Alternative lenders say today’s borrowers are more likely to be self-employed and asset-rich than credit-bruised, with many no longer viewing alt lending as a temporary stop on the way to a major bank.
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‘The alt solution is the prime solution’: Alternative borrowers increasingly staying put
Better Sleep, Better Health: a New Study Shows Getting More REM Sleep is Linked to Lower Risk of 83 Different Diseases
A 95,000-person shows getting more REM sleep lowers the risk of dozens of diseases. So does getting more deep sleep.
Cryptocurrency trading to become illegal in Hawaii if legislature doesn't act
Digital currency has become a nearly $1 billion industry in the state, but trading things like Bitcoin could become illegal if the pilot program that allows it to operate outside of strict laws is not replaced with a new law.
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WisePal Review: Save Money On Bills And More
Quick Summary
- Online negotiation service
- Users save an average of $1,272 annually
- You choose your fee upfront
WisePal is a bill negotiation platform that helps you lower household expenses without having to negotiate with providers yourself. It finds comparable offers and uses them as leverage to negotiate a lower price with your current provider. It may be worth considering if you want to lower your monthly bills but don’t want to spend a lot of time shopping around or negotiating.
Table of Contents
What Is WisePal?
What Does It Offer?
Are There Any Fees?
How Does Wisepal Compare?
How Do I Open An Account?
Is It Safe And Secure?
How Do I Contact Wisepal?
Is It Worth It?
What Is WisePal?
WisePal is a personal finance app that helps you reduce your recurring bills. According to the company, it has helped more than 30,000 households over the past five years. While it’s main service is to help you find comparable offers on your existing services, and then using those to negotiate lower prices, it also helps people find savings in other areas, such as car insurance, property taxes, credit card debt, utilities, and more.
What Does It Offer?
WisePal uses bill analysis, comparison shopping, bill negotiation, and ongoing monitoring to help you lower your bills. Here’s a closer look at what you can expect when you join:
How WisePal Works
After signing up and sharing your recurring bill details, WisePal gets to work, following these four steps:
1. Find comparable offers: WisePal analyzes your monthly bills, focusing on specific details, such as rates, coverage limits, speeds, interest rates, and other terms. It then compares what you’re paying with lower-cost alternatives. Their goal is to find options that keep the main benefits of your current service.
2. Bill negotiation: Rather than simply telling you that another provider has a better price, WisePal can use comparable offers as leverage to negotiate a lower bill with your current provider, without downgrading your service.
3. Find the savings: According to WisePal, its users save an average of $1,272 per year. This is based on the “combined average annual savings across wireless, home internet, and TV service” for customers with all three bills. Even if WisePal finds a comparable provider at a lower price, you aren’t obligated to switch.
4. You save (and WisePal gets paid): As mentioned, WisePal doesn’t get paid unless it saves you money. If so, WisePal takes a cut of those savings. While it doesn’t publish a specific percentage, users choose the amount in advance, so the fees will not be a surprise.
How WisePal Finds Savings
WisePal doesn’t limit its search to one or two types of bills, like a cell phone or home internet bill. Depending on your situation, it can also look for savings from electricity, insurance, savings accounts, car loans, mortgages, credit card debt, and property taxes.
With recurring bills, it can find comparable offers and use those prices to negotiate with your current provider. However, for other expenses, it might find a lower cost product or another savings opportunity. Your actual savings will depend on the number and types of bills WisePal works with and what alternatives are available at the time.
Continuous Monitoring
One nice things about WisePal is that it isn’t a “one-and-done” service. It can continue monitoring your bills and the market, looking for new opportunities.
For example, WisePal may identify that you’re paying more than the current market average, find a new opportunity to negotiate your bill, or alert you that a promotional rate is ending. You’ll also receive a monthly summary showing what you’re paying, what’s changes, and where you might find new opportunities to save.
The ongoing monitoring is a nice feature, because what is a good price today, might not be a year from now!
