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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sotheby’s International Realty real estate agent, Shalini Karnani Bonjour, 50, who is building an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in her California backyard for her mother to live in. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.In 2024, my father passed away. He and my mother had lived in their 3,500-square-foot home in Michigan for about 20 years, and suddenly, she was alone.My mom was 78, and my husband and I didn’t feel comfortable having her so far away, especially when it came to her day-to-day needs. At the time, I was…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Arden Missal, a 30-year-old physician’s assistant and blogger based in Jupiter, Florida. It has been edited for length and clarity.I’m a physician assistant working in psychiatry in Florida. When I finished PA school in 2022, I had over $150,000 in student loans. After taxes, it was about two years’ worth of my take-home pay.A lot of personal finance books told me the same thing: make the minimum payments, invest the rest, and stay in debt for a decade or more because my interest rate was relatively low. On paper, that made…

College might prepare you for a job, though not necessarily how to network for one.Building those professional relationships matters more than ever because while it’s easier than ever to apply to jobs, it’s often harder to stand out from a pile of AI-tailored résumés.Finding ways to connect with people on the inside might be enough to get a hiring manager to give your application a thumbs-up.This approach is often more effective than expecting your résumé to do the talking for you, career advisors told Business Insider. And this is especially the case if you’re just starting out and don’t have…

Benjamin Li races against the clock. If he’s late, he’ll have to pay a $9 toll.He rises at 3:45 a.m., leaving him barely enough time to get dressed, pick up his smoothie cart from storage, and drive it across the bridge from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan before 5.Last month, I spoke with over a dozen street vendors about their jobs, and whether they think Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda can offset what he calls “halalflation.” Many mentioned a problem that surprised me: The city’s latest solution to curb traffic is breaking vendors’ budgets.The city began enforcing congestion pricing, a toll…

If you’ve been on the internet in the last week, you may have seen Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters describing some of his workers as “lower-value human capital.”On Tuesday, talking about planned layoffs in the bank, he said he was “replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in.” He later apologized for the comment.Winters is one of many CEOs who’ve had to figure out how to talk about the people they’re letting go. Companies across industries have announced layoffs, including Meta, Oracle, General Motors, and Nike. Several of them, such…

After spending a good chunk of my formative 20s and 30s abroad, I lost my sense of home.I was 19 when I took a break from my studies and spent a year and a half in South America, which kick-started my love for the continent and for living in a different culture. Since then, I’ve lived in Buenos Aires, London, Brasilia, and Rio de Janeiro, partly as a diplomat — a lifestyle that suited me perfectly.I lived in all these places for relatively short periods, between 6 months and 3 years, and also often moved back to the Netherlands, where…

Your jaunt to the beach on Memorial Day will cost you.The current national average for regular gas is $4.51, the highest it’s been since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, causing a spike in oil prices. The current price of gas is 4 cents higher than a month ago and $1.32 higher than the same time last year. As of Sunday, California has the highest average at $6.11, while Indiana has the lowest at $3.93.Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, and millions of Americans will travel to cookouts, parties, and vacation destinations to celebrate. AAA…

X is introducing new strategies to rein in its copycat economy.Elon Musk’s social media platform is now cracking down on large accounts that have been “programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts” to game its creator revenue-share program, X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said.That program lets eligible creators earn money from engagement on the platform, which has also created an incentive for some accounts to rapidly repost or repackage viral content before the original creator gets the credit.Over the past month, we have identified a number of large accounts that have been programmatically reuploading content from smaller accounts to game…

Tech CEOs have a lot to manage, from earnings calls and board meetings to competition and employee morale.Now, in the age of AI, they also need a “boo strategy.”This year, graduates have heckled some executives during commencement speeches after the corporate leaders made optimistic comments about AI, reflecting a growing anxiety among students about to enter the job market.Students booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the University of Arizona, while Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta drew backlash at Middle Tennessee State University after he discussed AI’s impact on music and media.So the hosts of the tech podcast “Hard…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Guadalupe Galindo-Nevarez, 63, who moved from California to El Paso, Texas, with her husband and daughter in 2022 and now plans to move back to California. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.I grew up in El Paso, but I ended up going to college in Sacramento and living there for 47 years.A couple of years ago, I started feeling homesick. I wanted to move back to El Paso, be closer to my family, and raise my teenage daughter in a different environment. My husband and I both thought Texas…