The Health Savings Account Becomes a Retirement Vehicle
The best-taxed account in the American system was designed for medical bills and is increasingly being used as a supplemental retirement fund by the people who least need help saving.
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Insurance Is the New Inflation
Headline inflation cooled, but households keep feeling squeezed, and the culprit hiding in the budget is insurance: home, auto and health premiums repricing years of accumulated risk.
Buy Now, Pay Later Grows Up and Gets Reported
Installment lending at the checkout spent years invisible to the credit system. As it becomes reportable, both the lenders and the borrowers are discovering what visibility costs.
Savers Are Finally Being Paid, and They Are Acting Like It
After years of earning nothing, household savers have become rate shoppers, and the deposit market is behaving like a market again.
Regional Banks Turn to Software to Defend Deposits
Facing depositors who can move money in seconds, smaller banks are investing in retention tooling that watches balances the way retailers watch shopping carts.
The Great Inheritance Arrives, Unevenly
The largest generational wealth transfer on record is underway. Most of it is moving to households that were already comfortable, and much of it is being consumed by end-of-life costs before it moves at all.
The Quiet Repair of the American Household Balance Sheet
Beneath the affordability complaints, savings behavior has shifted. Households are extinguishing revolving debt at rates not seen in a decade.