Are There Any Fees?
WisePal doesn’t charge any upfront fees because it only gets paid when it saves you money. However, if it negotiates a lower bill on your behalf, you’ll pay a percentage of the savings it generates. You’re charged only after WisePal secures the savings. Interestingly, you choose the percentage you want to share with WisePal.
If WisePal fails to negotiate a lower price, you don’t pay a negotiation fee. You can also compare alternative providers and switch through WisePal without being charged.
How Does WisePal Compare?
Other platforms offer bill negotiation services, similar to WisePal. Rocket Money, for example, offers bill negotiation as part of a broader personal finance offering that includes budgeting and subscription management. Its negotiation fee ranges from 35% to 60% of your first-year savings, with users choosing the percentage they pay.
Billshark is more narrowly focused than Rocket Money. It helps you lower your bills and charges a one-time fee equal to 40% of the savings it secures for you. Like WisePal, you don’t pay Billshark unless it finds you savings.
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How Do I Open An Account?
You can get started from the WisePal website by selecting the “Get Started” or “Check for Savings” buttons. From there, you’ll be asked to list your main bills, such as your phone plan, home internet, cable, or streaming, and include your current provider. Wisepal will also ask if you have car insurance or wish to cut your electricity costs. You’ll follow a few steps to verify your bill accounts, but WisePal says the initial process takes about 90 seconds.
Is It Safe And Secure?
According to WisePal, it encrypts and protects customer information using industry-standard security measures. It also says that its security is regularly reviewed by NCC Group, a cybersecurity company.
As with any service that analyzes your personal finance information or bills, you’ll need to decide whether you are comfortable sharing your information with WisePal. I recommend reading its privacy policy and terms of service so that you understand how it handles the information it collects, before you sign up.
How Do I Contact WisePal?
You can speak with a WisePal representative by calling +1 (979) 271-6060 during the following business hours:
Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST.
You can also email WisePal support at hello@wisepal.com. WisePal says that the average response time is two hours. You can also use the contact form on its website to reach out.
Is It Worth It?
I like WisePal’s basic premise. It solves a problem many of us have but often put off because it feels like too much friction. I also like that they don’t force you to switch providers; they just show the available options. And the success-based pricing (they only get paid if you save) limits your risk. That said, you still need to consider that you will be giving up a portion of your savings for something you could do yourself if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.
One thing I don’t like is the lack of transparency around the fees. While WisePal says you choose your fee, I couldn’t find any estimate or fee range anywhere on its website. Billshark, on the other hand, states directly on its website homepage that its fee is 40%. Rocket Money states that its fees range from 35% to 60%, and the customer chooses. If Wisepal makes a similar disclosure, I couldn’t find it. You have to assume its fees fall in a similar range to Rocket Money and Billshark.
Ultimately, if you’re comfortable negotiating bills and doing your own comparison shopping, you probably don’t need a service like this. But if you’d rather have someone else do the legwork, WisePal could be an easy way to find savings without spending hours calling providers.
Check out WisePal here >>
Editor: Robert Farrington
The post WisePal Review: Save Money On Bills And More appeared first on The College Investor.
Trump made more stock trades in July than Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made all of last year
President Donald Trump’s financial accounts made nearly 40 times as many trades in one month as those belonging to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a Wall Street veteran with decades of experience.
Trump earlier this week disclosed 1,156 transactions made by accounts in his name in July, including 440 purchases and 716 sales, according to a report filed with the Office of Government Ethics. In total, his transactions represented at least $79 million and at most $270 million in trades, according to a Fortune analysis of the report. The exact dollar amount associated with each trade was not disclosed.
That compares with Bessent, who disclosed just 29 transactions for all of 2025.
