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One of the biggest monthly expenses for many people is their electric bill. The majority of that likely comes from lighting, as well as heating or cooling the home. Of course, laptops, tablets, and other devices add to the total monthly use as well, but to a lesser extent. With all these electrical devices sucking the electricity out of the grid, and money out of your bank account, it’s important to find a way to save a little on your bill every month. One of the best ways to do that is by shopping for solar-powered items, including outdoor lights.

To that end, Amazon sells all sorts of outdoor solar lights that can give your backyard or patio the ambiance you desire without making the light bill skyrocket. In addition to price increases for groceries and gasoline, utility costs continue to rise at a rate that’s not easy to manage for most consumers. That’s why these outdoor solar lights are so incredibly valuable. They allow you to decorate your home’s outdoor spaces at an affordable price.

Sunflickt Solar Outdoor Fence Lights

Courtesy of Amazon

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To that point, one of the online retailer’s most intriguing sets of solar fence lights is currently available for just $37. The Sunflickt Solar Outdoor Fence Lights have more features than you might expect from such an affordable patio accessory. With just 5 to 6 hours of sunlight, they’re good to be on all night long. The lights include a multi-color function, a 12-hour timer, and an IP67 waterproof rating. Not only can you make each light a different color, but you can sync them all to the same color as well if you prefer, giving you a plethora of choices. If you’re looking to spruce up your backyard at a bargain price, then these lights can do the job. They’re available in sets of as little as two and as many as 20. 

Benefits of solar fence lights

Lights like these have plenty of advantages, some of which you might not even realize before you own them. First off, you get easy wire-free installation. There are no wall outlets or special battery packs to speak of, which means these lights are the ultimate “set it and forget it” outdoor lighting. What’s more, because they’re so easy to install and place, you can quickly move them around if the initial setup doesn’t quite work for you. Even if you’re pleased with your first install, it’s easy to change things up if you’re just in the mood for a little variety.

Secondly, solar fence lights are eco-friendly and affordable. They don’t drain electricity from the grid, which is an eco-conscious solution for dealing with limited natural resources. Not only does the lack of electrical draw help the environment, but it also helps your bank account. Without adding to your monthly electricity bill, the lights can brighten your home virtually for free. Because they don’t require a lot of complicated wiring, the lights can also be sold at a low price, so the one time you will pay for them won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Safety and security are perhaps the most important advantage of owning a good set of solar fence lights. Your backyard can sometimes feel like the most vulnerable part of your property. Having lights that turn on automatically as soon as the sun goes down can ensure that you maintain a sense of security all night long. No burglar wants to go traipsing through a well-lit yard and risk getting caught, so these lights go far to keep would-be intruders outside of the confines of your backyard.

More Outdoor Solar Lights

Perhaps the Sunflickt Solar Outdoor Fence Lights aren’t your cup of tea. No worries, because we’ve compiled a list of some of our other favorites currently available at Amazon. Whether you want in-ground lights, hanging string lights, or something a bit more out of the box, this list has what you’re looking for. Just be sure to grab whichever you prefer quickly, as the best models tend to sell out faster than you may expect.

Aootek Solar Motion Lights

Courtesy of Amazon

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Tuffenough Solar Outdoor Lights with Remote

Courtesy of Amazon

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Auderwin Solar-Powered Spotlight

Courtesy of Amazon

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Lifengsoler Clip-On Solar Motion Sensor Lights

Courtesy of Amazon

Check price at Amazon

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals.

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Apple held its fall event on Wednesday, Sept. 9, and unveiled its first foldable iPhone. By the time the event ended, the CEO of one of the country’s largest wireless carriers had already gone on camera and shared his thoughts on the device.

AT&T CEO John Stankey was in San Francisco on Sept. 9 for the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference, the same day Apple held its event.

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi pulled him aside and asked what he made of the $1,999 iPhone Duo. Stankey did not hold back.

AT&T CEO on the iPhone Duo: “This is not new“

“The best characterization I can give is, looking at the foldable phones that have been out in the market, this is not new,” Stankey told Yahoo Finance.

He brought up Android foldables as his evidence. Samsung, Google, and others have been selling foldable phones for years. They get good reviews. They have loyal fans. Yet they have never broken through to the average buyer.

“Android users are as passionate about Android as iOS users are about iOS,” Stankey said. “They’re a smaller percentage of the U.S. market, but they are still passionate, and there’s been some really good foldable devices in the Android ecosystem for a couple years. And what we’ve seen is that it tends to function more as a specific niche type application as opposed to [being] broadly accepted.”

