Should you worry about what the market did today? The answer depends on several factors, including your proximity to retirement, your tolerance for risk, and your skill and experience with stock analysis. Long-Term Investors and Stock Market Dips If you are more than 10 to 15 years from retirement and investing for the long-term, you probably don’t have to worry about what the market does on a given day. The key to long-term investing is defining your risk tolerance beforehand and building a portfolio that you are comfortable with....

Combination resumes can be used to show an employer your most relevant skills, qualifications, and experience, while still documenting your work history. This resume format is also a good way of answering the reader’s questions about career changes, employment gaps, and other potential red flags. Perhaps you’ve recently changed occupations, and much of your job history no longer reflects your career direction. Professionals are changing career fields now at an unprecedented rate, seeking pay raises, better benefits, or increased job security....

Learn the pros and cons of paying for college out of your Roth IRA. How To Use a Roth IRA for College Expenses A Roth IRA is a tax-advantaged retirement account that anyone with an earned income (up to a certain threshold) can contribute to. However, when you withdraw money from a Roth, you can use those withdrawals to pay for any expenses. This includes college expenses for a child or other beneficiary....

Just like any form of business, a sole proprietorship has advantages and disadvantages. Those interested in sole proprietorship should conduct a careful analysis of the needs, risks, and ambitions of the venture to make a proper determination as to which type of business entity is best. What Is a Sole Proprietorship? A sole proprietorship is a business entity with a single owner. That implies that the owner bears direct responsibility for all elements of the business and is fully accountable for all finances, including debts, loans, and losses....

A credit lock and credit freeze generally do the same thing: they prevent anyone from opening credit in your name. But, there are also differences between these options. Lock vs. Freeze All three major credit bureaus give consumers the option to lock their credit reports. When you do this, a lender can’t get access to it to approve any loan or line of credit. However, keep in mind that this is an agreement between you and the credit bureau....

This article describes how a limited liability company works and what types of owners the business may have. LLC Membership Requirements An LLC is formed by registering with a U.S. state by filing articles of organization or similar document, depending on the state. The federal government, including the IRS, is not involved in forming an LLC. There are two types of LLC memberships for tax purposes, depending on the number of members: a single-member LLC with one owner and a multiple member LLC with several owners....

The second is when it removes the risk of deflation. That’s when prices fall. When that happens, people wait to see if prices will drop more before buying. It cuts back demand, and businesses reduce their inventory. As a result, factories produce less and lay off workers. Unemployment rises, leading to wage deflation. Workers have less money to spend, which reduces demand even more. Businesses lower their prices. That makes deflation worse....

Business, life, and money coach Vickie Champion suggests bringing the weekly allowance back as a way of helping adults to budget more effectively. Vickie is a master at helping people improve their spending and savings habits by changing the way they think about money. She says: Learn more about why a weekly allowance can be a good idea and how to implement it. Eight Reasons to Use a Weekly Allowance Keys to Implementing Determining how much you can spend each week is the key to using the weekly allowance concept....

After this period of missed payments, the creditor declares your account a loss and writes it off as uncollectible from an accounting standpoint. Your account will be closed for any new charges, however, you still owe the balance. The creditor will continue to make collection attempts on the past due balance and may even enlist the help of a third-party debt collector. What Happens When You Pay a Charge-Off? If you pay a charge-off, you may expect your credit score to go up right away since you’ve cleared up the past due balance....

President Joe Biden asked Congress on Wednesday to enact a three-month “holiday” on the collection of the federal gas tax, which adds 18.4 cents to the price of each gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents to each gallon of diesel fuel. Congress must act to suspend the collection of the tax, and Democratic legislators in the House and Senate have introduced bills but, so far, Republicans have not joined them....

IPO stock can be a valuable investment, but sometimes, investors lose a lot of money. Learn about the benefits and downsides of investing in IPO stock and how to evaluate your investment. What Is an Initial Public Offering (IPO)? A private company that offers its shares of stock to the general public is said to be making an initial public offering. To prepare for an IPO, the company will register with the U....

If you have fair or bad credit, defined as a FICO score of 669 or below, you may be wondering how to increase your credit score. As hopeless as the situation might seem now, poor credit doesn’t have to last forever. There are steps you can take right now to begin ​raising your credit score. Get a Copy of Your Credit Reports Before you can figure out how to increase your credit score, you have to know what score you’re starting from....

Your accounts, payment history, and inquiries into your credit are examples of credit report information used to calculate your credit score. How Your Credit Score Is Used When you apply for a credit card or loan, the creditor or lender uses your credit score to inform their decision on whether to issue you credit or not. The credit score gives a snapshot of how reliable you are as a borrower, which lets lenders know whether you are a good risk for a loan or credit card or not....

Your small business name needs to be relevant, memorable, and easy to pronounce. It should stick in memories and match your market offering. A good business name should also clearly reflect what you do, who you are, or what you sell. First impressions are crucial. Many of the most memorable brands started with a simple jumping-off point to get the ideas flowing. Start simple, then keep refining until it’s perfect....

How Credit Insurance Works Credit insurance is often an extra service that’s offered by your credit card lender, either at the time you apply or later in the life of the loan. It’s not sold by agents. The premiums will vary based on the amount of the benefit. The higher the debt, the more of a premium you’ll pay. It’s often tacked onto your monthly bill until you use the insurance or cancel the benefit....

The following list covers seven expenses you may not have even thought were deductible. Petty cash expenses Petty cash is money used for the small items you pay cash for, like bagels for the office meeting or parking and tolls. Capturing these small expenses can add up to big tax savings.  If you have a retail business, you may keep cash in a drawer to make change. If you have a non-retail business, you may have cash on hand to pay for small purchases....

A revocable trust has some distinct advantages over a ​last will and testament, but making a decision between these two estate planning tools comes down to your personal concerns and what you want to achieve with your assets. What’s the Difference Between a Living Trust and a Will? A revocable living trust doesn’t require probate, because the trust becomes the official owner of the assets when they’re transferred into it....

Finding the right level of withholding can be a balancing act—particularly if you anticipate big changes in the coming year—or personal events with tax implications like getting married, divorced, or having a child. Some general rules of thumb and an understanding of the process can help. The IRS provides interactive tools to help you along. Why Would a Refund Be a Bad Thing? Receiving a tax refund actually means you gave the IRS more from your paycheck than you had to—money that you could otherwise have spent on bills, pleasure, retirement savings, or investments....

As the price tag for attending college continues to grow, some schools are responding with college tuition rate resets. This strategy is designed in part to make college more affordable for students and parents. If your student is planning to attend a school that’s adjusting tuition rates, it’s important to know how that could impact your financial plan. How Resetting College Tuition Rates Works Tuition rate resets occur when colleges and universities reduce their published tuition prices, before scholarships and financial aid packages are awarded to students....

ADR Basics: Why Fees Exist To explain why ADR fees exist, we need to first look at how ADRs work, how they are structured, and why banks create them. The short, simplified version is that a commercial bank goes to a foreign stock market and buys shares of the foreign stock. It then brings these shares back to the United States, puts them into a sort of trust fund, issues certificates representing the stock that is now in the bank’s vault, and sells these certificates on the stock market....