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THE WATER COOLER
The Big Three
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#1: Mortgage Rates Are Falling Right Now
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Mortgage and refinance rates ticked down on Tuesday, June 2, giving homeowners and buyers a small but real window of relief after a brutal stretch of high borrowing costs.
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The Raw Truth: If you have been white-knuckling a high-rate mortgage or sitting on the sidelines waiting to buy, this is the kind of shift worth watching closely. Even a small drop in your rate can mean hundreds of dollars back in your pocket every single month. Do not refinance just because rates dipped a little — run the real numbers first — but do not sleep on it either. |
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#2: High-Yield Savings Accounts Still Paying Over 4%
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As of today, some high-yield savings accounts are offering up to 4.10% APY, and CDs are locking in up to 4%, while money market accounts are sitting around 4.01%.
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The Raw Truth: If your emergency fund is still sitting in a big bank savings account earning 0.01%, you are literally leaving free money on the table every single day. Moving that cash to a high-yield account costs you nothing and takes about 20 minutes online. Your Baby Step 1 and Baby Step 3 money should be working for you while it sits there — not collecting dust. |
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#3: Retirees Are Heading Back to Work to Survive
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A growing number of retirees are returning to the workforce, with many saying it is not a choice — rising costs have simply eaten through what they saved.
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The Raw Truth: This is the gut-punch story that nobody wants to talk about but everybody needs to hear. Inflation, healthcare costs, and years of not investing aggressively enough have left real people in their 60s and 70s back in a uniform they thought they had hung up for good. That is exactly why we grind now, stay consistent with our index fund contributions, and refuse to let comfort today steal our freedom tomorrow. |
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"The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."
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| — Peter Lynch |
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TRACKING YOUR S&P 500 INDEX FUND
The Ownership 10
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Your 401k S&P 500 index fund — whether you know it as VOO, FXAIX, or the Vanguard Institutional 500 Index Trust — owns all 500 of these companies. When they win, you win.
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The Heavy Hitters — Working Hard for You Today:
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Salesforce (CRM) 🟢 Up 9.68% — They made a lot more money than people expected and the crowd went wild. They build the software that helps salespeople track customers and close deals — think of it as the digital rolodex for most big companies. |
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NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) 🟢 Up 6.26% — The whole AI boom is still roaring and people keep piling in on any good news day. They make the powerful computer chips that run artificial intelligence — basically the engine under the hood of the AI craze you keep hearing about. |
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Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) 🟢 Up 2.95% — Drifting along with the broader market today and catching some of the good vibes from the tech rally. They make the chips and networking gear that keep the internet, your cable box, and data centers running behind the scenes. |
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Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) 🟢 Up 2.84% — Oil prices ticked up today and that put more money in their pocket, so investors followed. They pump oil and gas out of the ground — they are the company behind the gas prices you groan at every time you fill up your tank. |
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Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) 🟢 Up 2.28% — Drifting along with the broader market today and picking up some extra love from the AI wave. They make Windows, the Xbox, and run the cloud computers that power a huge chunk of the apps and websites you use every single day. |
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The Benchwarmers — Having a Tough Day (But Still on Your Team):
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Meta Platforms (META) 🔴 Down 5.07% — People got nervous that the company is spending an almost unbelievable pile of money building AI and nobody is sure when that bet pays off. They own Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — basically the apps eating up everyone's screen time. |
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Intel Corporation (INTC) 🔴 Down 4.67% — They are losing ground to faster competitors and people are losing patience waiting for a turnaround. They make the processors — the brains — inside a huge number of the laptops and desktop computers sitting in homes and offices. |
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Ford Motor Company (F) 🔴 Down 4.64% — Word got out that they are selling fewer cars than hoped and the costs to build them keep climbing. They are Ford — the F-150 in your neighbor's driveway, the Bronco on the highway, trucks and cars that have been rolling off American lots for over a hundred years. |
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Tesla (TSLA) 🔴 Down 4.57% — Car sales have been slipping and a lot of buyers are cooling off on electric vehicles right now. They make the electric cars you see charging at the mall — the ones with the big touchscreen where the dashboard used to be. |
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Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) 🔴 Down 4.34% — Drifting along with the broader market today and pulling back after a strong recent run. They build some of the most advanced military hardware on the planet — stealth bombers, missile systems, and the kind of equipment the defense department orders by the billions. |
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Takeaway: Five companies are winning today. Five are hurting. Your index fund holds all 500. You never have to pick the right one. You just have to stay in. That is the whole game.
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YOUR MONEY
The Household Dashboard
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| Item |
Today |
Status |
| National Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.29/gal |
🟢 3¢ down today |
| DC Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.55/gal |
🟢 4¢ down today |
| 30-Year Fixed Mortgage |
6.53% |
🟢 Trending |
| S&P 500 YTD Return |
see Scoreboard |
🟢 Still growing |
| Credit Card APR Avg |
22.30% |
🔴 Record highs |
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Gas is down 3¢ today nationally — fill up right now and log those miles if you drive for work, because a 3-cent dip is real money across a full tank and it won't last forever. |
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That 22.30% credit card rate is at record highs, meaning every single dollar sitting on a card is bleeding you dry — pick up the phone today and pay even $20 extra toward that balance before the next statement closes. |
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YOUR RETIREMENT
The Scoreboard: Daily vs. The Long Game
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| Investment |
Today |
5-Yr Return |
10-Yr Return |
| S&P 500 — VOO / FXAIX / Vanguard 500 |
🟢 +0.26% |
🟢 +90.3% |
🟢 +328.9% |
| Nasdaq — QQQ |
🟢 +0.60% |
🟢 +115.9% |
🟢 +641.3% |
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The TV wants you to panic about the red dot on the left. The green numbers on the right are your real story. Stay in.