All of Bessent’s transactions were sales, according to an Office of Government Ethics report. Several of the transactions involved his interests in entities related to Key Square, the hedge fund he founded in 2015 and left to join the administration. Others were sales of individual stock in companies like Verizon and Archer-Daniels-Midland. A JPMorgan Chase stake owned by Bessent’s husband John Freeman was also inadvertently reported as a deposit account previously and was adjusted, according to the report.
Bessent agreed to divest assets that could conflict with his new role when he agreed to become Treasury secretary.
As for Trump’s transactions, a White House spokesperson previously told Fortune the president’s assets are held in a trust measured by his children. Meanwhile, the large number of transactions is due to third-party “computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000,” the spokesperson told Fortune.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
A federal conflict of interest law 18 U.S. Code 208 legally prevents most federal officials from acts affecting a personal financial interest, but this doesn’t apply to the president and vice president. Trump’s volume of trading has ramped up during his second term. A disclosure filed with the OGE showed the president’s accounts recorded more than 21,000 transactions during his first year back in office.
To be sure, it’s unusual for a president to maintain ownership of an actively traded portfolio of individual securities while in office. Since Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, all modern presidents have either adopted a blind trust or limited their investments to non-conflicting assets like diversified mutual funds, said Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, in 2017 remarks.
Just months before resigning as director of the OGE during Trump’s first term, Shaub said in remarks at the Brookings Institution Trump’s plan to handle his financials while in office, “doesn’t meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every president in the past four decades has met.”
The scale of transactions stemming from Trump’s accounts has also prompted criticism from politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who in a letter to Trump said: “The sheer volume of this trading activity and the timing of a number of transactions, raise questions about whether you are using your knowledge of government activities, your official authority, or the vast megaphone provided by the Presidency to make investments or move markets to your personal benefit…”
Yet meanwhile, Trump has backed new restrictions on stock trading for members of Congress. The Trump administration in July said it “strongly supports” the Stop Insider Trading Act, that would prohibit members of Congress and their families from buying stock in companies while in office. The bill was opposed by some Democratic lawmakers because it includes a provision that would impose new ID requirements for voting in federal elections.
While the House passed the bill this summer, it is still being considered by the Senate. The bill’s restriction on trading would not apply to the president and vice president.
X Money Drops Premium Requirement, Offers Up to 6% APY
X Money Drops Premium Requirement, Offers Up to 6% APY
X Money has made an important change to its new financial account: an X Premium or Premium+ subscription is no longer required. That’s notable because the monthly or annual subscription cost previously ate into the value of the account. Doctor of Credit reported the change on September 23.
X Money offers up to 6% APY, although eligibility varies. X’s official site says Premium+ users qualify for 6%, while other users may qualify for the boosted rate by meeting the qualifying direct-deposit requirement. X Money is not itself a bank; funds are held at Cross River Bank and other FDIC-insured institutions, with X advertising up to $10 million in FDIC coverage through its cash sweep program, subject to applicable requirements.
New York Residents Get a $300 Bonus Instead
There’s an important difference for New York residents. X Money does not currently pay interest in New York. Instead, New York customers can earn a $300 bonus after receiving $3,000 in qualifying direct deposits.
X defines a qualifying deposit as an ACH direct deposit with a PPD SEC code or qualifying X Creator payouts from Original Content Rewards, Creator Revenue Sharing or Creator Subscriptions. See terms here.
Up to 3% Cash Back With X Card
The X Card also offers up to 3% cash back on eligible purchases. However, the exclusion list has recently expanded and now includes categories such as utilities, wholesale clubs, insurance premiums, colleges and universities, and jewelry stores, in addition to several previously excluded categories (Utilities, Wholesale Clubs, Jewelry Stores, Watches, Clocks, and Silverware Stores, Insurance Underwriting, Premiums Colleges, Universities).
There’s also reportedly a $25 signup bonus, although some users have received only $15.
Guru’s Wrap-up
Dropping the X Premium requirement makes X Money considerably more interesting. Up to 6% APY plus up to 3% back on debit card purchases is a good combination, although you’ll want to pay attention to the growing list of excluded purchases.
