CBS News
5 smart New Year’s money resolutions to make for 2024
It’s hard to believe that there are just a few weeks left in 2023. But as 2024 approaches, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the last year and determine the changes you want to focus on when the new year rolls around.
While you may be planning to focus your New Year’s resolutions on getting healthy at the gym or eating better, don’t overlook the changes that need to be made in order to reach your financial goals. By keeping your finances in mind, you can set resolutions that will pave the way for a prosperous future.
To help kickstart a solid financial journey and secure your financial well-being, here are some impactful money-focused resolutions that you may want to consider adding to your list this year.
Start the new year on the right foot. Explore your top savings options here.
5 smart New Year’s money resolutions to make for 2024
As you determine your New Year’s resolutions, consider adding these to the list:
Move some of your savings to a certificate of deposit
One of the most effective ways to maximize your savings is by exploring different investment options. While traditional savings accounts offer safety, they often come with minimal interest rates that may not keep up with inflation. For example, the average regular savings account rate is currently 0.46% — which is lower than the current inflation rate.
So rather than settling for a low interest rate on your savings, consider diversifying your savings by allocating a portion to a certificate of deposit (CD). CDs are accounts that offer fixed interest rates — and in return, you agree to leave your money deposited in the account until the CD’s maturity date.
By locking in your money for the CD term, which typically ranges from a few months to several years, you typically get higher interest rates compared to regular savings accounts. This move ensures that your money works harder for you, helping it grow over time.
And, right now it’s easy to find CDs offering 4.5% APYs or higher, depending on the CD term. So if you’re leaving your money in a different type of account, you could be passing up on an easy way to rake in interest earnings.
Find the top CD rates you could be getting here.
Quit your regular savings account and open a high-yield option instead
Traditional savings accounts may provide a sense of security, but they often fall short when it comes to earning substantial interest. This upcoming year, take the step of closing your regular savings account and opening a high-yield savings account instead.
High-yield accounts offer significantly higher interest rates than their traditional counterparts, allowing your money to grow at a faster pace. In fact, there are some high-yield accounts offering rates of 5% or higher on your money, which can make it easy to rake in the interest returns on your savings, especially compared to what you could earn with a regular savings account.
To find the right high-yield savings account, research different banks and financial institutions to find the account that best suits your needs. Remember, the key is to make your money work for you and not the other way around.
Create a budget and stick to it
Budgeting is a fundamental aspect of financial success. Start the year by creating a realistic budget that takes into account your income, expenses and savings goals.
Be diligent about tracking your spending and make adjustments as needed. A well-managed budget not only helps you save more but also ensures that you have a clear understanding of where your money is going.
Invest in your financial knowledge
In the ever-evolving world of finance, staying informed is crucial. One resolution that could benefit you in 2024 is investing time in expanding your financial literacy by reading books, attending workshops or taking online courses. After all, understanding the intricacies of investing, taxes and personal finance can empower you to make informed decisions that align with your long-term goals.
Review and update your insurance policies
Life is unpredictable, and having the right insurance coverage is essential for financial security. Take the time to review your insurance policies, including health, life and home insurance. Ensure that your coverage aligns with your current needs and make adjustments if necessary. Adequate insurance provides a safety net that can protect you and your loved ones from unexpected financial setbacks.
The bottom line
It’s crucial to regularly reassess your financial goals and make adjustments as your circumstances change, no matter what time of year it is. But by adopting these smart money resolutions for 2024, you’ll be taking significant steps toward building wealth, achieving financial security and setting yourself up for a successful and prosperous future.
CBS News
Stuffing stockings with skincare? Here’s what experts say kids should (and shouldn’t) be using.
Skin care is all the rage for teens and tweens these days. But if you’re hunting for last-minute skincare stocking stuffers, be aware that experts warn some products could cause more harm than good.
Dr. Sheilagh Maguiness, a dermatologist and president of Society for Pediatric Dermatology told CBS News earlier this year it’s important to look for age-appropriate products for young skin.