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The Mailbag
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"Hey Craig. I have $28,000 in credit card debt floating around 24% interest. It is suffocating. I currently have about $90,000 sitting in my employer 401k. Does it make sense to take out a $28,000 401k loan to wipe out the credit cards? Everyone says I am just paying the interest back to myself, so it feels like a total math win to get rid of the 24% rate." — Sarah, Texas
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Here is the raw truth, Sarah. I hear this "math win" argument all the time, and it is a complete trap.
You cannot borrow your way out of debt, and you absolutely never rob your future to pay for your past.
When you take a loan out against your 401k, that $28,000 gets pulled completely out of the market. You are pulling your troops off the battlefield and missing out on the compound growth of the S&P 500. Plus, if you decide to leave your company or suddenly get laid off, that entire loan usually becomes due almost immediately. If you can't stroke a check to pay it back right then and there, the IRS hits you with standard income taxes and a massive 10% early withdrawal penalty. You get crushed.
But here is the real issue. Moving the debt from Visa to your retirement account does not change the behavior that got you $28,000 in the hole to begin with. You are just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. If you don't fix the spending habits, you will end up with a crippled 401k and another massive pile of credit card debt in two years.
Here is your exact flight plan. You leave that $90,000 alone. You sit down tonight, get on a strict, written budget, and cut the lifestyle to the absolute bone. You temporarily pause your 401k contributions, line up those credit cards from smallest balance to largest, and you attack them with the debt snowball. You work overtime, you sell the junk sitting in the garage, and you clean up this mess with your income—not your retirement fund.
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Stop looking for the easy way out and start doing the heavy lifting.
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Send questions to [email protected]
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THE MILLIONAIRE MANUAL
Smallest Debt First — Why Paying Off the Tiny Bill You've Been Ignoring Is the Most Powerful Financial Move You Can Make This Month
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Here is the raw truth. You have been trying to outsmart your debt with math for years, and you are still broke. You sit down at the kitchen table, look at your credit cards, and try to attack the one with the highest interest rate because some guy on the internet told you it makes "mathematical sense." Meanwhile, you have three other tiny bills nipping at your heels, draining your income, and absolutely destroying your momentum. It is time to stop playing with the math and start changing the behavior.
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Let's get brutally honest. If you were actually doing the math, you would not have financed a mattress or a TV at 24% interest in the first place. Getting out of debt is not a math problem; it is a behavior problem. And the reason you keep giving up is that you get burnt out before you ever see any real progress.
You need a win. When you pay off that annoying $300 medical bill or that $500 store credit card, something powerful shifts in your brain. You finally see the needle move. That one small, undeniable victory gives you the adrenaline and the focus to attack the next debt, and then the next one. This is the debt snowball. You clear the small brush first. Then, you take the money you used to pay on that dead bill and slam it into the next one. By the time you reach your heavy credit cards or that massive truck payment, you are rolling a massive avalanche of cash at them.
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The Move: Here is your exact flight plan to get your first win this month:
- List Everything: Sit down tonight and list every single debt you owe from the smallest balance to the largest balance. Ignore the interest rates completely.
- Pay the Minimums: Pay the absolute minimum payment on everything except the little guy at the top of the list.
- Attack the Smallest: Cut your lifestyle to the bone. Sell the junk sitting in the garage, pick up an extra shift, and throw every single available dollar at that smallest balance until it is completely dead.
- Roll the Snowball: Once that first debt is gone, take the exact amount you were paying on it and roll it directly into the next smallest balance.
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Stop trying to act like a math professor and start acting like a warrior. The math didn't get you into this mess, and the math is not going to get you out. Momentum will. Wipe out that tiny bill this month, get your first taste of winning, and go start a fire.
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BACKPAGE
The Wacky Corner
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Back in 1861, a Scottish engineer named James Wylie sold investors on a massive dream. He convinced them he could dig a canal straight across the Isthmus of Darién in Panama—beating the French to the punch by decades. He hyped it up, raised some serious British capital, and sent his crews straight into one of the deadliest jungles on the planet. Here is the raw truth. Half the team died from yellow fever and dysentery before they even moved a single shovel of actual dirt. The whole thing was a complete disaster. Wylie limped back home. The investors got completely wiped out, losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. The jungle swallowed their survey markers like they were never even there. The project got quietly buried in government files and barely made a footnote in history. And that is exactly how the embarrassed investors who blew their fortunes on it wanted it.
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Lesson: When you chase the hype, the jungle always wins.
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🇺🇸 To the special-ed paraprofessional who spends every school day kneeling beside a struggling kid, redirecting meltdowns and celebrating tiny wins, on a paycheck that doesn't come close to matching what you actually carry home in your heart — we see you.
Love y'all. Attack that debt. Keep those contributions running. The plan does not change.
See you on the road. — Rock (Craig)
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