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THE WATER COOLER
The Big Three
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#1: Mortgage rates tick up to 6.3% this week
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The average rate on a 30-year home loan climbed to 6.3%, though that is still a little lower than it was at this same time last year.
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The Raw Truth: If you are trying to buy a house right now, that rate adds hundreds of dollars a month to your payment compared to just a few years ago. It keeps a lot of families stuck renting and feeling like homeownership is a moving target they can never quite reach. Hold your ground, keep building that down payment, and do not let the pressure rush you into a payment that breaks your budget. |
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#2: Saving for retirement on low income just got harder
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A new executive order was supposed to make it easier for people earning under $35,000 a year to save for retirement, but experts say it barely moves the needle for folks without a workplace plan.
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The Raw Truth: If your job does not offer a 401k, you are already fighting uphill, and this changes almost nothing about that. The people who need the most help saving are still the ones getting the least support from the system. Your move right now is to open a Roth IRA on your own, set up even a small automatic transfer every payday, and treat it like a bill you cannot skip. |
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#3: Soaring energy prices threaten your grocery and gas budget
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The U.S. economy grew at a 2% annual pace early this year, but rising energy costs are threatening to slow that down and push everyday prices higher for families.
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The Raw Truth: When energy gets expensive, everything gets expensive — gas, groceries, utilities, anything that gets shipped to a store shelf. That quiet squeeze on your paycheck is real, and it is one of the biggest reasons your budget feels tighter even when your income has not changed. This is exactly why having even a small emergency fund matters so much right now — it is the buffer between a bad month and a financial crisis. |
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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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Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) 🟢 Up 9.96% — People were a lot happier with how much money Google made this quarter than they expected to be. They run Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail — basically the tools most of us use every single day without thinking twice. |
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Caterpillar (CAT) 🟢 Up 9.88% — People were a lot more impressed with Caterpillar's business than they thought they'd be this quarter. They make those giant yellow bulldozers and construction machines you see tearing up roads and building sites everywhere. |
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Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) 🟢 Up 9.80% — Their weight-loss and diabetes drugs are selling like crazy and the numbers showed it in a big way today. They make Mounjaro and Zepbound — the weight-loss shots you keep hearing about on the news and at the office. |
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Deere & Company (DE) 🟢 Up 5.33% — Drifting along with the broader market today after a rough stretch for the stock. They make John Deere tractors and farm equipment — the green-and-yellow machines that grow a huge chunk of the food on your plate. |
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AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) 🟢 Up 3.64% — Drifting along with the broader market today. They make Humira, one of the most prescribed drugs in the country for things like arthritis and chronic pain. |
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The Benchwarmers — Having a Tough Day (But Still on Your Team):
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Meta Platforms (META) 🔴 Down 8.55% — They told investors they plan to spend a jaw-dropping amount of money building out AI this year, and people got nervous about that giant bill. They own Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — the apps probably sitting right on your phone right now. |
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NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) 🔴 Down 4.63% — Worries about new rules limiting where they can sell their chips overseas rattled people today. They make the powerful computer chips that run most of the AI technology the whole world is racing to build right now. |
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Mastercard Incorporated (MA) 🔴 Down 4.25% — Drifting along with the broader market today as worries about people pulling back on spending made investors uneasy. They process the payment every time you swipe your Mastercard at the grocery store or gas station. |
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Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) 🔴 Down 3.93% — Drifting along with the broader market today as the whole tech space had a rough go of it. They make Windows, Xbox, and Microsoft Office — and they also own the cloud computers that keep a huge chunk of the internet running. |
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Salesforce (CRM) 🔴 Down 2.59% — Drifting along with the broader market today. They make the software that companies use to keep track of their customers and sales — basically the digital Rolodex that most big businesses run on behind the scenes. |
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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) |
$4.30/gal |
🔴 7¢ up today |
| DC Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.39/gal |
🔴 6¢ up today |
| 30-Year Fixed Mortgage |
6.30% |
🟢 Trending |
| S&P 500 YTD Return |
see Scoreboard |
🟢 Still growing |
| Credit Card APR Avg |
22.30% |
🔴 Record highs |
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Gas is rising — national average hit $4.30 and climbed another 7¢ today, so fill your tank now before it climbs even higher this week. |
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Credit card APR is sitting at a record-high 22.30% — every dollar you carry on that balance is being eaten alive, so throw any extra cash at that card today, not tomorrow. |
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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 |
🟢 +0.97% |
🟢 +83.7% |
🟢 +305.6% |
| Nasdaq — QQQ |
🟢 +0.93% |
🟢 +106.1% |
🟢 +549.5% |
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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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"Rock, I’m just exhausted. We have $22,000 in credit card debt spread across four cards, all at 24% interest or higher. The minimum payments are completely choking our budget. I have about $55,000 sitting in my 401k at work. A guy at work told me I should just take out a 401k loan, wipe out the credit cards instantly, and then 'pay myself back' the interest instead of giving it to Visa. The math makes total sense, and we’d get a clean slate today. Should we just pull the trigger and finally breathe?" — Sarah, Ohio
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Sarah, I hear you. Four cards, 24% interest, minimum payments eating you alive — that is not a money problem anymore, that is a survival problem. You are not being dramatic. You are exhausted because the system is designed to keep you exactly where you are. I get it, and I am not going to lecture you.
