Flipboard 2025 Investing

Most of us have spent $1,000 on something we barely remember. But had you put that same money into the right stock at the right moment, you could be a millionaire today. And in a few cases, you could have missed the IPO by years...even decades...and still made it.

Financial advice from the 1980s does not always work today. These outdated money rules could hurt your savings, retirement, credit, investments, and household finances in the modern economy.

Americans got used to near-zero rates. The Federal Reserve cut its target to 0%–0.25% in March 2020, then raised it to 5.25%–5.50% in 2023. On July 29, 2026, it stood at 3.50%–3.75%.

There was a time when certain company names were practically part of the furniture. Their televisions, cameras, computers, movie rentals, records, and gadgets helped decide how American families spent an evening at home. Then technology changed, and some of the most familiar names in the country discovered just how quickly a dominant business could become yesterday's habit.

Sure, Millennials have lived through some nasty inflation. But this may be one of those rare times Boomers are allowed to yell “get off my lawn”—because the inflation they lived through in the late 60s, throughout the 70s and into the 80s was on another level.

Every year had an investment people bragged about—and another they wished they had never touched. Sometimes the winner doubled, or even tripled. Sometimes the loser destroyed more than half its value.

Two years ago, you handed AI control of a $50,000 investment portfolio and let it decide what to buy, what to sell, and when to move. Today, that account is up more than $165,000. But before you increase its budget, there is one part of this story that matters even more than the profit.

Many families discover only after a loved one dies that a significant portion of their finances existed entirely online. That can include bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement plans, cryptocurrency, payment apps, and rewards programs. If nobody knows the passwords or recovery methods, recovering those assets can become a stressful and expensive process. The good news is that inaccessible does not always mean lost, but the outcome depends on what type of account is involved and how well the deceased planned ahead.

Most people walk past old paintings without giving them a second thought. Some end up in attics. Others gather dust in storage rooms. But every once in a while, a forgotten piece of art turns out to be something extraordinary. This is the story of one painting that went from near-obscurity to rewriting auction history.