Author: Editor

Sometimes, being a parent means not treating yourself to a new wardrobe when the seasons change so you can ensure all the kids have new pool slides and shorts to replace the ones they grew out of last year.But as a mom of five, I’ve found creative ways to still get new-to-me things when our budget is tight, such as participating in our community’s local “Buy Nothing” groups on Facebook.They’re part of the global Buy Nothing Project, where people give away things they no longer want for free. Many neighborhoods and cities have super-local versions of these groups online to…

Move over, Mad Men. Cannes is a creator town now — at least for the next week.A legion of influencers will be among the estimated 13,000-plus attendees headed to this year’s Cannes Lions advertising festival, which kicks off in France on Monday. Creators are jostling for brand deals, paid speaking gigs, VIP party invites, and plenty of opportunities to shoot content along the glittering Côte d’Azur.More than 250 creators are expected to attend, according to a list compiled by a coalition of marketing firms. Attendees include “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper; “Feed Me” founder Emily Sundberg; makeup artist and…

FIRE’s pros and consFinancial independence doesn’t have to come at the expense of enjoying life.My colleague Kathleen Elkins has for years covered the FIRE lifestyle, short for financial independence, retire early. It’s a world traditionally defined by people who aggressively save and invest, building nest eggs large enough to escape the 9-to-5 grind decades ahead of schedule.Now, she’s found that a new wave of young investors is adopting a much more chill alternative to FIRE. Instead of relentless hoarding, they’re front-loading their retirement accounts early, then easing off once their portfolios are on track. The logic is to work enough…

Amazon Prime Day has served its purpose well — perhaps a little too well.Amazon launched Prime Day to get more people to pay for its membership, which includes benefits like free shipping and streaming TV shows.On the eve of Prime Day 2026, though, it may have almost maxed out the addressable market for Prime, said Sky Canaves, a principal analyst for retail and e-commerce at EMARKETER, a sibling company of Business Insider.Over 86% of online shoppers are already Prime members, according to EMARKETER. “There just isn’t much growth to capture,” Canaves said.The retailer first held the shopping holiday in 2015.…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michelle Keller, a 59-year-old in Georgia who was laid off from her voice engineer job in 2025. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I lost my job after 20 years at the same company. I wouldn’t have left if not for being laid off in April 2025.I wasn’t that sad that it was over. My father, who has Alzheimer’s, had been living with my family for the past few years, so we saw the job change as a chance for me to slow down and focus on his caregiving.However,…

Gerardo Aletti and Sofia Escarra, a married couple based in Miami, bought a Nissan Infiniti in 2020 with the plan to rent it out and see how it went.If it worked out, great, the couple thought. If not, they figured they could sell the car.Cut to six years later: the car-renting side gig has grown into a full-time, family-run business with 63 cars, earning the Venezuelan immigrants half a million dollars in 2025. They rent their cars exclusively on Turo, a car-sharing app, and have brought in several other family members to run the operation, including their son, daughter, and…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dominic Imwalle, the founder of DxConsulting, which focuses on one-on-one career coaching with professionals seeking $100K+ roles. Imwalle also runs a newsletter called “Conversations ​> Applications,” which discusses how to create purposeful conversations for job opportunities. Imwalle was formerly a senior consultant at Deloitte.I work with mid-career professionals, and there are two questions I encourage every job seeker to ask.A lot of people who are five to 15 years into their careers feel stuck, lost, or trapped in what I call the application loop. They’re sending applications into a black hole…

At 38, I gave myself one year and £15,000 (nearly $20,000 USD at the time) to completely change my life. I told myself that if it didn’t work, I’d go back to the life I had spent so long trying to leave.At the time, I was a VP of Sales for a global wholesale business. I had spent the last 12 painstaking years working my way up the ladder, giving up evenings and weekends to pursue the next promotion. On paper, it looked like I was succeeding, but in reality, every rung broke my spirit a little more.At the same…

You’ve been hearing about the K-shaped economy and the shrinking middle class, but what does it actually mean to be in the middle class at all in the US today?For many, the label can describe a suburban, non-excessive way of life, but the actual income it implies can span a wide range.A recent SmartAsset study calculated the income needed to be considered middle class in every US state.The study used the US Census Bureau’s 2024 one-year American Community Survey median household income estimates for all 50 states. It applied a variation of the Pew Research Center’s definition of middle class…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nathan Bennett, co-founder of Crux Analytics. It has been edited for length and clarity.When my brother started asking me more and more questions about the financial technology company he wanted to start, I could see where things were heading. Jacob’s great with big ideas, and he had identified a problem in the market. He needed my engineering expertise to make his solution a reality.One day, about three years ago, Jacob asked me to read his pitch deck for accuracy. The last slide was the team. There was Jacob, and next to…