Author: Money Mechanics

(Image credit: Getty Images)You give to your favorite charities because you believe in their causes. It’s not about you. It’s about making a difference. That said, tax savings can and should be a factor in your decision-making process.Every dollar you save in taxes is an extra dollar available for charitable giving. But if you give to a church or charity every year, you might not currently be getting much of a tax benefit.Here’s why: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act massively increased the standard deduction and then tied additional increases to inflation. Then the One Big Beautiful Bill Act…

Key Takeaways Buffett attributes his wealth to opportunity, privilege, and long-term compounding. Growing up in the U.S. gave him access to a successful market system and economic mobility. He describes being born with “lucky genes” as a major advantage. Compound interest multiplied his returns across decades, amplifying his wealth accumulation. Get personalized, AI-powered answers built on 27+ years of trusted expertise. Warren Buffett often downplays the idea that his wealth is the product of extraordinary genius alone. Instead, the “Oracle of Omaha”—who officially stepped down as chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway on Jan. 1—points to three forces that shaped…

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 64-year-old retired senior policy analyst who is married and lives in Washington, D.C. She has worked in both the private and federal industries.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…

(Image credit: Getty Images)Retirees are traveling in great numbers, with the average American adult taking 3.9 trips per year, according to AARP. On the downside, total travel costs were, on average, $6,800 over a year’s worth of trips. That’s a budget-stretching number for most retirees living on a fixed income.One way to travel more and have the cash to pay the freight is through gig work, much of which can be handled before, during or after trips in the United States or abroad.”I’ve been a full-time nomad since 2019, initially augmenting our travel expenses with consulting in a business which…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged: Chart of the Week newsletter. You sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Saturday, or explore all FT newslettersGood morning. It’s no surprise that the equal-weighted S&P 500 spent the past three years in the shadows of its cap-weighted sibling. With tech stocks accounting for a third of the cap-weighted index’s weight, the largest sector by far, the benchmark index and the tech rally went largely hand in hand. Historically, it…

Gold is re-testing its 61.8% Fibonacci retracement once again instead of declining. Is it really bullish, though?The 2012 Bearish Analogy IntensifiesI previously wrote that based on the similarity to how behaved after another key (2011) top, we might be in the stage where it declines in a back-and-forth manner. Precisely, I meant its late-2012 performance. Gold price moved higher instead but did it make the entire analogy useless? No. It simply means that we’re most likely in a different part thereof. After the 2011 top, there were three corrections to the 61.8% retracement. What we now see is the third move…

The Supreme Court during a rain storm in Washington, Feb. 20, 2026.Annabelle Gordon | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs are unconstitutional, delivering a win for many consumer companies facing higher import costs.But the ruling doesn’t cover all sectors. The Supreme Court reviewed tariffs enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA, which the Trump administration used to justify the sweeping tariff agenda. The act had never before been used by a president to impose tariffs.In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA “does…

Sarvam, an Indian AI startup focused on building models for local languages and users, on Friday launched its Indus chat app for web and mobile users, entering a fast-growing market dominated by global players including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The launch comes as India has become a key battleground for generative AI adoption. Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said ChatGPT has more than 100 million weekly active users in India, while Anthropic said India accounts for 5.8% of total Claude usage, second only to the U.S. Indus serves as a chat interface for its newly announced Sarvam 105B model, the…

(Oil Price) – If there was any lingering doubt about what’s keeping Big Oil executives up at night, the fourth-quarter results cleared it up. It’s not slogans. It’s not transition optics. It’s whether they have enough high-quality barrels to avoid production decline in the 2030s. The majors are refocusing hard on upstream portfolio renewal for the next decade, according to WoodMac, who analyzed Q4 data. The near-term commodity backdrop isn’t exactly inspiring, and Brent looks soft. Refining margins are decent, petrochemicals less so. LNG is drifting toward what WoodMac sees as an oversupplied phase. Production growth from TotalEnergies, Equinor, Chevron, and…

This WeekFor a short week, it wasn’t short on news!Today, the Supreme Court ruled against using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to enact tariffs, specifically the “reciprocal” country-specific tariffs and the fentanyl tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada, which raised an estimated $175 billion in revenue (half of all tariff revenue since the start of 2025).Shortly thereafter, President Trump announced a 10% global tariff on top of “our normal tariffs” via Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to enact tariffs to address “large and serious United States balance-of-payment deficits.” They can only be imposed for up to 150 days and cannot exceed…