Find a Financial Advisor
Financial advisors — also called financial planners — are like doctors for your money: They help you understand complex issues, diagnose potential problems and take preventive steps to plan for the future.…
Arielle O'Shea
Arielle O'Shea is a staff writer at NerdWallet covering investing and retirement. She's been reporting on and writing about personal finance for over a decade, and holds a bachelor's degree in English from Shepherd University. Her writing has appeared in Esquire, Money, The Billfold, Women's Health, USA Today, Forbes, Mashable and the Los Angeles Times, and she contributed to the book "Money 911" while working for author Jean Chatzky. She likes bad reality TV and increasing her 401(k) contribution.
Posts by Arielle O'Shea:
Best Budgeting Apps and Personal Finance Tools
Everyone wants to save and budget better, and the tech world has taken notice, releasing a steady stream of tools to lend a hand. We sifted through these budgeting and saving…
How Much Should You Save for Retirement?
≔ Highlights Your current expenses can help you estimate future spending The earlier you start saving, the less you have to save overall A retirement calculator will help you check…
Here’s How to Retire By 40
At the risk of sounding like a Facebook friend trying to fold you into my latest direct sales venture: Early retirement is possible. If you read the internet, you might…
What Are Required Minimum Distributions?
The IRS spends a lot of energy making sure people don’t tap their retirement accounts, imposing taxes and penalties on most early withdrawals. So it might surprise you to learn…
What’s a Typical Mutual Fund Expense Ratio?
If you’re an investor, you need to know about expense ratios. These fees — inherent in all mutual funds, index funds and exchange-traded funds — can significantly drag down your…
When You Should — and Shouldn’t — Tap Your Roth IRA
Most retirement accounts are for one purpose: The money goes in and stays in until retirement — specifically, until the investor turns 59 1/2. Pull it out early and you’ll have…
How After-Hours Trading Works
After the party, there’s the after-party. When it comes to the stock market, that after-party is referred to as after-hours trading. After-hours trading is exactly what it sounds like: trading…
Best Accounts for Short-Term Savings
Interest rates have slowly inched up in the past couple of years, but they’re still very low by historic standards. The low rates that have helped you save money on…
Obama-Era Retirement Plan Is Dead. Here’s an Alternative
The Treasury Department announced Friday that it is ending the Obama administration’s myRA program, a savings account designed to help low- and middle-income savers put money away for retirement. The…
