Sarah L Bromley

The conventional wisdom about wealth management is that bonds don’t offer a return high enough to beat inflation, so investors are better off filling their portfolios with funds instead. But the numbers suggest otherwise for a particular type of bond — the return for Series I savings bonds issued between November 2021 and April 2022 is 7.12%. And no, that decimal place isn’t supposed to go before the number seven.
In the current climate, even the best high-yield savings accounts will barely n...

The Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement has gained a lot of traction and publicity over the last few years. Its popularity shouldn’t come as a surprise: why would you want to slave away at a 9-5 until you’re 65 if you could build your wealth enough to stop working within the next decade or so? If you’ve come to this conclusion yourself, you’re probably wondering how to get started with FIRE — but there’s more than one way to approach it.
We’ll take a look at three of the most...

For many things in life, the earlier, the better — but does that also go for paying your credit card?
It can be challenging enough to have the cash needed to pay off your credit card balance at all each month without worrying about early payments.
But if you’re fortunate enough to find yourself in a position where you can pay before the billing cycle ends, you might be wondering what happens if you pay your credit card early. Is it worth it? Is the outcome good, bad or neutral?
To answer thes...

Earning money for work you did years ago doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. Here are a few realistic ways to get there.
Doing something once and getting paid for it for the rest of your life? It almost sounds too good to be true. That’s the general idea behind residual income.
Study up on the concept of residual income by learning a few definitions, understanding why you should care about residual income and finding out how to get started yourself.
What is residual income?
Usually, giving a def...

Money management isn’t just for millionaires trying to become billionaires. In fact, if your net worth isn’t quite where you want it to be, knowing how to manage your wealth is one of the best things you can do to bring you one step closer. To get from A to B, you need to know exactly where you’re starting from and what route you’ll take.
Many people assume that they can’t manage their wealth effectively without a financial advisor. But while enlisting a professional for help is never a bad t...

A decent credit score is the key to many financial opportunities, but is a fair credit score high enough to help you access them?
You’ve probably heard you should aim for a decent credit score — that’s any score that falls in the “good,” “very good” or “exceptional” category. But what is a fair credit score, and how does it fit into the picture?
Let’s look at:
What a fair credit score is,
The mechanisms behind credit scores
Why credit scores matter
Strategies to improve your credit score
What...

If you’d like to spend your retirement sipping cocktails on a beach (or even sitting in front of the television), you can no longer rely on the government to provide you with the income necessary to make that possible. With an aging population making the future of pensions questionable, it’s more important than ever to take wealth building into our own hands. Yet only 36% of non-retired Americans think they’re on track with their retirement savings. If you’re in the unprepared majority, it’s ...

Have you ever googled “(enter celebrity name) net worth”? You don’t need to lie; we’re all friends here. Few could deny there’s something perversely satisfying about guessing how much money prominent figures have, but net worth tracking isn’t just about bemoaning or admiring the rich and famous. It’s a fundamental tool for financial management.
No matter how high or low your net worth happens to be, you need to know what you’re working with so you can evaluate where you are now and make plans...

You wouldn’t set off to do your grocery shopping for the week without knowing how much money you have in your checking account or wallet. Yet so many people make vague financial goals without having a clear idea of what their net worth is. And the consequences of this are far worse — at least being unable to afford your full grocery shop probably won’t affect your entire financial future. This is just a glimpse of why a net worth tracker is so important.
Many people have misconceptions about ...

If you’ve ever found yourself concerned about the future of the stock market and fiat currency, precious metals offer a viable alternative for building wealth. Unlike most investments, precious metals have real-world uses and therefore provide tangible value. But they’re not the easiest assets to figure out — they’re famously volatile, and there are a few different routes to getting involved. If you skip your research and don’t fully understand how to invest in precious metals, you risk falli...

Accredited investing is elite stuff — it’s something that will never be relevant for the vast majority of people. But if you have a sufficiently high salary or net worth to make the cut, it’s well worth investigating if it could make sense for your goals. You won’t just get a cool title — you’ll also have the door opened to investment opportunities that most people can’t access. But how does being an accredited vs. non-accredited investor compare?
To answer that question, we’ll investigate wh...

DeFi is a hot topic in the crypto sphere, and it seems to grow hotter with every passing day. If you’re familiar with this world, chances are that you’ve come across compound coin at some point—and maybe you’ve wondered whether the attention it’s received is justified. Justification is tricky, but we can certainly examine how the protocol got to where it is today and what it offers.
Every crypto protocol likes to claim there was a massive buzz about its release, but anyone who is looking for ...

People tend to run into a common problem after investing in cryptocurrencies: they realize that tracking various assets across different wallets, exchanges, and platforms can get pretty tedious. Because let’s face it — you’re not going to be able to resist the temptation of periodically checking in on how everything is performing. To get over this hurdle, you need to know how to build a crypto dashboard to stay on top of it all.
A crypto dashboard isn’t yet another app that claims to be the b...

Many first-time crypto investors are so eager to get started that they dive straight into buying whichever cryptocurrencies have taken their fancy, with no particular strategy in mind. As a result, if you’re making sure you know how to build a cryptocurrency portfolio properly first, you’re already ahead of the pack — and you’ll boost your chances of managing and building your wealth.
Fortunately, as long as you’re willing to do some research, the process is simple enough. We’ll outline the c...