“What’s not good about caring for your skin, washing your face, wanting to establish good healthy skin care habits early? That’s great,” Maguiness said. “But what’s not great is the fact that some of the products that are being marketed to tweens and teens are not necessarily good or appropriate for their skin.”
So if you’re deciding on skincare gifts, here’s what’s safe and what’s best to skip.
Safe: Cleanser and sun protection
Using a gentle cleanser once or twice a day to wash your face is a great first step for those around age 11 or 12, Maguiness said.
“Even tweens could wash their face twice a day; as young as 8, that would be just fine,” she said.
After washing your face in the morning, Maguiness suggests applying a sunscreen with SPF 30 or greater. Then in the evening, swap that out for a gentle moisturizer.
“The only preventative product that you need in an arsenal at any age is sunscreen,” she said. “It is the No. 1 thing you can do to prevent your skin from aging and to prevent, even more importantly, the risk for skin cancer down the line.”
Skip: Harsh ingredients
Some harsh ingredients for young people to avoid include alpha and beta hydroxy acids (AHA and BHA), alcohol, highly fragranced products, and retinols and retinoids, plastic surgeon Dr. Smita Ramanadham, told CBS New York earlier this year.
“The biggest category to really avoid are those anti-aging products,” she said. “Young skin just does not need it. Young skin has collagen, elastin, it is hydrated, so we don’t need to add these extra ingredients that are really going to irritate and cause inflammation.”
Maguiness said she sees young girls come into her clinic with bags of unnecessary and potentially risky products.
“They’re actually damaging their skin barrier. They’re drying themselves out. They’re getting irritant dermatitis,” she said. “They’re using products that really just aren’t appropriate for the type of skin that they have.”
CBS News
How Trump could undo portions of Biden’s climate legacy
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election set in motion a race against time by President Biden to safeguard his environmental legacy in his remaining days as president.
But his administration’s stepped-up pace of climate-related announcements will likely mean little once Trump is inaugurated and the Republican-led Congress is seated in January. Mr. Biden’s most recent climate initiatives are all but certain to be short-lived, mostly thanks to an obscure law that tends to come into play every four years.
That law, the Congressional Review Act, allows Congress to kill any regulation issued by a federal agency in the last 60 legislative days with a simple majority vote in the House and Senate and the signature of the president.
Since Election Day, the Biden administration has announced final rules that include one to dramatically curb methane emissions and another that bans all future coal mining leases on federal lands. Both rules are expected to be rolled back soon after Trump takes office.
Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide, but it traps heat in the atmosphere at 28 times the rate of carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency has observed. On the upside, methane doesn’t remain in the atmosphere for as long as CO2, so cutting methane emissions can have a much quicker, more dramatic impact on lowering greenhouse gases. Human sources of methane emissions include oil and gas systems, landfills, wastewater treatment facilities and a host of other industrial processes.
On Nov. 12, the Biden administration announced a final rule that will charge oil and natural gas companies a hefty fee if they exceed methane emission limits. It’s an effort to encourage these companies to improve their processes to reduce methane leaks.
The EPA estimates that implementing the methane emissions rule would be akin to taking nearly 8 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
The Biden administration also recently blocked all new coal mining leases on public lands, which would affect new leases in Wyoming and Montana, the source of 40% of the nation’s coal. The Associated Press pointed to government analyses that said ending federal leasing would reduce emissions by the equivalent of 293 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, roughly on par with eliminating emissions from 63 million gas-powered cars.
Existing leases would still allow mining in the region to continue for decades. But coal has been losing ground in recent years, as the U.S. has steadily come to rely more on cheap natural gas and renewable energy sources — and less on coal.
Republican politicians in Wyoming and Montana denounced the ban, and GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said in a statement that he’s ready to work with Trump to reverse the ban and other regulations.
In Trump’s view, fears about climate change are overblown or premature. He’s called it a “hoax” in the past. He opposes clean energy and EV subsidies and has said what America needs to do is “drill, baby drill” — that is, increase traditional oil and gas production in order to bring down energy prices for Americans. This shouldn’t come as a surprise — in his first term, upon taking office, he overturned 100 environmental rules enacted by President Obama.
