Author: Editor

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Abhradeep Chatterjee, 37, an Indian national who lives in Minnesota. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I was young and newly married when I came to the US from India in 2015. I didn’t imagine I’d still be here 11 years later.I came for the opportunity to grow. The Indian multinational company I’d been working for, Tata Consultancy Services, sent me to New Jersey on an assignment. I continued building a career in the US on the H-1B visa, and the country has challenged me professionally in ways I…

Chick-fil-A location in New York City, Aug. 6, 2026.Marcin Golba | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesWith restaurants as far-flung as Singapore, Chick-fil-A has expanded far beyond its Southeastern stronghold in recent years, but CEO Andrew Cathy still wants the family-owned business to stay true to its roots.Nearly five years ago, Cathy succeeded his father, Dan, as chief executive of the chicken chain his grandfather, S. Truett, founded. He took the reins as elevated inflation rocked the restaurant industry and a bevy of new chicken rivals looked to challenge Chick-fil-A’s dominance. Since then, not much has changed — except for sluggish traffic…

Beauty products by e.l.f. cosmetics are seen on display at a Target store in Union Square on April 04, 2025 in New York, New York.Michael M. Santiago | Getty ImagesWatch out Sony, a new music producer is in town. And this time it’s the same brand that makes your favorite lip gloss.E.l.f. Beauty announced late last month the release of “Mirror Mix,” an original album featuring music from seven rising artists. The album comes as the makeup company ramps up its marketing spend, fueled in part by tariff refunds. E.l.f.’s pursuit of music is part of a growing wave of…

It wasn’t all that long ago that towering Halloween skeletons weren’t really a thing.That all changed seemingly overnight in 2020, when Home Depot introduced its wildly popular 12-foot Skelly decoration, driving record Halloween sales for the home improvement chain that year.The trend is still going strong, with more than a dozen online communities devoted to supersized skeletons, including a Facebook group with nearly 300,000 members.Walmart-owned warehouse chain Sam’s Club told Business Insider that sales of their version, an 11-foot Reaper, have been running ahead of expectations since it was launched back in June. The Reaper quickly rose to become one of the…

Margareth Felicia Gono, 24, recently started as a senior associate at DoorDash after completing a master’s degree in applied analytics in May. During her job search, she created an AI workflow that helped her evaluate roles and analyze interview sentiment. The following is based on conversations that have been edited for brevity and clarity.At the beginning of my job search, it was pretty scattershot. Because I was an international student and needed a visa, I felt I had to apply to anything that might relate to my experience, even if it wasn’t the right fit.I grew up in Indonesia and…

If you’ve looked into building a tiny home in your backyard, you’ve probably discovered what many have: While they may save you money in the long run, they can be expensive to build.These homes, called accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, are small housing units ranging from 150 square feet to 1,200 square feet, depending on where you live.While detached backyard units are popular, ADUs can be incorporated into many parts of a property, including as a garage or basement conversion, an above-garage unit, or an attic or upper-level apartment.The average cost of a unit can range from $100,000 to $300,000, not to mention the…

It’s easy for prospective real-estate investors to get discouraged by sticker shock.Many lenders require a down payment of at least 20% for an investment property. With the median US home price hovering around $400,000, that can mean coming up with $80,000 — and that’s without factoring in closing costs, repairs, and cash reserves.If you don’t have tens of thousands of dollars in cash at your disposal, investing in real estate isn’t necessarily out of reach. Business Insider spoke with four investors who found creative ways to use assets they already had — from retirement savings to a paid-off truck —…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gary Brown, an architectural visualization artist in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has been edited for length and clarity.My wife and I own a townhouse here in Charlotte. It’s about four miles from where I work.We actually closed on the house as the city shut down due to COVID in 2020. We entered that period where everybody was working from home for about two years.Then, as I started going back to working in an office, I realized that I hadn’t really driven much because I’ve been working from home. I’m spending $700…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tori Dunlap, founder of Her First $100K and author of “Financial Feminist.” It has been edited for length and clarity.My parents were very good at teaching me about money, not just by what they said, but by what they did. They were middle-class — by no means rich — but they made very smart financial decisions and equipped me with a lot of financial skills.By college, I was the friend whom other friends came to ask about money. I set myself a very public goal of saving my first $100,000 when…

For years, Subway felt like the only relevant sandwich chain. Its 2008 “five, five dollar, five dollar footlong” jingle still lives in my head.The Connecticut-founded fast-food giant operates over 35,000 restaurants worldwide, with the most recent 2025 industry data estimating an annual $9.2 billion in United States system-wide sales.Subway remains the largest sandwich chain in the US, both in location count and estimated sales — but size isn’t the whole picture.Its US footprint has fallen from more than 27,000 locations in 2015 to fewer than 19,000 today, with more than 700 closures in 2025 alone. Subway’s domestic location count has…