interest
Interest is money paid to you for letting someone else use your money, or money you owe when you borrow from someone else. When you buy a bond you are the lender so the borrower pays you interest on a regular schedule.
Where it is explained in full
Bonds and Treasuries: lending money, with a price that moves. A bond is a loan you make. The interest is fixed, the price is not, and the relationship between the two confuses nearly everyone the first time.
Whole life insurance: what it is, who uses it, and the arithmetic nobody shows you. A life insurance policy that also holds a savings account inside it. It is sold to almost everyone and it fits a few people well. This page explains how it works and how to tell which you are, and it never tells you what to buy.
Money at every level: what changes as the numbers grow, from a first paycheck to a hundred million. The rules are the same for everyone and the useful ones change at every level. This page walks the whole ladder, what becomes possible at each rung, and the one line that runs through all of it. It explains; it never advises.
When size changes the answer: ten dollars, ten thousand, and a hundred million are not the same money. Arithmetic scales in a straight line. The world does not. Past certain sizes, insurance runs out, prices move against you, rules change, and the cheap thing becomes expensive or the expensive thing becomes cheap. This page names the lines.
How the wealthy pay less tax: the line between income and wealth, and the empty suite that does not exist. A friend earning two million a year asked how the very rich pay so little. The answer is not a secret and not a loophole. It is one line in the code, and everything else hangs on it. This page explains it, and corrects a story about commercial property that gets told at every dinner where the question comes up.
Workplace plans: the 401(k), the 403(b), and the TSP, from the first paycheck to the last. Everything a person needs to open one, fill it, hold the right things in it, avoid the traps, and carry it with them when they leave. Long on purpose, so that one page is enough.
A definition says what a thing is; it never says whether it fits you. The guides explain how it works and name the professional who confirms it for a particular person. The No Advice Disclosure.
Words beside it
- Accrued interest
Interest a bond has earned since its last payment; a buyer pays it to the seller on top of the price.
- compound interest
When the money you earn from savings or investments starts earning its own money on top of itself over time. The longer you leave it alone the faster it tends to grow.
- Interest rate risk
The chance a bond's price falls because rates rose.
- Open interest
The number of option contracts outstanding for a given strike and expiration.
Ask about interest
A model reads this page and answers from it. It will say when the answer is not on the page. Education, not personalized advice.