1926: Ask Farnoosh: Fraud Scares, Fed Rate Cuts and Investing 101 (Encore)
Episode
27 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Career Growth, Personal Finance, Investing
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Fraud Protection Reality: Banks may deduct fraudulent charges from checking accounts for two business days during investigation, even when fraud is obvious. Consider keeping minimal balances in checking and moving excess funds to savings to limit exposure.
- ✓Credit Score Decline: National average credit score dropped from 717 to 715, the largest one-year decline since 2008. High credit card balances, student loan delinquencies, and buy-now-pay-later plans contribute. Keep credit utilization below 10% and pay balances in full.
- ✓Investment Timing Tax Strategy: Long-term capital gains (assets held over one year) are taxed at 15% or lower for most investors. Short-term gains (under one year) are taxed at your regular income tax bracket, potentially 37%, making holding period critical.
- ✓Salary Negotiation Timing: Request raises mid-week, after demonstrating measurable achievements, and six weeks before annual reviews. Provide metrics and data to help managers advocate upward, as budgets may already be set by review time.
What It Covers
Farnoosh Torabi addresses personal fraud experience, Federal Reserve rate cuts, declining credit scores, housing market shifts, and answers listener questions about investing basics, estate planning, student loans, and salary negotiations.
Key Questions Answered
- •Fraud Protection Reality: Banks may deduct fraudulent charges from checking accounts for two business days during investigation, even when fraud is obvious. Consider keeping minimal balances in checking and moving excess funds to savings to limit exposure.
- •Credit Score Decline: National average credit score dropped from 717 to 715, the largest one-year decline since 2008. High credit card balances, student loan delinquencies, and buy-now-pay-later plans contribute. Keep credit utilization below 10% and pay balances in full.
- •Investment Timing Tax Strategy: Long-term capital gains (assets held over one year) are taxed at 15% or lower for most investors. Short-term gains (under one year) are taxed at your regular income tax bracket, potentially 37%, making holding period critical.
- •Salary Negotiation Timing: Request raises mid-week, after demonstrating measurable achievements, and six weeks before annual reviews. Provide metrics and data to help managers advocate upward, as budgets may already be set by review time.
Notable Moment
Torabi declined her bank's 180-day fraud freeze protection because it required rerouting all billers to temporary account numbers, then switching back manually after six months, creating too much risk of missing critical payments for her business.
Episode Transcript
Enjoy more ways to save at Kroger like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Kroger app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. At Kroger, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. Seaside for details. This episode of ask Farnoosh aired originally on Friday, 09/19/2025. So Money episode nineteen twenty six, ask Farnoosh. You're listening to sow money with award winning money guru, Farnoosh Narabe. Each day, get a thirty minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry. You're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so money. Welcome back to so money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Turabi. This is Ask Farnoosh Friday, our Friday edition of the show where I tackle your money questions, everything from investing to debt to career and more. Before we open up the mailbag, though, I wanna take some time to talk about what's happening out there in the money world that's important, not just Wall Street headlines, but Main Street realities. But before we get to that, a personal story about fraud alert. This happened to me this week. I haven't really shared it anywhere because I'm still processing it, but I think it's important to share this with you. So I got a text from my bank earlier this week asking me to verify a deduction that came through a check. This was for my business bank account. Now the amount was for $4,950, and I stared at that for a little bit. And I don't really write a lot of checks, so this was definitely a red flag for me. And rather than going and clicking through the link that came in through the text, because I wasn't sure if this was actually my bank reaching out to me and maybe some fraudster, I went directly to my bank website, logged in from my laptop, and saw the check for myself. I saw that it had actually been deducted from my bank account, and there was an image of the check. The image of the check, it did have my bank account number on the bottom of the check, but the check name and address was somebody else, and this person had written the check to themself. And that was annoying because I thought, why wasn't this already flagged? Like, why does this have to get to me? This is not even my check. And whoever this person is, they submitted it to their credit union. Their credit union then sent it to my bank, and …
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