BUSINESS

The asset management giant’s Robbie Mitchnic said clients are focused on bitcoin, ether and only a few other tokens, and aren’t looking for broad exposure. Rather, they see opportunity for crypto in artificial intelligence.

After last season ended with a cliffhanger, Coxy, Season Two’s costume designer, knew she had to pull out all the stops to give fans the characters this story deserves.

His approval rating fell four points from last week’s Reuters/Ipsos poll.

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this dealNow that spring has sprung, you may be boxing up your flannel pajamas to swap them out for lighter loungewear options. I’m a fan of both nightshirts and two-piece lounge sets at this time of year, so I always keep an eye out for good deals on them, and that’s how Amazon’s deal on the Ekouaer 2-Piece Lounge Set caught my eye.Currently just $12, this lounge set pairs a pajama-style button-down top with a flirty pair of ruffled drawstring shorts. They’re perfect for everything from lounging around the house on a lazy Sunday to sleeping comfortably on a warm spring night. If you want some lightweight options to wear at home, these are a perfect pick.Ekouaer 2-Piece Lounge Set, $12 (was $13) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at AmazonWhy do shoppers love it?While spring weather is the perfect time to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, there’s a lot to be said for a restorative day spent indoors. Whether your hobby of choice is crafting, working on DIY projects in the garage, or catching up on that seemingly endless pile of books you keep meaning to read, this downtime can provide important rest that can energize you when you need to be on during the work week.This lounge set is the perfect uniform for that. The polyester and spandex blend is both lightweight and comfortable, not to mention pretty. The short-sleeved top is soft to the touch and falls at hip length, and the shorts are great if you sleep hot. The ruffle on the hem lends a feminine touch that makes them feel extra special. And no matter what your favorite color is, you can probably have it, since there are 21 colors to choose from.Another nice thing about this lounge set is the inclusive size range. It’s offered in 3X small, a size option you rarely see. You can also choose any size from XXS to XX-Large. Care is easy, as you can machine wash these or hand wash them if you prefer. As always, we recommend that you wash on cold and tumble dry on low to avoid shrinkage, and to protect the fabric, you may want to use a garment bag.Details to knowColors: 21, but the sale price is only for the pink, black, white, Wind Red, and navy blue.Material: Polyester and spandex.Machine-washable?: Yes. Related: Walmart is selling a 2-piece lounge set for $24 that comes in 6 colorsWith more than 1,400 five-star ratings, it’s safe to say shoppers love this lounge set. “I’m so glad I treated myself to these pajamas!” one shopper wrote. “The fit and style are perfect, flattering without being tight, and the color is absolutely gorgeous. I own several pairs now because they’re consistently comfortable, great quality, and they hold up wash after wash.”Many shoppers say this lounge set makes a perfect bridesmaid gift. “I wanted mismatched PJs for my bridesmaids and bought this pair to complete my aesthetic — and it ended up being one of my favorites!” one shopper wrote. “The stretchy waistband and silky material are amazing. I already want one for myself!”Shop more deals Anliqi Cotton Pajama Set, $23 (was $32) at AmazonPatpat 2-Piece Bamboo Lounge Set, $18 (was $24) at AmazonHanes 2-Piece Loungewear Set, $18 (was $28) at AmazonIf you’re looking for lightweight loungewear to wear this spring, the Ekouaer 2-Piece Lounge Set is a fantastic deal. At a price this low, you can grab a few sets and be cool and comfy all season long.