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He acknowledged Apple could prove him wrong, but said he doubted it.

“Will iOS users view it differently, or will there be some unique take that Apple comes up with that changes that penetration dynamic a little bit?” Stankey said. “I suppose it’s possible, but my guess right now is we’re going to kind of see it contained to a portion of the user base that wants that larger device and is maybe willing to invest more money to pick it up and get it.”

Samsung has had the market to itself for years, having launched its first Galaxy Fold in 2019 and having sold foldables every year since. IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo, however, puts foldable phones at only about 2.2% of global smartphone sales in 2026.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 runs $1,899, and Apple wants $1,999 for the Duo, reinforcing that foldables are still a niche product.

What is the Apple iPhone Duo?

Apple unveiled the Duo at its Sept. 9 event. New CEO John Ternus ran the show for the first time, walking through the iPhone 18 Pro, AirPods 5, and Apple Watch Series 12 before saving the Duo for last.

The Duo has a 5.4-inch screen on the outside and a 7.6-inch display when unfolded, according to CNBC. It folds like a book and slips into a pocket.

Open it up, and the screen is large enough to watch a video, work across two apps, or do anything that usually requires a tablet. Apple priced it at $1,999. No iPhone has ever cost that much.

IDC projects foldables will reach 3.1% of global smartphone volume by 2030, even with Apple now in the market.

In revenue, they punch above their weight at about 6.9% of global smartphone sales in 2026, because the price tags are high. But unit volume has been the category’s stubborn weak spot for years.

Apple unveiled the Duo at its Sept. 9 event.Benjamin Fanjoy / Getty Images

Would the AT&T CEO buy the iPhone Duo?

Stankey said he might consider it, under one specific condition. He travels with both an iPhone and an iPad and moves between them throughout the day. If the Duo could replace the iPad, he said he would be interested. If it just adds a third device, he is out.

“I’m going to have to see if it replaces something that I use,” Stankey told Yahoo Finance. “I’m pretty adept at moving back and forth between my iPad and my mobile device right now. And if it becomes something where it says maybe I don’t need to carry the larger iPad around with me, I might be interested.”

A lot of people considering the Duo will probably do the same math. For someone who carries an iPhone and a tablet everywhere, a $1,999 phone that consolidates both devices could be worth it. For everyone else, $1,999 for a phone they already own a smaller version of is a harder sell.

iPhone Duo price and what it means for Apple stock

Stankey runs a wireless carrier. His job with any new iPhone is working out how many customers will buy it and what AT&T has to put together to compete for those sales.

On the Duo, he is betting the buyers will be people who have been waiting for a bigger iPhone, not people who never thought about one until now.

For AT&T, a $1,999 phone matters, even if volume is modest. Higher-priced phones generally mean bigger upgrade financing deals, longer device payment plans, and more opportunities for premium plan attachments. Carriers make money on foldables, even when they do not sell in massive numbers.

Apple now has a foldable phone. Samsung has had one since 2019. Preorder numbers will start coming in shortly, and the first few weeks of sales should tell us whether Stankey read the room correctly or whether Apple will pull off something Samsung could not.

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The IRS does not ask a 73-year-old with $500,000 in a traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA) whether they need the money before enforcing a withdrawal this year. 

Under the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules, that retiree must pull out a fixed share of the balance each year, and every dollar counts as ordinary income.

The tax bill on the distribution itself is only the first cost. The withdrawal also affects Social Security taxation and Medicare premiums through calculations that operate on lookback rules, Charles Schwab confirmed.

How the $18,868 forced withdrawal compounds a retiree’s tax bill

The IRS divides the prior year-end IRA balance by a factor from the Uniform Lifetime Table it publishes.

At age 73, the factor is 26.5, so a $500,000 balance produces an $18,868 withdrawal that must clear the account before the calendar year ends.

By age 75, the divisor drops to 24.6, meaning the same balance would require roughly $20,325 as the life expectancy factor shrinks with age.

A joint-filing couple collecting $40,000 in combined Social Security benefits alongside $15,000 in pension income faces the arithmetic directly.

The Social Security Administration calculates “combined income” by adding adjusted gross income, nontaxable interest, and half of the annual benefit amount.

Without the RMD, their combined income is $35,000, the $15,000 pension plus $20,000, which is half of the couple’s Social Security. That figure falls below the $44,000 joint-filer threshold where up to 85% of benefits become taxable.

