New Year, New Finances?
Welcome to the Cutting Room Floor, a newsletter where I round up all my personal finance articles, put out exclusive content and interviews, and flag my favorite job listings from around LinkedIn.
What's the one money move you need to make in 2024?
No doubt your brain is swimming with all the things you could do, and should do, and have been putting off since ... well, since last year.
It is indeed the time for "circling back" (shudder), so circle back to those critical money moves and take action while you are still full of motivation for the new year.
If you're overwhelmed and don't know where to start, here's an idea that is almost always correct: The emergency fund.
Why? Because it's the first line of defense for everything else in your life. If you have one, then you can deal with anything life throws at you -- like your car breaking down, or a surprise medical bill, or home repairs, or whatever else. (It's always something, trust me.)
If you don't have an emergency fund, then everything else is at risk -- because to come up with that cash, you're going to have to take other action like raiding your retirement fund or selling off assets or taking out a second mortgage or putting it on plastic.
The big new trend here is that employers are starting to get involved. If you leave people to their own devices, it probably won't happen. But if companies nudge people in that direction, with factors like automatic signups and small payroll deductions and cash incentives, then all of a sudden emergency funds become a lot more possible.
Big employers like 星巴克 , Delta Air Lines and Whole Foods Market have seen the light on this issue -- not only for their staff's sake, but for their own, because an employee who is financially stressed is a lot less focused and productive and emotionally healthy. Personal finance guru Suze Orman even has a new startup devoted to emergency funds.
To find out how emergency savings are coming to a workplace near you, check out my new column for Reuters :
By The Numbers
My inbox is stuffed with interesting pitches -- seriously, the number rose over 300K before my email service stopped counting because I guess even machines give up -- and I can only write about a tiny percentage of them.
So for those I can't get to, I'm starting this regular feature about newsier tidbits from the world of personal finance.
45: The percentage of Americans who say they spent too much over the holiday season, according to a new survey by WalletHub . (Honestly I'm surprised it's not 100%.) Also of interest, 74% said inflation affected their holiday spending, 28% of people say they regret their purchases, and 1 in 4 say they will need at least 6 months to pay off that debt. At which point the cycle will start all over.
$739: The average monthly payment on a new vehicle in Q4 2023, according to fresh data from Edmunds . That's another record high. Also at a high: The percentage of new-car buyers with a monthly payment of more than $1,000, which now stands at 17.9%. Be careful with a depreciating asset people! Listen to Uncle Chris, all you need is a hoopty to get you from Point A to Point B!
5.75%: Where 30-year fixed mortgages will shake out in 2024, according to Bankrate chief financial analyst Greg McBride, CFA . That's welcome news for buyers, who have been struggling with rates up in the 7s or even 8s. Greg also forecasts 4.75-5% for the Fed Funds rate; 3% for 10-year Treasuries; 4.45% for top-yielding money markets and savings accounts; 4% for top-yielding 5-year CDs; 8.5% for home equity loans; and 19.9% for credit card rates.
2.3%: Core inflation year-over-year prediction for the end of '24, from the fine folks at Vanguard . Thank God for that more normalized number, because that's an issue that hits regular folks right in the pocketbook (and is a long-term portfolio killer if it stays high). Other projections from Vanguard: 0.5% economic growth; 3.5-4% monetary policy rate; and 4.8% unemployment. Some of those seem a little bearish to me, considering everything is going gangbusters at the moment, but I suppose all good things come to an end.
Jobs of the Week
Good news and bad news here, gang. The bad is that companies often squeeze in layoffs before year-end, presumably for tax purposes and to start the new year with a leaner operation -- and we have certainly seen wave after wave of those, especially in the media business.
The good news is that 2024 seems to have started with a flurry of announcements for job openings -- maybe just because we've been off for so long, and are finally getting back to our desks to do the hiring we've been putting off. (Feels like we have to relearn everything, amirite?!)
领英推荐
Here are some of the most interesting ones in the journalism and media and comms worlds. Godspeed.
As always, feel free to get in touch via Twitter (here ), or email ([email protected] ) -- to suggest story ideas, or hire me as a freelancer, or broadcast your job opening.
Or maybe even to appear in this newsletter, if you've got something interesting to say. Feel free to share and subscribe -- and Happy 2024!
-CT