Daniel Harper
Daniel is a finance writer covering personal finance topics including budgeting, credit, and beginner investing. He began his career contributing to his Substack, where he covered consumer finance trends and practical money topics for everyday readers. Since then, he has written for a range of personal finance blogs and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, straightforward content that helps readers make more informed financial decisions.
Latest Articles by Daniel Harper
You can give a family member about $19,000 a year without touching your lifetime gift-tax exemption
The federal gift-tax rules let a person hand over as much as $19,000 to another individual in a single year without filing a gift-tax return...
The new $6,000 senior tax deduction disappears after 2028, giving retirees a short window to use it
A temporary tax break worth up to $6,000 per person is now on the books for Americans who are 65 or older, and the window...
A Roth IRA never forces withdrawals during your lifetime, unlike a traditional IRA
One rule separates a Roth IRA from nearly every other retirement account: the original owner is never forced to take money out. A traditional IRA,...
Leave your job at 55 or later and you can tap that 401(k) without the 10% early-withdrawal penalty
A quiet provision in the tax code, often called the Rule of 55, lets a worker who leaves an employer in the year they turn...
401(k) hardship withdrawals have hit a record, up 252% since the pandemic as bills eat savings
The share of workers pulling emergency cash out of their 401(k) plans has climbed to a record, a jump that has more than tripled the...
Amazon is getting $600 million in tariff money back, and some shoppers could see a refund
Amazon told investors it collected about $600 million in tariff refunds in a single quarter, and it says a portion of that money will find...
Walmart and Target dropped price matching, ending one way shoppers trimmed their bills
A familiar money-saving tactic just lost two of its biggest venues. Walmart and Target have both pulled back from price matching, the practice that once...
Airlines must send an automatic cash refund when they cancel or badly delay your flight
Air travelers who once got stuck with a voucher after an airline scrapped their flight now hold a firmer right to cash. Under a federal...
A bill would let about 50,000 combat-injured veterans draw both retirement and disability pay
Tens of thousands of medically retired veterans lose part of their military retirement pay because of a decades-old federal offset, and a bill reintroduced in...
Billions in unclaimed cash sit with state treasurers, and one free search covers most states
Across the United States, state treasurers and unclaimed-property offices are holding tens of billions of dollars that belong to ordinary people who lost track of...
New SNAP rules changed how utilities count, and about 600,000 households will see smaller benefits
A change buried in the 2025 federal budget law is about to shrink the monthly grocery assistance that roughly 600,000 U.S. households draw through the...
A payable-on-death beneficiary lets a bank account skip probate and reach heirs directly
Naming a payable-on-death beneficiary on a bank account is one of the simplest estate-planning moves available, and one of the most misunderstood. With a short...
Some states waive property taxes entirely for veterans rated 100% disabled
A veteran rated by the federal government as 100 percent disabled from service-connected conditions can, in many states, stop paying property taxes on a primary...
Many states let homeowners 65 and older defer property taxes until the home is sold
Property-tax bills do not pause when a paycheck stops, and for older homeowners who are rich in home equity but short on monthly cash, that...
Texas homeowners 65 and older can shield $200,000 of home value and freeze their school taxes for life
Homeowners in Texas who reach age 65 gain two separate forms of relief on the property taxes that fund their local schools, and together the...
Buy-now-pay-later loans are starting to appear on credit reports, where they can move a retiree’s score
A form of borrowing that once stayed invisible to the credit system is beginning to surface on consumer credit reports. Buy-now-pay-later plans, the four-payment installments...