Add the $18,868 distribution, and combined income jumps to $53,868.

The couple crosses the $44,000 line, and under the IRS’s two-tier formula, roughly $14,400 of their $40,000 in Social Security benefits becomes subject to federal income tax, income that would have remained untaxed without the RMD.

The RMD itself is taxable, and it drags a second income source into taxation alongside it.

Medicare surcharges tied to income from two years before

Medicare applies a surcharge called the income-related monthly adjustment amount, or IRMAA, to Part B and Part D premiums for beneficiaries above certain income levels.

The first IRMAA tier in 2026 starts at $218,000 in modified adjusted gross income for married couples filing jointly and $109,000 for individuals filing alone.

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The standard Part B premium in 2026 is $202.90 per month, but crossing the first IRMAA threshold pushes the total to $284.10, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

IRMAA is difficult to plan around because of a two-year lookback, as 2026 premiums are calculated from the 2024 tax return.

A required minimum distribution from 2024 that pushed income past the threshold will only show up as a surcharge on 2026 Medicare bills.

Medicare surcharges can hit retirees two years later when earlier income, including RMDs, pushes them above IRMAA thresholds.Halfpoint Images / Getty Images

Roth conversions before 73 shrink the balance the IRS can force out

Converting traditional IRA funds to a Roth account during lower-income years between retirement and age 73 shrinks the balance that the IRS can target, according to research from the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

Ed Slott, a CPA and author of “The Retirement Savings Time Bomb Ticks Louder,” told ThinkAdvisor in a 2024 email exchange that financial professionals who overlook the growing tax liability inside tax-deferred accounts are failing their clients.

It would almost be malpractice for any financial or tax advisor to ignore the coming tax storm.

The gap between retirement and the start of mandatory withdrawals is the only window when income remains fully within a retiree’s control.

Once the IRS begins requiring distributions, the income is locked in, and the range of strategies for managing the tax impact narrows each year.

Fidelity highlights one distribution that stays out of adjusted gross income 

A qualified charitable distribution sends IRA funds directly to a qualifying charity and satisfies a required minimum distribution without increasing adjusted gross income.

Under IRS rules, IRA owners must be at least 70½ to use the option, and the 2026 annual limit is $111,000 per individual after an inflation adjustment set by IRS Notice 2025-67.

The distinction from a regular cash donation matters for retirees near an IRMAA threshold or at risk of higher Social Security taxation.

A standard donation after taking a distribution still counts as taxable income on the return, even if the retiree itemizes and claims a charitable deduction.

What retirees approaching their first RMD at 73 still need to weigh

The Schwab Center for Financial Research recommends that retirees review Social Security, pensions, and tax-deferred balances before entering their first RMD year.

Fidelity says that retirees should discuss the qualified charitable distribution with a tax adviser before their first RMD deadline. The firm says retirees should consider raising the option with a tax adviser before their first RMD deadline.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act strengthened the QCD case in 2026. Under the law, itemizers lose the deduction on the first 0.5% of AGI in charitable gifts. A QCD bypasses the floor because it is excluded from AGI, not claimed as an itemized deduction.

The IRS sets the withdrawal, but retirees still control how much other income sits on the return when it arrives, and that window narrows each year.

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Every portfolio has one holding that is supposed to be the adult in the room.

It is the position you buy so you can stop checking your phone when stocks wobble. It does not pay you anything, and that is fine, because you did not buy it for income. You bought it for sleep.

Precious metals have played that part for generations, and the math behind them is simpler than most people assume.

An ounce of silver pays no dividend and no interest. So its price is really a running argument between two things, how frightened investors are, and how much money they can earn by sitting in cash instead.

When rates fall and fear rises, that argument breaks in silver’s favor. When rates climb and the panic fades, cash starts winning it.

For most of the past two years, the argument was not close. Silver rose more than 130% in 2025, then peaked at $121.67 an ounce on Jan. 29, 2026, according to APMEX. Solar manufacturers wanted it, electric vehicle makers wanted it, and investors who had watched gold run wanted the cheaper version of the same trade.

Then the rate picture flipped, and JPMorgan (JPM) quietly reset what the next two years are supposed to look like.

Why silver falls harder than gold when the mood turns

Silver leads a double life, and that is the whole story of its volatility.

Roughly half of annual demand is industrial. It goes into solar panels, electronics, and vehicles, which means silver takes the hit whenever factories slow down or engineers find a way to use less of it.

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The other half is investment demand, where silver trades as gold’s high-beta cousin. The market is smaller and thinner than gold’s, so the same dollar of buying or selling moves it much further.

