So, what is “house hacking?” In short, house hacking is a way to offset your living expenses by reducing or eliminating your housing expenses, or even making money off of your home. It can require doing some research and making some compromises, but if you are interested in owning and investing through real estate, house hacking can be a great way to get started, especially if you do not have the cash to make an entire mortgage payment on your own.

Under previous law, if you were eligible for the Child Tax Credit (CTC), you could get up to $2,000 per qualifying child that was age 16 and under as of the end of the year. The American Rescue Plan Act expands the CTC for just the 2021 tax year. Now, families can receive either of the following: Up to $3,000 per qualifying child that is between the ages of 6 and 17 as of December 31, 2021 (17 year olds are now included!), or up to $3,600 per qualifying child that is under age 6 as of December 31, 2021. This means you could potentially get an additional $1,000 to $1,600 per child!

There are many different reasons you might be looking to re-evaluate the terms of your student loans. Are you looking to lower your monthly payment to help manage cash flow? Are you looking to lower your interest rate? Maybe you are even looking to reconfigure your loans so your co-signer can be taken off the bill. No matter what’s led you to the decision to rethink your student loans, you’ve probably come to the same fork in the road: debt consolidation versus refinancing.

As states begin to reopen and the whole world strives to figure out what “new normal” looks like, one question we should be asking ourselves is what does a “new normal budget” look like. As things like travel, more regular dining, and various activities become available to us again, now’s a great time to look at and update your budget! Here’s some steps you can take to do so!

Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Disney+, Audible, HBO Max, Paramount+, Britbox, ESPN, if you’ve got them all, then this is for you! I can remember when Netflix first came about and I convinced my parents to start a subscription so that I didn’t have to. I thought this was both clever and a huge success for my budget. I had seemingly unlimited TV at the touch of a button, until suddenly it wasn’t enough.

The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that the due date to file your 2020 federal income tax returns has been automatically extended from April 15, 2021 until May 17, 2021! This means you do not need to complete any forms or do anything in order to get the additional 1 month extension on your federal taxes. Some states have followed suit and given the same 1 month extension but other states have not so make sure to check your state deadline.

Nikki Boulukos and Carissa Jordan first met a decade ago as young analysts at Goldman Sachs. Ten years later, they happened to reunite in the same New York City suburb as friends and neighbors raising their young children. Nikki and Carissa founded Benjamin Talks with a mission to make all kids financially fit, no matter what their circumstances. Read on to hear their expert advice on all things family & finance.

The summer should be an opportunity for teachers, and other school employees, to relax! No more grading papers and tests, no more lesson plans to write, and thankfully, no more asking students to turn on their cameras for Zoom class. But as much as you were looking forward to the last day of school, if you aren’t financially prepared for the summer, you’ll just as quickly start counting down days until the first day of school! So if you’re a teacher, what can you do financially to prepare for the summer to make sure you get the break you deserve?

At the Financial Gym, I focus on helping clients reach financial fitness no matter where they start out. Previously, I worked in wealth management, meaning I worked primarily with “high net-worth individuals.” Ever heard of the phrase “rich people problems”? Well, my job was to help solve them. To be considered a high net-worth person, you need to have $1 million in liquid financial assets, meaning the total value of your stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and cash equivalents. So what have I learned about what it means to be in the 10% of income earners and wealth owners in the US? What about the top 1%?

Unlike other expenses that you can go without if needed (like streaming services, takeout, or buying new clothes), groceries will always be a part of your budget. It’s inescapable. For that reason, focusing on getting your grocery bill under control can pay dividends for years to come. A lot of (still great) advice about cutting food expenses such as meal prepping and meal planning can be time consuming. Here are other ways to save without carving out more time from your schedule:

The Financial Gym Client Mackenzie Stewart shares with us how she approaches paying off her debt on a less-than-ideal income. Mackenzie breaks down both concrete steps as well as how to shift your mindset in order to conquer those debt repayment goals.

As fall 2020 approached winter, I put increased emphasis on self-improvement. The year from hell needed some sort of silver lining, right?

Some big questions that freelancers, self-employed workers, entrepreneurs, and individuals who dream of starting a business always ask themselves; should I incorporate? How do I do that? When will I know if it’s the right time? What type of corporation should I be? And down the rabbit hole they go. It can be overwhelming! My goal here is to help pull back some mystery surrounding two very common business types. Let’s get into it.

One of our favorite parts of our community is getting to learn about all the amazing things our clients are doing. To round-out Women’s History Month, we have decided to share some of the businesses owned by women in our Financial Gym community.

In our previous blog post, we covered the financial opportunities and challenges for people with developmental disabilities. However, proper healthcare coverage is another crucial part of becoming financially healthy. There are details to consider for people with developmental disabilities, like Medicare, Medicaid, special state services, access to specialists, and long-term care.

TikTok has brought us many things, from quarantine olympics to happy, happy dogs to Dadosaur. Now it’s bringing bite size financial literacy to the masses, or at least to those who frequent finance TikTok. But not all finance TikToks are created equally, so here’s our thoughts on what you should learn from financial TikTok and what you absolutely shouldn’t.

When you decided to say “I do”, you may not have considered the future tax implications of getting married. Marriage changes your taxes — from the credits and tax deductions you can claim, to certain tax breaks that come with filing jointly.

As part of our Women’s History Month series, we want to shine a light on the gender wage gap and discuss ways to address workplace inequality throughout your career.

This blog post is part one of a series of four, all about investing. We are going to start with the basics and move on from there. Stay tuned for the rest!

Millions of people in the US have medical debt. It is particularly easy to find yourself in because healthcare in the US is more expensive than anywhere else in the world, the system is difficult to understand, and the pricing for procedures and services is often opaque. On top of that, many of us find ourselves uninsured or underemployed at some point in our lives and have to pay large amounts of our healthcare costs out of pocket.