These rates might not last long, but it should still be worth signing up and take what you can.
Better Copy Starts With Listening to Your Customers
Catch the Full Episode:
Overview
Your customers usually describe your value better than you do. In this episode, John Jantsch sits down with Joanna Wiebe to talk about getting their words onto your website, into your emails, and in front of the prospects who look just like them.
Wiebe lays out a lean approach to voice of customer research that a small business can set up in an afternoon. She explains how to put your messages in the right order so prospects move from feeling a problem to choosing you. She also shares where AI belongs in the process and where you should keep your own hands on the keyboard.
This one is for small business owners, marketers, and consultants who want copy that sounds like their best customers wrote it.
About the Guest
Wiebe is the founder of Copyhackers, and many copywriters call her the original conversion copywriter. For more than 15 years, she has taught copywriters, marketers, and founders to write copy that sells, with clients ranging from early-stage startups to AWS and Calendly. Her newest book is The Copyselling System: Write to Sell with the Secret Formula for Maximizing Revenue.
Key Takeaways
- Interview about 7 customers, and choose the ones you most want more of. If you only have 2 ideal customers, interview those 2 and skip the rest.
- Add one survey question to every confirmation page in your business: “What was going on in your life that brought you to [action] today?” Use a long answer box and pipe responses into Slack or a spreadsheet so your team sees them.
- Before rewriting anything, find the bottleneck in your growth. Write a 1-page solution design by hand that names the constraint and shows where copy does and doesn’t fit the fix.
- Move prospects through the stages of awareness in order. Start with problems in their life or business, then category challenges, and only then your product.
- Let AI sort voice of customer data from sales call notes and online conversations into a shared message matrix spreadsheet. Your team writes the emails, and 60 words is a good target.
Great Moments
- [05:57] Jantsch points out that people who answer a post-signup survey are making a small commitment that makes them more engaged with the business.
- [14:38] Jantsch describes how marketers have lost control of the customer journey over the last 5 years because the way buyers research and buy has changed so much.
- [13:28] Wiebe explains why prospects can’t tell your AI feature from a competitor’s weaker one, and why your copy should blame the category instead of the buyer.
- [16:20] Jantsch asks whether businesses now need pricing, full reviews, and every case study online to answer the 100-word prompts buyers type into AI tools.
- [22:10] Wiebe describes the “brain dulled” feeling of reading an AI draft and deciding to scrap it and write the thing yourself.
Memorable Quotes
- “All we’re doing with research is trying to learn how to clone our best customers. And the way to clone them is to know what’s going on in their head and throw it on the page so everybody else who’s like them sees it.” – Joanna Wiebe
- “The Copyselling System is intentionally called copyselling, not copywriting. Stop thinking about it as writing, just stop. Now we’re copyselling.” – Joanna Wiebe
- “This is a place where you can start training AI on your message matrix, knowing that it’s more about AI knowing what to say about you than it is about you saying that thing about you on your website anymore.” – Joanna Wiebe
- “AI came to party and I think we should party. But that means it has to come through for us too. We don’t just blindly accept whatever it says.” – Joanna Wiebe
- “Humans make mistakes in their writing. They do run-on sentences, they abbreviate things, they use slang. Good human writing sounds like human talking, and if you read some of the AI copy, you think, I would never speak like that.” – John Jantsch
Resources
AI copywriting, Content Marketing, conversion copywriting, Copyhackers, copyselling, Copywriting, customer interviews, customer research, email marketing, Joanna Wiebe, message matrix, Small Business Marketing, stages of awareness, voice of customer, website copy
Bond selloff deepens after 30-year yield hits highest since 2004
Yields on the US’s longest-dated bonds climbed to the highest level in more than two decades, the latest milestone in a global selloff driven by inflation fears and concern about government debt burdens.
