Emily Guy Birken

President Trump’s proposed baby bonus would have come in really handy at chez Guy Birken 15 years ago. Money was a bit of an issue for my family when we welcomed our first child in 2010. We’d moved to Indiana […]

After a five year reprieve, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is coming for defaulted federal student loans. The ED has not collected on defaulted loans since all payments on federal student loans were paused as part of the Covid-19

Retirement should feel liberating rather than terrifying. But when an egg-salad sandwich costs more than your first bicycle, the stock market is making like Tom Petty, and economists are bending themselves into pretzels to avoid saying the word “recession,” retirement

If you watch any economic news, you’ve probably seen economists biting their nails while raising the alarm about the dreaded “R-word”: recession. These financial experts are so terrified of a potential recession that they refer to it obliquely, in the

Most of us haven’t spent much time thinking about tariffs since learning about the Revolutionary War in grade school. Other than a hazy sense that they somehow lead to dumping tea into the Boston Harbor, these taxes probably seemed unrelated

When both my picky kids discovered they loved eggs, it was a blessed relief for meal planning. After years of trying to find dinners that everyone was happy to eat, my kids’ affinity for eggs added quiche, frittatas, and omelets

Bad tax advice is not a new phenomenon. Years ago, I can remember hearing a small business owner explaining that making a single comment about his business before dessert allowed him to deduct a dinner out with his wife. According

The 2001 Tilda Swinton film The Deep End features a scene that has stuck with me for nearly 25 years, even though I’ve forgotten almost everything else about the movie. Swinton’s character is being blackmailed for $50,000 and is given

Like most Americans, I took Social Security for granted for most of my life. Until about 10 years ago, I carried a vague idea that the program had been promised to Moses on Mount Sinai (whaddya mean Grandpa didn’t have

Americans across all political stripes were understandably concerned when news broke that Elon Musk, the unelected head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), had gained access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment systems. These payment systems are responsible