Money Map Guide 
Back-to-school spending just hit a record high, and the numbers explain why so many families feel the pinch every August. The average household with kids in kindergarten through 12th grade expects to spend $863.86 per student this year, up from $858.07 in 2025, pushing total K-12 spending to $43.3 billion nationwide — a record, according … Read more
Student loan payment increases are about to hit millions of borrowers at once. Roughly 7.5 million people enrolled in the SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) plan have until September 29, 2026 to pick a new repayment plan — or the Education Department will automatically move them into the standard 10-year plan, typically the highest … Read more
401k millionaires just hit a record high — Fidelity counted 769,000 accounts worth $1 million or more as of June 30, 2026, up 19% from the previous quarter alone. That headline sounds like pure good news, but a $1 million traditional 401(k) balance isn’t actually worth $1 million once the IRS’s eventual cut is factored … Read more
The 30% rent rule says to spend no more than 30% of your gross income on rent, and it gets repeated so often in budgeting advice that it’s easy to assume it’s some kind of financial law. It isn’t. The number actually traces back to federal housing policy from 1937, and in 2026, most renters … Read more
Round-up savings apps have been pitched for over a decade as the easiest way to save money without noticing it — round every purchase up to the nearest dollar, and let the spare change quietly build into real savings. The math behind that pitch is worth checking before deciding whether it’s worth downloading another app, … Read more
How much debt do Americans have right now? The New York Fed’s Q2 2026 Household Debt and Credit Report puts the number at $18.8 trillion total — a small 0.1% dip from the previous quarter, the first decrease in a while. Spread evenly across the roughly 134.8 million households in the U.S., that works out … Read more
Is an HSA worth it for retirement, or is it really just a checking account for doctor bills? The IRS’s newly announced 2026 limits let individuals contribute $4,400 to a health savings account and families contribute $8,750, plus an extra $1,000 catch-up for anyone 55 or older — and unlike a Flexible Spending Account, every … Read more
Are treasury bills worth it right now, or is a high-yield savings account still the simpler choice? As of September 9, 2026, the 4-week T-bill yields 3.81%, the 13-week yields 3.95%, and the 26-week yields 4.01% — all a touch below the roughly 4.10% top high-yield savings accounts are currently paying. On the surface, that … Read more
How many Americans live paycheck to paycheck in 2026? Debt.com’s ninth annual budgeting survey, released this summer, found the number has dropped sharply: 48% of Americans now say they’re living paycheck to paycheck, down 21 percentage points from 69% just a year earlier — the lowest share the survey has recorded in five years of … Read more
Is a 401k hardship withdrawal worth it, or is the paperwork hiding a much bigger cost than the balance you see on the screen? Fidelity’s Q2 2026 retirement analysis found average account balances at a record high — $155,800 in the average 401(k), up 10% from the first quarter — but a growing share of … Read more