That is why the metal amplifies gold in both directions. It is also why silver investors keep getting whipsawed while gold holders sit relatively still.

The measure that captures this is the gold-to-silver ratio, which counts how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. A falling ratio means silver is outrunning gold. A rising one means the opposite.

That ratio dropped below 45 in late January, its most silver-friendly reading in years, and has since climbed back to roughly 70, according to J.P. Morgan Global Research.

JPMorgan cut its 2027 silver forecast by 26% in a revision published in August.Olivier Le Moal / Getty Images

What JPMorgan’s revised silver price forecast actually says

The bank’s commodities desk published a revision in August that cut its silver outlook across every remaining quarter, and the deepest cuts land in 2027 rather than this year.

Here is the revision in full, and the number that matters is not the one for this year.

The 2026 average forecast fell to $70.60 an ounce from $84.30, a 16% cut, according to J.P. Morgan Global Research. 

The 2027 average forecast fell to $63.90 an ounce from $85.80, a 26% cut, based on the same J.P. Morgan research note. 

The strongest quarter anywhere in the two-year outlook is the fourth quarter of 2027, at $65 an ounce, J.P. Morgan Global Research noted.

Spot silver traded at about $65.87 an ounce late on Sept. 8, according to Kitco. 

Silver is down 7.65% since the start of the year, despite being up roughly 59% from a year ago, Forbes Advisor reported. 

Read those first four bullets together and the problem becomes obvious.

When I lined up the bank’s 2027 quarterly path against silver’s Sept. 8 level, every single quarter came in at or below where the metal already trades. The bank’s most optimistic quarter, 18 months out, is roughly where the metal sat in early September.

That is not a price target in the way investors normally use the phrase. A target usually implies somewhere to go. This one implies the trip is finished.

The bank had already trimmed its near-term view over the summer, when it moved to a $60 to $65 range for the rest of 2026. What changed in August is the back half of the horizon, which had still been carrying a high-$80s handle.

The split with rivals is now wide enough to matter. HSBC went the other direction in May and raised its 2027 silver average to $68 an ounce, leaving the two banks about four dollars apart on the same metal in the same year.

How a Fed rate hike rewrites the case for owning silver

The reason for the cut is the part most silver coverage still has backwards.

For two years the bull case rested on rate cuts arriving. Cheaper money weakens the dollar, lowers the return on cash, and makes a metal that yields nothing look reasonable by comparison.

Related: Pandora opens unexpected box as silver price drops

That assumption is now inverted. The Federal Reserve has held its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% since its July 28 to 29 meeting, and CME FedWatch data showed a 66% probability of a quarter-point increase at the Sept. 16 meeting as of Aug. 31, according to Forbes.

Higher rates “increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like silver,” said Gregory Shearer, head of base and precious metals strategy at J.P. Morgan.

Gold has a defense here that silver does not. Central banks keep buying gold as a reserve asset regardless of what the Fed does, and that structural bid cushions the drops.

Nobody is stockpiling silver for their national reserves. It has to earn its price from factories and speculators, and both are pulling back at once.

On the factory side, silver-thrifting technology is spreading through solar manufacturing, and Chinese buyers front-loaded imports ahead of a photovoltaic export tax change on April 1. Solar demand for silver could fall about 30% this year, a reduction near 60 million ounces, Shearer said.

What the silver forecast means for your money right now

Here is the part that actually reaches your account statement.

If you bought silver anywhere near the January high, JPMorgan’s own 2027 forecast leaves you down roughly 47% two years later. That is not a drawdown you wait out over a quarter. That is a multi-year hold with no recovery penciled in by the bank itself.

If you bought before 2025, you are still comfortably ahead, and the real question is whether you are holding a winner or refusing to book one.

And if you own no silver and were waiting for a dip, my read of the forecast table is that the bank has removed the reason to hurry. When the most bullish quarter on a two-year sheet matches today’s screen, patience costs you almost nothing.

The wider point reaches past silver. A hiking Fed does not just hurt metals, it pays you to hold cash instead, and Treasury bills competing at these levels are the quiet rival every non-yielding asset now has to beat.

Shearer’s team flagged four things worth watching from here, and the list is shorter than the noise suggests. Watch the direction of gold, the tightness of the physical market, photovoltaic demand out of China and India, and the federal funds rate.

The last one is doing most of the work. Silver’s next chapter gets written at the Fed, not in the mines, and the September meeting is the first page.

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