Posts in Finance category.
Understanding your "take-home pay" is no longer as simple as subtracting a flat tax rate. As remote work, multi-state employment, and complex benefit structures become the norm, a salary calculator is an essential financial tool. This guide breaks down how to use these tools with expert precision.
Lenders have rewritten their "playbooks" due to millions of actual defaults in 2020 and beyond. In Denver, for instance, Alex had 780 FICO, eight years of on-time payments, 12% usage and was denied a $15K personal loan from his own bank in March 2025.
The financial world undergoes changes in 2025 with inflation being steady at 2.4% but felt in wage and asset bases, the Federal Reserve is near 4.5%, and yields from savings over 5% as money flows to High Yield accounts, with stock returns expected to be 7-9%, with exception for some AI sectors.
By 2025, U.S. credit card debt has surpassed $1.13 trillion, due to lingering inflation resulting in average variable rates close to 23%.
In the home buying process, buyers in 2025 will contend with a market that is stabilizing interest rates and slowly increasing inventory levels. At the time of late October, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.19%, a far cry from peak rates exceeding 7% in the early part of the year.