Turning 60 to 63? You can put an extra $11,250 in your 401(k).
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Above the Fold Fed week, and this time the question is a hike The week ahead has one appointment that matters, and for the first time in a good while it points the wrong way for borrowers. The Federal Reserve decides on Wednesday, and after a run of firm inflation and a resilient job market, traders now put the odds of a quarter-point rate increase at roughly 85 percent. A hike would be the central bank's first move up in a while, after it held steady in July.  A higher rate cuts two ways at the same kitchen table. It lifts what a household pays on a new mortgage, a car loan, or a balance carried on a card, and it lifts what a saver earns on a certificate of deposit, a savings account, or a money-market fund. I read a hike week as a nudge to look at both sides of my own ledger, the owing and the owning, and see which one the move actually touches. For a borrower it is a headwind. For a saver it is a quiet raise. Most households are a little of both, which is exactly why the plain response is to owe less and hold more over time, and let Wednesday be somebody else's drama. From Washington A four-year window to shovel more into a 401(k) Here is a rule that rewards a specific stretch of years. A worker who turns 60, 61, 62, or 63 by the end of 2026 can make a larger catch-up contribution to a workplace 401(k), an extra $11,250 on top of the regular $24,500 limit, for as much as $35,750 in a single year before any employer match. It is a short runway on purpose. The bigger allowance covers only ages 60 through 63, the years when the paycheck is often at its peak and retirement is close enough to see. At 64 it drops back to the ordinary catch-up. The catch is that a plan does not have to offer it, so it pays to ask the benefits desk whether the bigger number is switched on. I spent years watching people leave this kind of room on the table simply because nobody told them it was there. A quick call now beats a wish next April. Money only, no politics.
Tomorrow Today The gadget everyone will be told they need is on your face  The next big consumer-tech show is nearly here. Meta holds its Connect event on September 23 and 24, and it has already teased a new pair of AI smart glasses, the camera-and-assistant kind you wear all day, alongside a rumored first smartwatch. It is part of a wave this year, with Google and Snap chasing the same face. The technology is improving fast, and some of it is genuinely clever. Worth saying plainly, though: the first versions of a brand-new category are where buyers pay the most to get the least. Early glasses run hot, sip battery, cost a premium, and get replaced within a year by a better, cheaper pair. I have watched a lot of must-have gadgets travel from the wrist or the face straight into a drawer. The move here is patience. Let the reviews pile up, let the price come down, and let someone else be the one who beta-tests version one. The wallet is safest a generation behind the hype. The Five Five things worth a minute
The Long View The same rate, two different stories One number comes down on Wednesday, and it will land as a groan or a grin depending on which chair a household sits in. The borrower hears a hike as a squeeze, another few dollars on every balance that is not paid off. The saver hears the same words as a raise, a little more on the money set aside. Same rate, two stories, told at the same table. I spent thirty-five years watching that split play out on returns and bank statements, and the pattern never changed: the people who slept fine on a hike week were the ones who had drifted, year by year, toward the saver's side of the line. Less owed, more held, so a rate that climbs is more tailwind than headwind. Wednesday matters for a mortgage quote and a CD rate, and it is worth a glance. Run the numbers and the story changes, but the direction of a life's balance sheet matters more than any single meeting. Mind what you keep.
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