When I bought my first house, I had already been reporting on mortgages and real estate for a couple of years. I knew the statistics about how much it cost to buy a home.Somehow, I still found myself shell-shocked when the total amount due at closing was printed in bold, black ink in front of me. I felt overwhelmed and even confused.According to the January 2026 Best Interest Financial True Cost of Home Buying Survey, most homebuyers have a similar experience.Real estate agent-matching service Clever Real Estate and mortgage broker Best Interest Financial surveyed 947 Americans who bought homes in 2023, 2024, and 2025. They conducted this research from mid-to-late January 2026. The survey revealed just how much buying a home cost Americans on average — and how these costs impacted buyers afterward.The report revealed that homebuyers spent an average of $31,502 in upfront costs, not including the down payment. This was roughly four times what they expected to pay, which was $8,083 on average.The number represented closing costs, moving costs, and other miscellaneous expenses.Costs that surprised homebuyers the mostThe surveyed homebuyers had bought homes in the last three years, and the typical cost of buying a house totaled $31,502. Here’s how those expenses broke down:Moving costs: $3,032Closing costs (e.g., appraisals and underwriting fees): $5,719Seller concessions (e.g., paying a portion of the seller’s closing costs): $7,678Repairs and renovations in the first year: $15,073Of those polled, 18% said repairs and renovations were the most surprising cost. Sixteen percent chose closing costs, and 14% said property taxes. (Property taxes are both a closing cost and an ongoing homeownership expense.)It wasn’t so long ago that sellers were entirely responsible for covering both seller and buyer real estate agents’ commissions. However, a 2024 settlement with the National Association of Realtors removed the rule that sellers must cover both parties’ fees.”Although most sellers continue to pay the buyer’s commission cost as a way to attract home shoppers, some buyers may be responsible for their agent’s compensation,” according to the report.Related: Financial influencer shares if buying a home is a waste of moneyA Clever Real Estate survey found that the average commission for a buyer’s real estate agent is 2.82%. The average sales price of houses sold in America was $534,000, according to the most recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. If a buyer paid a 2.82% agent commission on $534,000 house, they would owe an additional $15,058 at closing.Using the national averages, the typical cost of buying a home (not counting the down payment) would jump from $31,502 to $46,560 for homebuyers in this position. And since not all buyers have to pay this fee, I can understand how it would take someone by surprise.Three-fourths of homebuyers experienced regretsAbout 75% of those surveyed reported that “the cost of buying significantly impacted their finances in the first year of owning their home.” Twenty-nine percent claimed they had to cut back on discretionary spending, 23% drained most or all of their savings, 17% accrued more debt, and 16% put less toward other debt payments.Almost three-fourths of participants (72%) said they have regrets about their home purchase, and 73% claimed that if they could go back in time, they would make different decisions.More on mortgages and home affordability:Financial influencer warns homeowners about this mistakeTrump signs 2 executive orders to improve home affordabilityFannie Mae predicts shifts in mortgage rates, housing marketThe most notable home-buying regrets were that they didn’t negotiate with the seller more (21%), were unprepared for home-related expenses in the first year (18%), and went over budget (17%).Looking back, a large chunk of participants said they wished they had been more aggressive in the negotiation process and made lower offers. Many also would have planned for more post-purchase expenses (such as repairs and maintenance) and requested more seller’s concessions. The homebuyers thought they could have saved $38,082, on average, had they handled the home-buying process differently.First-time homebuyers impacted more than repeat buyersThe Best Interest Financial True Cost of Home Buying Survey evaluated both first-time and repeat buyers. Both groups spent more than expected, but first-timers faced the brunt of the surprise. “First-time buyers are often unprepared for this major expense, with 41% saying they did not feel fully informed about the total cost of buying a home before making an offer,” the study said.First-time homebuyers spent roughly 30% more on these buying expenses than repeat buyers — $36,460 versus $28,260, respectively.”Without a complete understanding of the cost, many first-timers miscalculated how much they’d need for their home purchase,” according to the study. Sixty-one percent of first-time homebuyers reported going over budget, while 44% of repeat buyers said they overspent. First-time buyers were almost twice as likely to buy a fixer-upper than those who had bought before, so they spent an average of $1,079 more on repairs in the first year.On average, repeat homebuyers spent $5,556 on seller concessions, while first-timers spent almost double at $10,928. The study showed that first-time buyers were more eager to buy, and many paid more to meet that goal. Sixty-eight percent of first-time buyers wished they had done more negotiating.When it came to closing costs, first-timers spent about $1,000 more on average. It seems this was because they were less likely to make a large down payment or negotiate lender fees compared to people who had previously bought a house.
Source: Best Interest Financial True Cost of Home Buying Survey, January 2026
Related: Trump signs 2 executive orders to improve home affordability

Robin Vince says large banks can bridge digital assets and traditional finance as trust and regulation shape the next phase of growth.