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A fresh jump in oil prices on Thursday lifted five- to 30-year Treasury yields to new multiyear highs, with the 30-year rising to levels just shy of 5.5%, the highest since 2004. Ten-year yields rose 10 basis points to 5.21%, the highest since 2007.
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“It’s the aftermath of an explosion,” said Bryce Doty, a bond fund manager at Sit Investment Associates. “People are trying to pick through the debris for clues — is this an overreaction or the beginning of another move upward in yields?”
The rise in oil prices and broad inflation gauges over the past six months led the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates last week for the first time since 2023, and expectations for additional increases over the coming year have picked up. Swaps now fully reflect three quarter-point hikes over the next year from the Fed, with significant hedging for a fourth.
Oil prices — a dominant driver of Treasury yields since the US attacked Iran in late February, causing a Middle East supply shock —
In the Treasury market, two-year yields have climbed over 150 basis points since the start of the US-Iran war, while those on the 30-year are up over 80 basis points.
Mounting borrowing costs are a threat to the Republican majorities in congress in the November midterm elections, as dissatisfaction over lofty mortgage rates and the cost of living rises. US President Donald Trump has called for US interest rates to be “1%, or less” and criticized what he called a “hostile” Fed board for the decision to raise rates.
The continued yield rise undercuts the Treasury’s efforts to bring down long-term borrowing costs: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expanded the government’s bond buyback program in mid-August in an effort to ease pressure.
On Thursday, the department accepted $4.08 billion of the $6 billion maximum it targeted in an operation for 20- to 30-year securities. Yields rose, signaling disappointment with the outcome. The Treasury also bought back less than it sought at its in first expanded buyback on Sept. 10.
“What surprised the market was that they didn’t go to the full $6 billion after how much we’ve had a selloff in the last few days,” said Brij Khurana, a portfolio manager at Wellington Management. “I thought the purpose of the buybacks was to deal with drastic or illiquid price movement, and you could kind of argue that yesterday was that day.”
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To Khurana, it leads to the question: “If they’re not going to buy back the max amount after these conditions, when are they going to?”
US five-year yields topped
Global Selloff
The selloff extended to other major global bond markets, with European yields also mostly on the rise, and those on Japan’s government debt hitting levels last seen in 1996 as the market reopened after a three-day break.
The average yield on government debt worldwide now stands within a whisker of 4%, the highest since 2007, Bloomberg’s Global Aggregate Treasuries index shows. It’s another reminder of the end of the low-yield era as markets contend with the inflationary impact of the war in Iran, a
“It’s rare you get a move like this in bonds,” said Dave Aspell, co-chief investment officer at Mount Lucas Management LP, who is short 10-year bonds in the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan and the US. “The Fed has hiked again, inflation is clearly not at target. The economy is doing okay and there’s a large amount of government spending.”
Strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and KKR & Co. see scope for US yields to
A $44 billion seven-year note auction on Thursday, meanwhile, was awarded at 5.085% — the highest on record since the tenor was reintroduced in 2009 — luring demand that fell short of expectations.
Rising volatility is adding to the gloom, making investors more hesitant to step in even as higher yields make bonds more attractive. The ICE BofA MOVE Index, which measures US bond market swings, climbed Wednesday to the highest level since March.
“Most fixed income will like higher yields, but want them to be stable there,” said Hans Mikkelsen, a strategist at TD Securities. Investors are “afraid of catching a falling knife,” he said.
Class 12 Business Administration Unit 2 Concept of Management One Shot Series
Unit 2 focuses on understanding the fundamental concepts and theoretical foundations of management[1][2]. This unit provides students with comprehensive knowledge about the **nature of management** and explores various management theories that have shaped modern business practices.
