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This week’s money news

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This week’s top story: How to manage a retirement spending. In other news: The best time for high CD rates might be right now, the Credit Card Competition Act and credit unions, and what you can expect next if you got a SAVE student loan forgiveness email.

Retirement Spending Is a U-Shaped Curve. Here’s How to Maximize It
From defining your retirement goals to finessing your budget, here’s how you can manage a retirement where spending typically fluctuates over time.

The Best Time for High CD Rates Might Be Right Now
CD rates remain high but have started to dip. Consider if CDs fit your short-term savings goals.

Could the Credit Card Competition Act Impact Credit Unions?
The Credit Card Competition Act won’t directly impact most credit unions, but concerns over ripple effects exist.

Got a SAVE Student Loan Forgiveness Email? Here’s What Comes Next
If you’re among the 153,000 borrowers enrolled in SAVE who got debt cancellation emails, here’s what you can expect next.

Fighting over money? Ways to seek common ground with your partner

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Figuring out how to manage money together might be an important part of a happy relationship, but it’s a skill that doesn’t always come naturally.

“When there’s conflict or discord, it’s usually not about the money itself, but related to the meaning each person is attaching to money. There’s always something deeper,” says Cohen Taylor, a licensed family and marriage therapist and behavioral wealth specialist at the registered investment advisory Wealth Enhancement Group.

Getting on the same page as your partner when it comes to finances usually requires a lot of communication and sometimes a little compromise. In some cases, it might include realizing your perception of your partner’s spending habits isn’t entirely accurate. In Kimberly Palmer’s latest for the Seattle Times, learn ways to seek common ground with your partner.

This week’s money news

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This week’s top story: The Capital One-Discover Deal and what cardholders can expect. In other news: What the Capital One-Discover deal could mean for bank accounts, The Capital One-Discover deal and Discover student loans, and prepare calling your student loan servicer.

If Capital One Buys Discover, What Can Cardholders Expect?
Even if the deal is approved, it’ll take a while before customers experience changes. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any.

What the Capital One-Discover Deal Could Mean for Bank Accounts
If federal regulators approve the deal, the combined banks might have similar accounts, and debit cards would migrate onto Discover’s payment network.

Capital One Takeover Might Not Affect Your Discover Student Loans
If you have Discover private student loans, Nelnet should take over your loan servicing in the coming months — but it’s not because of the Capital One deal.

Calling Your Student Loan Servicer? It Pays to Prepare
Do your homework, gather key documents and be patient to get a helpful answer from your federal student loan servicer.

This week’s money news

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This week’s top story: Tackle overdue taxes this year. In other news: Businesses can still claim worker tax credit from the pandemic, 10 cities that have the highest minimum wage in the U.S., and 10 rising vacation spots.

Tackle Overdue Taxes This Year
The sooner you can deal with unfiled and unpaid taxes, the better.

Businesses Can Still Claim Worker Tax Credit From the Pandemic
If your business operations were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s still time to file claims for the Employee Retention Credit.

These 10 Cities Have the Highest Minimum Wage in the U.S.
Most cities with the highest minimum wages are in Washington and California.

Visit These 10 Rising Vacation Spots Before They Get Too Popular
These 10 vacation spots have seen an uptick in tourism since 2019, but they’re still not widely known.

Romance scammers: They call you honey, but don’t send them money

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Valentine’s Day might put you in the mood to look for love online. Unfortunately, criminals are also on the hunt, but for victims, not romance.

“Meeting people online has opened the door to romance fraud,” says Kim Casci-Palangio, program director of the peer support program at the nonprofit Cybercrime Support Network in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “You feel you can trust them,” she says, adding that cybercriminals often cultivate relationships for months before asking for money.

Reports to the Federal Trade Commission show consumers lost $1.3 billion in 2022 to romance scams. In Kimberly Palmer’s latest for the Seattle Times, learn how to reduce your risk of falling for romance scam.

Retiring wasn’t easy — even after years of writing about it

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A couple of years ago, I wrote a column about how to have a retirement worth saving for. It ended with a quote from personal finance educator Barbara O’Neill, who reflected on how the pandemic disrupted many retirees’ plans.

“It wasn’t just two years lost, it was two good years,” O’Neill said then. “You don’t know how many of those you have left.”

One of my younger colleagues objected to that sentiment, saying it was a jarring ending to an otherwise upbeat column. But my older co-workers got it. Those of us who currently have good health and energy don’t know how long those blessings will last. There’s no guarantee we’ll get to enjoy the retirements we have planned.

That lesson was driven home in July 2023, when a longtime colleague died at age 61. We’d had many talks over the years about the retirement he had envisioned. It’s heartbreaking that his dreams will never happen.

But his death was the push I needed to make my own decision. By the time you read this, I will have retired from my job at personal finance site NerdWallet.

You can read the rest of the column here.