Web infrastructure giant Cloudlflare is seeking to transform the way enterprises deploy AI agents with the open beta release of Dynamic Workers, a new lightweight, isolate-based sandboxing system that it says starts in milliseconds, uses only a few megabytes of memory, and can run on the same machine — even the same thread — as the request that created it. Compared with traditional Linux containers, the company says that makes Dynamic Workers roughly 100x faster to start and between 10x and 100x more memory efficient.Cloudflare has spent months pushing what it calls “Code Mode,” the idea that large language models often perform better when they are given an API and asked to write code against it, rather than being forced into one tool call after another. The company says converting an MCP server into a TypeScript API can cut token usage by 81%, and it is now positioning Dynamic Workers as the secure execution layer that makes that approach practical at scale.For enterprise technical decision makers, that is the bigger story. Cloudflare is trying to turn sandboxing itself into a strategic layer in the AI stack. If agents increasingly generate small pieces of code on the fly to retrieve data, transform files, call services or automate workflows, then the economics and safety of the runtime matter almost as much as the capabilities of the model. Cloudflare’s pitch is that containers and microVMs remain useful, but they are too heavy for a future where millions of users may each have one or more agents writing and executing code constantly.The history of modern isolated runtime environmentsTo understand why Cloudflare is doing this, it helps to look at the longer arc of secure code execution. Modern sandboxing has evolved through three main models, each trying to build a better digital box: smaller, faster and more specialized than the one before it.The first model is the isolate. Google introduced the v8::Isolate API in 2011 so the V8 JavaScript engine could run many separate execution contexts efficiently inside the same process. In effect, a single running program could spin up many small, tightly separated compartments, each with its own code and variables. In 2017, Cloudflare adapted that browser-born idea for the cloud with Workers, betting that the traditional cloud stack was too slow for instant, globally distributed web tasks. The result was a runtime that could start code in milliseconds and pack many environments onto a single machine. The trade-off is that isolates are not full computers. They are strongest with JavaScript, TypeScript and WebAssembly, and less natural for workloads that expect a traditional machine environment.The second model is the container. Containers had been technically possible for years through Linux kernel features, but the company Docker turned them into the default software packaging model when it popularized them in 2013.Containers solved a huge portability problem by letting developers package code, libraries and settings into a predictable unit that could run consistently across systems. That made them foundational to modern cloud infrastructure. But they are relatively heavy for the sort of short-lived tasks Cloudflare is talking about here. The company says containers generally take hundreds of milliseconds to boot and hundreds of megabytes of memory to run, which becomes costly and slow when an AI-generated task only needs to execute for a moment.The third model is the microVM. Popularized by AWS Firecracker in 2018, microVMs were designed to offer stronger machine-like isolation than containers without the full bulk of a traditional virtual machine. They are attractive for running untrusted code, which is why they have started to show up in newer AI-agent systems such as Docker Sandboxes. But they still sit between the other two models: stronger isolation and more flexibility than an isolate, but slower and heavier as well.That is the backdrop for Cloudflare’s pitch. The company is not claiming containers disappear, or that microVMs stop mattering. It is claiming that for a growing class of web-scale, short-lived AI-agent workloads, the default box has been too heavy, and the isolate may now be the better fit.Cloudflare’s case against the container bottleneckCloudflare’s argument is blunt: for “consumer-scale” agents, containers are too slow and too expensive. In the company’s framing, a container is fine when a workload persists, but it is a bad fit when an agent needs to run one small computation, return a result and disappear. Developers either keep containers warm, which costs money, or tolerate cold-start delay, which hurts responsiveness. They may also be tempted to reuse a live sandbox across multiple tasks, which weakens isolation.Dynamic Worker Loader is Cloudflare’s answer. The API allows one Worker to instantiate another Worker at runtime with code provided on the fly, usually by a language model. Because these dynamic Workers are built on isolates, Cloudflare says they can be created on demand, run one snippet of code, and then be thrown away immediately afterward. In many cases, they run on the same machine and even the same thread as the Worker that created them, which removes the need to hunt for a warm sandbox somewhere else on the network.The company is also pushing hard on scale. It says many container-based sandbox providers limit concurrent sandboxes or the rate at which they can be created, while Dynamic Workers inherit the same platform characteristics that already let Workers scale to millions of requests per second. In Cloudflare’s telling, that makes it possible to imagine a world where every user-facing AI request gets its own fresh, isolated execution environment without collapsing under startup overhead.Security