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| Subscribe to The Daily Money newsletter. Come for our roundup of each day's top stories from USA TODAY Money. Stay for the pop-culture references and financial news-inspired playlist. |
| Good morning. Happy Tuesday and congrats on having survived another Monday, Daily Money readers. Jayme Deerwester here with you in the driver's seat again. |
🗞 News you should know 🗞 |
| With the Federal Reserve set to raise its key short-term interest rate by a quarter percentage point Wednesday, Americans will soon see higher rates on everything from credit cards to mortgages. |
| The first increase of the federal funds rate in more than three years will kick off five to seven such moves this year,economists say, as the central bank sets out to corral inflation that reached a 40-year high of 7.9% in February. |
| Five quarter-point increases would be the Fed's most aggressive hiking campaign since 2005 and leave its key rate at a range of 1.25% to 1.5% by year-end. Another three or four hikes are projected in 2023, a blueprint that would push the rate to 2.25%. |
| "Now is a good time to try to pay off debt to protect yourself from rising rates, as well as to lock in fixed rates on any new loans you might need, such as a mortgage or auto loan," says Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert at NerdWallet. |
| Curious about how the interest rate change will affect you? USA TODAY's Paul Davidson examines its impact on everything from bank account interest to mortgages and car loans. |
🚨 More stories you shouldn't miss 🚨 |
| COSTCO CHANGES: COVID senior hours to end in April for members 60+. |
| IPHONE SE: A great smartphone if you're on a budget – and it's out Friday. |
| BETTER LATE THAN NEVER? Latest version of iOS lets Apple users unlock Face ID while masked. |
| ELECTRIC CARS: Despite high gas prices and increased interest, consumers more likely to change driving habits before trading cars for EVs. |
| HORRIBLE BOSSES: Being overbearing isn't illegal. Punishing employees for exercising their rights under the law could be. |
💡 Daily insight 💡 |
| Across the country, schools are struggling to spend their COVID-19 relief money as quickly as planned. Their efforts are running up against a national labor shortage and supply chain issues, which are making it difficult to do things like hire tutors or renovate dilapidated buildings. |
| Plenty of money is still being spent, and school leaders say the funds have been critical to helping students recover. But the delays could have important political and educational consequences. |
| To some Republican lawmakers, the slower spending is a sign that schools received too much federal relief. And where schools are unable to hire or make the purchases they want to, kids are going without the support officials hoped would come from the $190 billion in federal help. |
| "It's been a case of 'best-laid plans,'" said Jonathan Travers, who works with school officials through Education Resource Strategies. "People moved forward with plans that presumed labor availability that wasn't there, that presumed an ability to get additional hours from existing staff that they couldn't get." |
💵 The truth about tax audits 💵 |
| If you've ever seen a tax audit play out on TV or in the movies, it can come across as a scary occurrence. But let's get one thing straight – most tax audits don't involve an IRS agent ransacking your home office in search of evidence of tax fraud. |
| Often, audits result from innocent mistakes and are dealt with by sending information back and forth by mail. Also, getting your tax return audited doesn't automatically mean you'll wind up in jail or get slapped with massive fines. In some cases, you may not owe the IRS a penny more. |
| But still, an audit may be something you're aiming to avoid. If you'd rather not subject your tax return to added scrutiny, then be sure to steer clear of mistakes like failing to report all of your income, estimating your deductions or claiming 100% business use of your car. |
🎧 Mood music 🎧 |
| Today, I'm going with "If I Were an Auditor," a parody of "If I Were a Carpenter": If I worked for an audit firm, would you still love me? Answer me babe, 'Yes I would," you wouldn't put the lawyers above me. If I worked a million hours, in audit, tax, or advising, would our love grow every day, or only be amortizing?" |
| LISTEN WHILE YOU WORK: Remember, you can listen to this song and every track I've quoted in the newsletter in the Daily Money Mood Music playlist on Spotify. |
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