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised business-friendly policies that he claimed would halve energy costs in a year by approving new drilling and slashing red tape.
Some experts doubt that’ll happen.
“There is no universe in which decisions by the federal government can cause that extent of a reaction from markets,” Jonathan Elkind, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University told CBS News. “The oil markets, they are too big, they are too global, and the president of the United States does not have the capability to exert influence that is as strong as that.”
There are still, however, some Biden climate policies that are likely to be out of Trump’s reach.
Billions in clean energy investment was set aside in the 2022 climate law, the most significant climate change legislation ever signed. But the key to protecting that funding is making sure the money is spent, or allocated, before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
Once the grant money is spent, Trump and Republicans are highly unlikely to be able to claw it back.
“Legally, any obligated fund is safe,” said Christina DeConcini, director of government affairs at World Resources Institute. “If you listen to incoming administration officials, they are saying that they’re going to go after that. I don’t think they’re going to have a legal leg to stand on if it’s been obligated.”
The EPA says it’s learned over the years that the surest way to protect climate policy is to tie a regulation directly to legislation and funding.
In total, about $643.1 billion, or over 93% of funding available, has been obligated, according to a White House official. Billions remain to be spent under the climate law in the next fiscal year, and some Republicans may want to keep the climate spending in their districts and states.
Trying to take the grant funding back would mean “potentially taking away benefits to communities, both in terms of public health protections, but also economic benefits,” EPA senior adviser for implementation Zealan Hoover told CBS News.
And these grants are also far from the most expensive line-items in the climate law. The Energy Department announced almost $18 million for projects that bolster recycling programs, launch residential energy efficiency rebate programs and expand bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, among other projects. The Agriculture Department put $256 million toward the Rural Energy Program for America to expand use of wind, solar, geothermal and small hydropower energy.
These kinds of projects and the grants are likely to be safe through Trump’s second term.
contributed to this report.
CBS News
80 people sick after attending LA Times food tasting festival
Painful cramps, nausea and vomiting were some of the symptoms some attendees experienced after attending a food festival held to celebrate Southern California’s best restaurants.
Mark Kapczynski was one of the 80 people who became sick after a norovirus outbreak.
“It was pretty painful, probably the most painful experience I have ever had,” he said.
Kapczynski is still recovering from catching the highly contagious stomach bug at a place he never expected.
“Certainly never thought it was the 101 event — these restaurants are too good couldn’t possibly be that,” he said.
Kapczynski said he and his wife attended the Los Angeles times 101 Best Restaurants event earlier this month, a food-tasting festival celebrating what the newspaper’s editors rank are the 101 best places to eat in Southern California.
“We visited Providence, which I mean they are a world-class restaurant serving fresh oysters and clams with different sauces and I ended up having two plates very quickly,” Kapczynski said.
Kapczynski said he felt bloated immediately after eating the oysters. By the next day, his symptoms got worse.
“The abdomen pain has just had just had me curled up in a ball and tremendous chills — just couldn’t get comfortable,” he said.
Kapczynski isn’t the only one who got sick from eating oysters. The LA County Department of Public Health is now investigating a norovirus outbreak. So far, they have identified 80 cases. Emergency room physician Dr. Ali Jamehdor said the illness isn’t a typical stomach bug.
“Oysters seem to really hit patients hard when they come into the ER they’re very, very ill,” he said. “Vomiting, diarrhea, significant abdominal cramping and it’s all due to a bug called vibrio. It’s a very specific bacteria that’s specific to oysters and causes an illness that hits people very, very hard.”
Providence, one of LA’s most celebrated restaurants said the oysters came from farms near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Health inspectors at the event signed off on all handling and serving regulations.
“The nature of norovirus is such that it would be undetectable to the vendor, the restaurant or the health inspectors who were onsite given that norovirus does not affect the appearance, odor or flavor of the shellfish,” the restaurant wrote in a statement.
The California Department of Public Health issued a statewide alert on Canadian oysters 10 days after the event. The warning said the shellfish could make people sick.
KCAL News reached out to the LA Times but has not heard back yet. The FDA says people infected with the virus can experience symptoms for 12 to 48 hours.