Personal Finance

The COVID-19 pandemic has already changed our economy. The U.S. has approved $ 3 trillion in pandemic-related relief, more than 22 million Americans are applying for unemployment, and 7.5 million small businesses are at risk of closing. At some point, we will all be financially impacted by the economic ripple …

Many people have already felt the ripple effects of COVID-19 on their finances — job loss, business closures, retirement funds or investment rates. But what about the cost of actually getting the virus? Testing, treatment and vaccines have to be paid for by someone. Hopefully, it’s mostly paid by your …

“When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float; and that insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.” – Alan Watts One idea that seems true in many other parts of life but seems to fall …

Photo by VGstockstudio / Shutterstock.com Nothing lasts forever in this world. Well, almost nothing. A slew of companies still offer lifetime warranties on their products. Some pledge to give you a full lifetime warranty, no questions asked. You may not even have to offer proof of your original purchase. Following …

Consider, for a moment, all of your waking hours that you spend in a given week. If you’re an average person, you probably spend about 110 hours awake and the rest asleep, so let’s just focus on those waking hours. How do you spend that time? What things do you …

Pressmaster / Shutterstock.com Millions of Americans have rapidly gone from collecting paychecks to filing for unemployment payments. An unprecedented tens of millions of workers have filed for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus pandemic began. How much will you receive while unemployed? There’s no single answer. A number of factors, like …

Photo by Platoo Fotography / Shutterstock.com The internet has been abuzz with the question: Should you wash fruit and vegetables with soap to get rid of the coronavirus? Soap and water seems intuitively to be the right way to go. After all, if that’s good for cleaning our bodies, shouldn’t …

Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock.com Most people would agree that cooking from scratch tastes better than cooking with premixed ingredients — or ordering fast food. And magazines, books, TV channels and Pinterest are dying to make Martha Stewarts of us all. Few people have the time or inclination to craft …

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.1. Career change during uncertain times2. What if everyone stays home?3. Chasing yield on savings accounts4. Food dehydrator versus using …