Author: Money Mechanics

Of all the novel energy companies out there — that is, companies working on not-so-mainstream ways of producing and storing power — Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE) has had hands-down one of the most dominant performances on the market since last year. Just how dominant, you ask? How about this: Bloom Energy’s fuel cells have been deployed to over 1,200 facilities, including some of the biggest names in cloud computing, retail, and manufacturing, such as Equinix, Walmart, and Comcast. Will AI create the world’s first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on a little-known company, called an “Indispensable Monopoly,” providing…

The Met Gala is set to make a return to New York City on May 4, when some of the world’s biggest celebrities will descend upon the storied steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, turning the historic gallery into a star-studded catwalk.Among them will be this year’s lead sponsors and honorary co-chairs, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, who are joining an illustrious cast of 2026 Met Gala co-chairs: Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and former Vogue editor Anna Wintour.The theme of this year’s event, “Costume Art,” which is coupled with a “Fashion Is…

AI dictation apps have come a long way in a short time. For years they were slow and inaccurate — unless you spoke with a particular accent and enunciated clearly. Advances in large language models (LLMs) and speech-to-text models have changed that, producing systems that can decipher speech more accurately while retaining enough context to format the text correctly. Developers have also built in features to automatically remove filler words, fix stumbles, and handle punctuation — outputting text that needs far fewer edits. With dozens of such apps now on the market, we’ve rounded up our picks for the best…

(By Oil & Gas 360) – Suriname has been one of the most talked-about emerging oil provinces in recent years, often mentioned alongside Guyana as part of the same transformational offshore basin. Early discoveries in Block 58, led by TotalEnergies and APA Corporation, confirmed a working petroleum system and pointed to hundreds of millions of barrels of recoverable resources, quickly putting the country on the map for global investors. But as the basin moves from discovery toward development, a more measured reality is beginning to take shape. The initial wave of optimism was driven by a string of successful wells, including…

(Image credit: Getty Images)For decades, people planning for retirement have been told they need to replace about 80% of their pre-retirement income. That number suggests the annual amount required to maintain your current lifestyle, based largely on the idea that some expenses will decrease in retirement.While it’s a useful rule of thumb, the 80% rule is flawed in that it assumes spending remains constant for 25 or 30 years. In reality, spending in retirement evolves.Most households move through distinct retirement phases: Higher spending in the early, active years, followed by a gradual tapering as life naturally slows. One practical way…

(Image credit: Getty Images)Money solves a lot of problems. It buys time. It gives you options. It softens the impact when something goes wrong.But the moment your income jumps, or a windfall lands, the ground shifts in ways people rarely talk about. Not publicly, anyway. The changes take place quietly — in spending habits, in the way people treat you, in the number of decisions suddenly sitting on your desk.Financial success is still a good thing. It just pays to understand the parts that come with it. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better informed…

(Image credit: Getty Images)In March 2025, we launched our feature My First $1 Million, in which we ask readers to share the details of how they hit seven figures.More than a hundred readers have detailed their experiences, and we’ve published 50 of these profiles so far — from a novelist in New England and a 37-year-old banking executive (yes, 37), to the owner of a waste-hauling business and a retired middle school teacher.So now is the perfect time to share the top five lessons we’ve learned from our featured millionaires. Whether you’re aiming to make your own $1 million or…

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 single 48-year-old director in higher education/consulting in the Midwest. She reports that her income is $84,000. See our earlier profiles, including a writer in New England, a literacy interventionist in Colorado, a semiretired entrepreneur in Nashville and an events industry CEO in Northern New Jersey. (See all of the profiles here.) From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better…

When it comes to the struggles and successes of life, Billy Joel is the quintessential storyteller. The iconic crooner was the soundtrack of our youth and the blueprint for our adulthood.Through his five decades of hit songs, we learned how to live, love, and triumph over the challenges life threw our way.Now, as many of us step into our final chapter, his lyrics can show us how to slow our pace, savor the stillness and find grace in retiring. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from just $107.88 $24.99, plus get…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It was both a bad week for Meta Platforms, and a great one. The Facebook owner’s shares fell 10 per cent after it reported earnings on Wednesday, yet its sales and profit are growing at what, for normal companies, would inspire jubilation. This contradiction isn’t so strange, because there are really two Metas: the one that exists, and the one Mark Zuckerberg is building. One somewhat offsets the other.Look from a distance and Meta is a surprisingly simple business. Almost all of…