Author: Money Mechanics

Miami-Dade County is one of the most desirable places to live in the country, but its median listing price of $595,868 is pushing many everyday people out of the market.That’s why an affordable alternative is drawing attention.Cottage Grove, a manufactured housing community under construction in South Miami-Dade, will feature 349 single-family homes with prices starting at just $129,900. It will be the first new manufactured housing development in Miami-Dade in decades.”The interest has been tremendous,” Ross Partrich, the CEO of RHP Properties, which owns Cottage Grove, tells Realtor.com®. “The market is showing there’s a real need—we’ve had over 1,000 inquiries.”RHP…

(Image credit: Getty Images)Question: I am a 63-year-old, retired dad of three adult children. I spend most of my time with my wife at our brownstone in New York City, but we are also lucky enough to have a $3.2 million beach house in Hampton Bays, New York. We spend the summer there, hosting friends and family.With prices rising on everything from gas to groceries, I’m not sure if we can afford to entertain all summer.We don’t want to say no to anyone; we look forward to it all year. But either we are going to have to cut back…

To help you understand the trends surrounding business and technology and what we expect to happen in the future, our highly experienced Kiplinger Letter team will keep you abreast of the latest developments and forecasts. (Get a free issue of The Kiplinger Letter or subscribe.) You’ll get all the latest news first by subscribing, but we will publish many (but not all) of the forecasts a few days afterward online. Here’s the latest…If cutting-edge artificial intelligence could truly tame the daily onslaught of emails, it would make a huge difference for tens of millions of workers. Microsoft, which dominates workplace…

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.1 What I want to talk about is central bank independence but applied to Reserve Bank operations. The decentralized and regional design of the Federal Reserve helps reinforce our independence by ensuring that the full range of interests and views are represented in policy discussions, and that is something that should be preserved. But much of the day-to-day operations of the Reserve Banks are not connected to monetary policymaking, and I recently gave a speech at the Brookings Institution where I suggested some improvements to the efficiency of Reserve Bank operations.…

If the Federal Reserve still has any reasons to cut interest rates in the near future, they’re getting harder and harder to find.Friday’s jobs report for April provided the latest evidence that the central bank’s larger concern isn’t a flagging labor market but rather a cost of living that is getting increasingly harder for ordinary Americans to bear.The nonfarm payrolls increase of 115,000 last month is hardly gangbusters, but is another sign that the jobs picture has stabilized at least enough to reduce the pressure for rate cuts. By comparison, there is scant evidence to say the same for inflation,…

As was widely reported, Oracle axed an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people via email on March 31. One of the employees cut that day told TechCrunch about the experience: “I had, like, this weird feeling in my stomach. I went to go sign into the VPN, and the VPN was like, ‘this user doesn’t exist anymore.’ Then I called my friend, and I was like, ‘Hey, can you see me in Slack?’ And she said, ‘No, your account’s been deactivated.’” The person soon received an email stating their role was terminated immediately. The severance offer arrived a few days later. But…

Welcome to Kiplinger’s My First $1 Million series, in which we hear from people who have made $1 million. They’re sharing how they did it and what they’re doing with it. This time, we hear from a married 55-year-old attorney in Rhode Island who’s retired but working part-time. It took him a while to find his footing, but he credits his mom for providing the foundation that helped him get there. (Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all the great moms out there!)To learn what the millionaires featured in this series have taught us, check out the article 5 Key Insights…

(Image credit: Getty Images)Spring often feels like a fresh start — spring cleaning, a wardrobe refresh, more time outside, and an “out with the old” mindset as we come out of hibernation. While it’s also a great time to review your financial plan, bear in mind that not every check-in requires a change.When facing heightened volatility or high sentiment, investors can become more willing to project recent performance, take on risks they wouldn’t normally take or “refresh” portfolios in ways that are more reactive than strategic.However, investing should be grounded in a long-term financial plan, considering appropriate diversification, thoughtful risk…

(Image credit: Getty Images)A mega backdoor Roth IRA is one of the most powerful strategies available to high-income earners who want to maximize tax-advantaged retirement savings.The name “mega backdoor Roth” sounds big and exciting, and it is. It is a way to get money into a Roth account, where it can grow tax-free and be withdrawn tax-free in retirement, once certain conditions are met.To fully understand how a mega backdoor Roth IRA works, it helps to first look at its predecessor — the standard backdoor Roth IRA — and then explore how this enhanced version expands your retirement investment options.…

(Image credit: Getty Images)It’s always fascinating to me that, every January, big banks and brokerage firms give their stock market predictions for the year. Most of the time, the results are not in line with their predictions by the end of the year.Predicting the market is a futile activity, and when it comes to making investment decisions, predicting is something most retirees and those nearing retirement should avoid, as success comes down to whether you were right or not.Some look to the past to help navigate the future. While the past is observable and instructive, you don’t invest today with…