remains the hardest partCloudflare does not pretend this is easy to secure. In fact, the company explicitly says hardening an isolate-based sandbox is trickier than relying on hardware virtual machines, and notes that security bugs in V8 are more common than those in typical hypervisors. That is an important admission, because the entire thesis depends on convincing developers that an ultra-fast software sandbox can also be safe enough for AI-generated code.Cloudflare’s response is that it has nearly a decade of experience doing exactly that. The company points to automatic rollout of V8 security patches within hours, a custom second-layer sandbox, dynamic cordoning of tenants based on risk, extensions to the V8 sandbox using hardware features like MPK, and research into defenses against Spectre-style side-channel attacks. It also says it scans code for malicious patterns and can block or further sandbox suspicious workloads automatically. Dynamic Workers inherit that broader Workers security model.That matters because without the security story, the speed story sounds risky. With it, Cloudflare is effectively arguing that it has already spent years making isolate-based multi-tenancy safe enough for the public web, and can now reuse that work for the age of AI agents.Code Mode: from tool orchestration to generated logicThe release makes the most sense in the context of Cloudflare’s larger Code Mode strategy. The idea is simple: instead of giving an agent a long list of tools and asking it to call them one by one, give it a programming surface and let it write a short TypeScript function that performs the logic itself. That means the model can chain calls together, filter data, manipulate files and return only the final result, rather than filling the context window with every intermediate step. Cloudflare says that cuts both latency and token usage, and improves outcomes especially when the tool surface is large.The company points to its own Cloudflare MCP server as proof of concept. Rather than exposing the full Cloudflare API as hundreds of individual tools, it says the server exposes the entire API through two tools — search and execute — in under 1,000 tokens because the model writes code against a typed API instead of navigating a long tool catalog.That is a meaningful architectural shift. It moves the center of gravity from tool orchestration toward code execution. And it makes the execution layer itself far more important.Why Cloudflare thinks TypeScript beats HTTP for agentsOne of the more interesting parts of the launch is that Cloudflare is also arguing for a different interface layer. MCP, the company says, defines schemas for flat tool calls but not for programming APIs. OpenAPI can describe REST APIs, but it is verbose both in schema and in usage. TypeScript, by contrast, is concise, widely represented in model training data, and can communicate an API’s shape in far fewer tokens.Cloudflare says the Workers runtime can automatically establish a Cap’n Web RPC bridge between the sandbox and the harness code, so a dynamic Worker can call those typed interfaces across the security boundary as if it were using a local library. That lets developers expose only the exact capabilities they want an agent to have, without forcing the model to reason through a sprawling HTTP interface.The company is not banning HTTP. In fact, it says Dynamic Workers fully support HTTP APIs. But it clearly sees TypeScript RPC as the cleaner long-term interface for machine-generated code, both because it is cheaper in tokens and because it gives developers a narrower, more intentional security surface.Credential injection and tighter control over outbound accessOne of the more practical enterprise features in the release is globalOutbound, which lets developers intercept every outbound HTTP request from a Dynamic Worker. They can inspect it, rewrite it, inject credentials, respond to it directly, or block it entirely. That makes it possible to let an agent reach outside services while never exposing raw secrets to the generated code itself.Cloudflare positions that as a safer way to connect agents to third-party services requiring authentication. Instead of trusting the model not to mishandle credentials, the developer can add them on the way out and keep them outside the agent’s visible environment. In enterprise settings, that kind of blast-radius control may matter as much as the performance gains.More than a runtime: the helper libraries matter tooAnother reason the announcement lands as more than a low-level runtime primitive is that Cloudflare is shipping a toolkit around it. The @cloudflare/codemode package is designed to simplify running model-generated code against AI tools using Dynamic Workers. At its core is DynamicWorkerExecutor(), which sets up a purpose-built sandbox with code normalization and direct control over outbound fetch behavior. The package also includes utility functions to wrap an MCP server into a single code() tool or generate MCP tooling from an OpenAPI spec.The @cloudflare/worker-bundler package handles the fact that Dynamic Workers expect pre-bundled modules. It can resolve npm dependencies, bundle them with esbuild, and return the module map the Worker Loader expects. The @cloudflare/shell package adds a virtual filesystem backed by a durable Workspace using SQLite and R2, with higher-level operations like read, write, search, replace, diff and JSON update, plus transactional batch writes.Taken together, those packages make the launch feel much more complete. Cloudflare is not just exposing a fast sandbox API. It is building the surrounding path from model-generated logic to packaged execution to persistent file manipulation.Isolates versus microVMs: