“Should I pay off debt or save?” is one of the most common money questions I get, and I wish I could give everyone the same answer. I can’t. Two people with the exact same $5,000 can make opposite choices and both be right.

Imagine your boss hands you an extra month’s pay, no strings attached. Do you book the trip, pad your savings or finally knock down that credit card? If you’ve ever asked yourself “should I pay off debt or save,” you’re in good company. The Federal Reserve just asked American households almost exactly that question, and the answers say a lot about how people feel about money right now.

You get a text: “Did you attempt a purchase of $1,249.00? If not, call us now.” There’s no link, and you’ve been told a hundred times not to click links. So you do the careful thing. You call. That call is the scam, and if you end up sending money by Zelle, your odds of a Zelle scam refund are a lot worse than most people assume.

You may soon be able to buy a fund for your favorite team. Since August, three fund companies have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the federal regulator that approves new funds, for single-team ETFs covering every NHL club and every MLB club. CNBC says hundreds of these funds are now in the works, with tickers like TML for the Maple Leafs and, I’m not making this up, RATS for the Florida Panthers.

Every year, lists like CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 land, and every year people treat them like a Yelp rating. CNBC published its 2026 ranking on October 8. It’s a useful starting point. It’s also not a substitute for doing your own homework, and I say that as a CFP myself.

Mortgage rates have climbed to levels we haven’t seen in almost three years, and buyers are doing what buyers always do when the monthly payment stops fitting: they look for a cheaper way in. Lately that’s the adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM.

If your paycheck feels thinner every fall, it isn’t your imagination. Health insurance keeps getting more expensive, and 2027 looks like another rough year.

Free money has a catch. With Discover’s rotating categories, the catch is a quarterly cap and an activation step that’s easy to forget. Let’s run the numbers so you know whether this quarter is worth your attention.

Everybody knows the first rule: take the full employer match. It’s a guaranteed 50% to 100% return the day you contribute, and nothing else in investing comes close.

AI tools that book flights, reorder groceries, and pay bills for you are no longer a demo. They’re showing up in apps people already use. The pitch is simple: tell it what you want, and it handles the clicking.