bills saw those costs climb 5.9 percent over the past year, outpacing the 4.2 percent rise in overall consumer prices through...
Americans over 60 lost a record $7.7 billion to scammers last year
Americans over 60 lost approximately $7.7 billion to fraud in 2024, the highest annual total ever recorded for that age group. The FBI logged more...