two different homes for agentsCloudflare’s launch also highlights a growing split in the AI-agent market. One side emphasizes fast, disposable, web-scale execution. The other emphasizes deeper, more persistent environments with stronger machine-like boundaries.Docker Sandboxes is a useful contrast. Rather than using standard containers alone, it uses lightweight microVMs to give each agent its own private Docker daemon, allowing the agent to install packages, run commands and modify files without directly exposing the host system. That is a better fit for persistent, local or developer-style environments. Cloudflare is optimizing for something different: short-lived, high-volume execution on the global web.So the trade-off is not simply security versus speed. It is depth versus velocity. MicroVMs offer a sturdier private fortress and broader flexibility. Isolates offer startup speed, density and lower cost at internet scale. That distinction may become one of the main dividing lines in agent infrastructure over the next year.Community reaction: hype, rivalry and the JavaScript catchThe release also drew immediate attention from developers on X, with reactions that captured both excitement and skepticism. Brandon Strittmatter, a Cloudflare product lead and founder of Outerbase, called the move “classic Cloudflare,” praising the company for “changing the current paradigm on containers/sandboxes by reinventing them to be lightweight, less expensive, and ridiculously fast.” Zephyr Cloud CEO Zack Chapple called the release “worth shouting from the mountain tops.”But the strongest caveat surfaced quickly too: this system works best when the agent writes JavaScript. Cloudflare says Workers can technically run Python and WebAssembly, but that for small, on-demand snippets, “JavaScript will load and run much faster.” That prompted criticism from YouTuber and ThursdAI podcast host Alex Volkov, who wrote that he “got excited… until I got here,” reacting to the language constraint.Cloudflare’s defense is pragmatic and a little provocative. Humans have language loyalties, the company argues, but agents do not. In Cloudflare’s words, “AI will write any language you want it to,” and JavaScript is simply well suited to sandboxed execution on the web. That may be true in the narrow sense the company intends, but it also means the platform is most naturally aligned with teams already comfortable in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem.The announcement also triggered immediate competitive positioning. Nathan Flurry of Rivet used the moment to contrast his Secure Exec product as an open-source alternative that supports a broader range of platforms including Vercel, Railway and Kubernetes rather than being tied closely to Cloudflare’s own stack. That reaction is worth noting because it shows how quickly the sandboxing market around agents is already splitting between vertically integrated platforms and more portable approaches.Early use cases: AI apps, automations and generated platformsCloudflare is pitching Dynamic Workers for much more than quick code snippets. The company highlights Code Mode, AI-generated applications, fast development previews, custom automations and user platforms where customers upload or generate code that must run in a secure sandbox.One example it spotlights is Zite, which Cloudflare says is building an app platform where users interact through chat while the model writes TypeScript behind the scenes to build CRUD apps, connect to services like Stripe, Airtable and Google Calendar, and run backend logic. Cloudflare quotes Zite CTO and co-founder Antony Toron saying Dynamic Workers “hit the mark” on speed, isolation and security, and that the company now handles “millions of execution requests daily” using the system.Even allowing for vendor framing, that example gets at the company’s ambition. Cloudflare is not just trying to make agents a bit more efficient. It is trying to make AI-generated execution environments cheap and fast enough to sit underneath full products.Pricing and availabilityDynamic Worker Loader is now in open beta and available to all users on the Workers Paid plan. Cloudflare says dynamically loaded Workers are priced at $0.002 per unique Worker loaded per day, in addition to standard CPU and invocation charges, though that per-Worker fee is waived during the beta period. For one-off code generation use cases, the company says that cost is typically negligible compared with the inference cost of generating the code itself.That pricing model reinforces the larger thesis behind the product: that execution should become a small, routine part of the agent loop rather than a costly special case.The bigger pictureCloudflare’s launch lands at a moment when AI infrastructure is becoming more opinionated. Some vendors are leaning toward long-lived agent environments, persistent memory and machine-like execution. Cloudflare is taking the opposite angle. For many workloads, it argues, the right agent runtime is not a persistent container or a tiny VM, but a fast, disposable isolate that appears instantly, executes one generated program, and vanishes.That does not mean containers or microVMs go away. It means the market is starting to split by workload. Some enterprises will want deeper, more persistent environments. Others — especially those building high-volume, web-facing AI systems — may want an execution layer that is as ephemeral as the requests it serves.Cloudflare is betting that this second category gets very large, very quickly. And if that happens, Dynamic Workers may prove to be more than just another Workers feature. They may be Cloudflare’s attempt to define what the default execution layer for internet-scale AI agents looks like.

Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the FDD, joined “Forbes Newsroom” to discuss the state of the war against Iran as it continues through its fourth week.

You pay thousands of dollars every year to keep your kids in daycare so you can show up to work each morning.Then you sit down to file your taxes and discover that the IRS has a credit specifically designed for that expense. You might expect some meaningful relief, but the dollar amount you qualify for could leave you genuinely stunned.The child and dependent care credit is one of the most misunderstood provisions sitting inside the entire U.S. tax code. Millions of families claim it every single filing season, but most are surprised by how little they receive.If you belong to the so-called sandwich generation, caring for your kids and your aging parents at the same time, the gap between your spending and your tax benefit is even wider than you might expect heading into this tax filing season.The child and dependent care credit sounds generous until you run the numbersThe IRS lets you claim a percentage of your work-related child care expenses through the child and dependent care credit. Depending on your adjusted gross income, the credit covers between 20% and 35% of your qualifying care costs.Your maximum qualifying expenses are capped at $3,000 for one qualifying child and $6,000 for two or more qualifying children. For a family earning $60,000 per year with one child, the resulting credit works out to roughly $600 after doing the math.Compare that to what you actually pay out of pocket at a daycare center, and the disconnect becomes painfully obvious. The average annual cost of center-based child care now runs approximately $13,254 per child nationwide, according to the Economic Policy Institute.Who qualifies for this credit and what expenses count toward itYou qualify if you paid someone to care for a child under 13 or a disabled dependent so you could work or job-search. Both you and your spouse must have earned income to claim this credit if you are filing a joint tax return.Qualifying expenses include daycare center fees, after-school programs, babysitting services, and even summer day camp tuition for your children. Overnight camps, however, do not qualify under the IRS rules that govern this specific credit for the 2025 filing year.Daycare center fees and preschool tuition for children under 13 qualify as eligible work-related care expenses for this creditAfter-school programs and babysitting services while you work also count toward your maximum credit limit under IRS rulesYou cannot claim expenses paid to your spouse, your child’s other parent, or anyone you already claim as a dependentThe credit is nonrefundable for the 2025 tax year, meaning it can reduce your tax bill to zero but cannot generate a refundChild care costs are rising faster than this federal credit can possibly keep upAccording to Child Care Aware of America, the average annual daycare cost for two children recently reached $28,168 nationwide. That figure represents roughly 35% of the median annual income of a single-parent household in the United States today.Related: Parents need a $257K raise to afford child care for two kidsThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines affordable child care as no more than 7% of a household’s annual income. Yet no single state in the country meets that standard for center-based infant care at currently reported pricing levels.The real-dollar gap leaves families covering over 90% of costs on their ownYou can claim a maximum credit of $1,050 for one child or $2,100 for two or more children in this current tax year. When your actual daycare bill runs above $13,000, you are recovering less than 10 cents on every dollar you spend on child care.A family in Massachusetts paying roughly $20,913 per year for infant care receives a maximum credit of approximately $1,050. That means approximately 95% of your actual spending on child care gets zero federal tax relief under this specific credit.More Personal Finance:Why selling a home to your child for a dollar can backfireElon Musk says ‘universal high income’ is comingFTC, 21 states sue Uber over ‘shady’ subscription billingEven states with the lowest costs, like Mississippi at roughly $6,560 per year, still leave parents covering most expenses themselves. The credit’s $3,000 and $6,000 expense caps were set decades ago and have never been adjusted for inflation at all.The child tax credit is bigger now, but there is a catchSeparate from the care credit, the child tax credit provides up to $2,200 per qualifying child under age 17 for the 2025 tax year. This amount was permanently increased under the One Big Beautiful Bill that was signed into law in July 2025.The credit begins phasing out once your modified adjusted gross income exceeds $200,000 if you file as a single taxpayer. For married couples filing jointly, the phaseout threshold starts at $400,000 in modified adjusted gross income for the year.The refundable portion has a ceiling that limits your cash benefitIf the child tax credit exceeds what you owe in federal taxes, you may qualify for the refundable additional child tax credit. For 2025, the maximum refundable amount is capped at $1,700 per qualifying child, according to the IRS instructions for Schedule 8812.Starting in 2026, the child tax credit will be indexed to inflation for the first time in its nearly three-decade existence. Both you and your qualifying child now need valid Social Security numbers to claim the credit on your 2025 tax return.Your child must be under age 17 at the end of the tax year and must have lived with you for more than half of itChildren who turn 17 during the current tax year no longer qualify for the child tax credit going forward from that pointThe $500 credit for other dependents is available for aging parents or older children who do not qualify for the child tax credit