But I need you to pump the brakes before you pull that trigger, because the 401k loan trap is one of the most dangerous moves a person in your spot can make. Here is the raw math your coworker skipped: if you leave your job — voluntarily, layoff, anything — that entire loan balance comes due almost immediately. If you cannot pay it back, the IRS treats it as a full withdrawal. On $22,000, you are looking at income taxes plus a 10% penalty. You could owe $6,000 to $8,000 or more to the government on money you already spent. You traded Visa for the IRS. And the whole time that money was out of your 401k, it was not growing. Missing even three or four years of growth on $22,000 in the market can cost you $50,000 or more by retirement. The 'pay yourself back' math only works if nothing goes wrong. And life always goes wrong. The real path out is slower, but it does not put your retirement and your job security on the same knife's edge.
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Before you touch your 401k, call your HR department today and ask for your full debt payoff worksheet — then stack your credit cards smallest balance to largest and throw every spare dollar at the first one while paying minimums on the rest, because that is the road out that does not blow up your future to fix your present.
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Send questions to [email protected]
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THE MILLIONAIRE MANUAL
The Refi Conversation — When Refinancing Your Mortgage Actually Makes Sense (and When It's a Trap)
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You see the ads everywhere — 'Lower your payment today!' — and when money is tight, that sounds like a lifeline. But refinancing done wrong can quietly steal years of progress right out from under you.
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Here is the honest math: every time you refinance and restart a 30-year clock, you are paying the bank interest all over again from square one. Say you are 7 years into your mortgage — you have already paid mostly interest for 7 years. You refi, and boom, you are back at year one. Your payment drops $150 a month, but you just added years of payments back onto your life. That 'savings' can cost you tens of thousands more in the long run if you are not careful.
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The Move: First, pull up your current mortgage statement tonight — find your remaining balance, your interest rate, and how many years you have left. Write those three numbers on a piece of paper. Now google 'mortgage refinance break-even calculator' — Bankrate has a free one, takes five minutes. Plug in your numbers and the new rate you are being offered. It will tell you exactly how many months until you actually break even on the closing costs — if that number is more than 3 or 4 years, walk away. If rates have dropped at least a full point below what you have right now AND you plan to stay in the house past that break-even point AND you keep the term the same or shorter — then it is worth a real conversation. Call two or three local credit unions, not just the big banks, because credit unions almost always beat the big guys on rates and fees. Ask each one for a Loan Estimate document — they are required by law to give you one — and compare them side by side. Tonight, your one job is just this: find that current mortgage statement and write down those three numbers.
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A lower payment that costs you more money is not a deal — it is a disguise.
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BACKPAGE
The Wacky Corner
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Vince Young was the most electric college football player on the planet when he led Texas to the 2006 national championship, then signed a rookie NFL deal worth around $58 million with the Tennessee Titans. By 2012 — just six years later — he had filed for bankruptcy. The number that gets me every time is this one: reports surfaced that he was spending roughly $5,000 a week at the Cheesecake Factory alone. Not a typo. One restaurant. Every week. He also reportedly lent millions to friends and family who never paid it back, bought cars like they were groceries, and had almost nothing left to show for an income that most of us will never see in ten lifetimes.
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Lesson: Lesson: A giant paycheck with no plan is just a faster way to go broke — income is not wealth, ownership is.
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🇺🇸 To every diesel mechanic who crawls under an 18-wheeler at 4 a.m. to keep freight moving — your grease-stained hands feed this country, and most people never think twice about it.
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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