### **Key Topics Covered:**
**2.1 Nature of Management**
– Understanding management as an **Art, Science, and Profession**[2][3]
– Exploring the different perspectives and characteristics of management
**2.2 Concept and Thoughts of Management**
The unit covers three major management approaches[1][2]:
– **Classical Approach** – Traditional management theories
– **Scientific Management** – Taylor’s systematic approach to management
– **Neo-Classical Approach** – Modern evolution of management thought
**2.3 Principles of Management**
This section emphasizes[2][3]:
– **Need for Management Principles** and their significance
– **Taylor’s Scientific Management** principles and contributions
– **Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management** – comprehensive guidelines for effective management practice
### **Learning Objectives**
Students will develop understanding of:
– The fundamental **nature and concept of management**[1]
– Various **theoretical approaches** to management thinking
– **Principles that guide managerial decision-making** and behavior[4]
– How these principles can be applied in real business scenarios
### **Assessment Focus**
The unit carries **25 hours** of instruction time and **8 marks** in the final examination[3]. Students are expected to understand both theoretical concepts and their practical applications in modern business environments.
This unit serves as the foundation for understanding how management principles guide organizational effectiveness and efficiency in achieving business goals[1].
Sources
[1] [PDF] Unit 2 – Concept of Management – CBSE Academic
[2] [PDF] Business Administration (subject code – CBSE Academic
[3] [PDF] business administration (833) – CBSE Academic
[4] Principles of Management class 12 Notes Business Studies
[5] Principles of Management Class 12 Business Studies Notes – Vedantu
[6] CBSE Class 12 Business Studies Syllabus 2023-24
[7] Business Studies Class 12 Notes – Free PDF – Vedantu
[8] Class 12 Unit 2 Principles of Management | PDF – Scribd
[9] [PDF] PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT CHAPTER – NCERT
[10] [PDF] 2 principles of management revision notes
[11] Access NCERT Solutions for Class 12 Business Studies Chapter 2
[12] GNG Business studies | Day 2 | Chapter 2 | Class 12 – YouTube
[13] Class 12 Chapter 2 Business Studies Revision Notes | PDF – Scribd
[14] Class 12 Business Studies Unit 2 Principles of Management …
[15] [PDF] CHAPTER 2: PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT – CASE STUDIES
source
Trade Credit or Debt? An Operating-Cycle Test
Days Inventory Outstanding, or DIO, measures how long a company typically holds inventory before it is sold. Trade credit can plausibly be treated as operating credit while it finances that period, plus a reasonable administrative buffer for invoicing, reconciliation, quality checks, and payment processing.
But once payment duration materially exceeds DIO plus that buffer, the operational rationale weakens. The payable has outlived the physical flow of goods. The retained cash is no longer tied to inventory conversion. It is general liquidity.
A practical benchmark therefore focuses on excess payable days: the extent to which days payable outstanding (DPO) exceeds DIO plus the buffer. Payment days beyond that threshold indicate that the buyer continues to retain cash after the goods have been converted into sales. The debt-like amount is therefore the financing associated with those excess days, calculated as excess payable days multiplied by average daily cost of goods sold.
This is not an anti-trade-credit rule. It is a rule designed to protect trade credit. It preserves operating classification for the part of payables that plausibly supports supply-chain activity and reclassifies only the excess portion that behaves like financing.
The example is straightforward. If a retailer turns inventory every 40 days but pays suppliers after 120 days, the first 40 days may support the operating cycle. A further buffer may be justified for administrative and commercial frictions. But the remaining extension is difficult to explain as ordinary trade credit. It is liquidity provided to the buyer after the inventory has already been converted into sales.
The test is intended as an analytical benchmark rather than a universal bright-line rule. Operating cycles vary across industries and firms, and factors such as seasonality, inventory mix, supplier terms, and legitimate administrative delays may justify longer payment periods. The purpose of the threshold is therefore not to establish that every payable beyond it is debt, but to identify the point at which the operating rationale warrants closer scrutiny.
Once payment terms extend beyond the operating cycle, what operational purpose still justifies treating the liability as trade credit?