Understanding how the child care credit works can prevent disappointment and help you plan more realistic financial expectations.Prathankarnpap/Shutterstock

This generation faces a tougher equation when claiming elder care deductionsAccording to a Pew Research Center survey, roughly 23% of U.S. adults now fall into the sandwich generation at the same time. About 15% of adults in their 40s and 50s provide financial support to both a parent and a child simultaneously.Related: Top unexpected retirement costs (and solutions)If you pay for a parent’s home health aide, nursing facility, or adaptive medical equipment, those costs may be tax-deductible. The IRS allows you to deduct qualifying medical expenses for a dependent parent on Schedule A of your tax return this year.The 7.5% adjusted gross income threshold creates a hurdle for taxpayersYou can only deduct medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, which is a steep hurdle for most families. For a household earning $100,000, that means only the portion of medical costs above $7,500 produces any deduction at all.You also need to itemize your deductions rather than claiming the standard deduction to benefit from this medical expense break. The 2025 standard deduction of $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for married couples filing jointly makes itemizing harder.Home health aides, wheelchair equipment, prescribed medications, and certain assisted living costs can all qualify under this provision. But if your parent has gross income above $5,200 in 2025, they may not qualify as your tax dependent under current IRS rules.Education credits are the benefit most parents overlook when filing If you have older children heading to college, the American Opportunity Tax Credit could be worth up to $2,500 per eligible student per year. Up to $1,000 of that credit is refundable, meaning it can generate a refund even if you owe zero in federal income taxes.Your modified adjusted gross income must stay below $90,000 as a single filer or $180,000 if you file a joint tax return. The credit covers tuition, required fees, and course materials during the first four years of postsecondary education for your child.The Lifetime Learning Credit differs for graduate school and career training programsThe Lifetime Learning Credit applies to a broader range of educational expenses, including graduate school and professional development programs. You can claim 20% of up to $10,000 in qualified education expenses for a maximum annual credit of $2,000 per return.Unlike the American Opportunity Credit, the Lifetime Learning Credit has no limit on the number of years you can claim it. Tax expert David Perez of Tax Maverick called education credits the benefit most commonly overlooked by parents at tax time today.Practical strategies to stretch your tax savings when federal credits fall shortThe child and dependent care credit alone will never come close to covering what you actually spend on daycare every single year. Your best approach combines multiple credits, deductions, and pre-tax savings tools to reduce the total financial burden you carry.Use your employer’s dependent care flexible spending accountA dependent care FSA lets you set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax dollars each year to cover qualifying child care expenses directly. If you are in the 22% federal tax bracket, that $5,000 contribution saves you roughly $1,100 in federal income taxes alone.You cannot use the same care expenses for both the FSA exclusion and the child and dependent care credit. Run the numbers on both options carefully, because the FSA often delivers greater savings for families earning above $43,000 per year.Stack the child tax credit alongside other family-specific benefits for maximum savingsClaim the $2,200 child tax credit per qualifying child, then claim the care credit separately for your work-related care expensesCheck your eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides up to $8,046 for families with three or more qualifying childrenReview whether you qualify for the $500 credit for other dependents if you also support an elderly parent financially each yearAdjust your W-4 withholding to receive more of your tax benefit in each paycheck rather than waiting for a lump-sum refundKeep detailed records throughout the year so you never miss an eligible deduction at filing timeTrack every receipt for daycare, medical expenses, after-school programs, and elder care costs throughout the entire calendar year. The IRS requires you to identify your care provider by name, address, and taxpayer identification number on Form 2441.If your care provider refuses to share their identification number, you can still claim the credit by documenting your due diligence. Attach a written statement to your return explaining that the provider did not give you the requested identification information.Coming changes in 2026 could offer slightly more reliefStarting in tax year 2026, the child and dependent care credit’s maximum percentage rate increases from 35% to 50% of qualifying costs. This change, included in the One Big Beautiful Bill, allows eligible families to claim a larger share of their annual care expenses.The expense caps of $3,000 for one child and $6,000 for two or more children remain completely unchanged under the new law, however. A family with two children and $6,000 in qualifying expenses could receive a maximum credit of roughly $3,000 starting in 2026.For the 2025 tax year that you are filing right now, the old credit rates still apply across the board for every taxpayer. Use the time between now and year-end to evaluate whether a dependent care FSA or adjusted withholding could improve your total outcome.The bottom line is straightforward for your family heading into tax season: federal child care credits cover only a small fraction of real costs. Closing that gap requires stacking credits, leveraging pre-tax accounts, and keeping detailed records throughout every single year that you file.Related: The IRS Says Tax Refunds are Up 10%

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this dealFew watchmakers are as widely known or respected as Citizen. The famed Japanese brand has been making high-quality watches for over a century, and we expect they’ll be doing so for the next one as well. One of its most technologically advanced models is currently on sale at Amazon, and we think it’s worth checking out. However, deals on luxury items like this one usually go fast, so we wouldn’t recommend taking too much time.The Citizen Promaster Sea Eco-Drive Watch is available for only $290 at the moment. That’s 39% off the original price of $475. Even at the regular price, this watch is an amazing deal, so slashing it so significantly makes it an absolute marvel.Citizen Promaster Sea Eco-Drive Watch, $290 (was $475) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at AmazonWhy do shoppers love it?As referenced above, the Promaster Sea is a high-tech timepiece that takes watchmaking to the next level. It’s powered by the legendary Citizen Eco-Drive movement, that’s quite unlike anything else on the market. Most commercially produced watches operate either through a series of mechanical gears that must be wound or a lithium-ion battery that requires regular changing. The Eco-Drive movement collects sunlight through small solar panels hidden underneath the dial and releases it throughout the day with ticks of the watch. The rechargeable battery inside never needs to be changed for the life of the watch.While the inside of the watch is indeed impressive, the outside is exquisite. The case and bracelet are made from 316L stainless steel. It’s durable and rustproof, making the perfect watch for fun in the sun. Add to that an impressive 200 meters of water resistance, and you have a piece that you can swim with, making it the ultimate go anywhere do anything watch. A unidirectional rotating dive bezel adds to its dive watch DNA and allows you to keep tabs on your dive time, or anything else you wish to track. It also has a case diameter of 44 millimeters, which makes the watch highly legible under water.With so many world-beating tech specs under its belt, you might not expect it to be much of a looker. Nothing could be further from the truth. A matching deep blue dial and bezel insert mimic the color of the deep blue sea, and applied geometric hour markers surround the outside of the dial. The hour markers and handset have generous amounts of luminescent coating, making the watch easy to read in low-light conditions. A small date window at the three o’clock position is the perfect cherry on top of this lovely little sundae. It’s available in three colorways as well.Related: Amazon is selling noise-canceling earbuds for $21Details to knowMaterials: 316L stainless steel case and bracelet.Case diameter: 44 millimeters.Water resistance: 200 meters.Movement: Citizen solar-powered Eco-Drive movement.Colorways: Three variants.Amazon shoppers were very excited about this watch. One praised its “excellent quality and value,” before adding, “I absolutely love the way it looks and feels…This is a superior watch to many of the high-end dive watches on the market that command premium prices.”Shop more deals Citizen Classic Eco-Drive Sports Watch, $169 (was $219) at AmazonCitizen Eco-Drive Weekender Brycen Watch, $208 (was $425) at AmazonBulova Marine Star Series B Watch, $290 (was $525) at AmazonThe Citizen Promaster Sea Eco-Drive Watch may be your best chance for a luxury watch at an affordable price. Currently, it will only cost you $290, but that may not be true for long. Time is ticking on this deal, and you’ve already done the deep dive on its specs. Now all that’s left to do is click the buy button.