I turned 52 last year, and somewhere around my birthday I realized I'd stopped reading financial news.
Not because I stopped caring about my money. I care more than ever — I've got two kids in college, a mortgage I refinanced at the wrong time, and a retirement account that needs to last another 30 years.
I stopped reading because financial news stopped being for people like me.
Open CNBC and it's five men shouting about Nvidia. Open the Wall Street Journal app and there are 47 stories, half of them behind a second paywall. Open Twitter and it's crypto guys and doomers. Open your bank's "insights" newsletter and it's a thinly-disguised ad for a wealth management product you don't need.
None of it respects your time. None of it assumes you're an adult. And almost none of it actually helps you make a decision on a Tuesday morning.
So we built the thing we wanted. A single email. Every weekday. In your inbox by 6am Eastern. Five minutes to read, including the chart.
What USA Insider is
Each issue has the same five sections:
- The big one. The most important money story of the day, in about 200 words. What happened, what it means, what to do (or not do).
- The number. One figure worth understanding — a Fed projection, a jobs revision, a retirement benchmark. Explained without jargon.
- One chart. Because sometimes the picture is the story.
- Quick hits. Four or five things that moved, in one sentence each.
- One thing worth your time. A longer read from somewhere else — usually not a finance publication — that we think is worth 10 minutes of your weekend.
That's it. No podcast. No app. No "premium tier." No affiliate links to trading platforms.
If this sounds like what you've been looking for.
Free. One-click unsubscribe. Read the rest of the letter below.
Who writes it
A small independent team. We're all over 40. We all have our own money at stake in the things we write about — mortgages, retirement accounts, kids' tuition, the same math you're doing at your kitchen table.
We don't take sponsorships from brokerages, crypto exchanges, or "financial education" companies. We don't run affiliate links to trading platforms. If we ever take an ad, it will be from a business we'd actually use — clearly labeled, at the bottom of the email, never disguised as content.
Who it's for
People who used to read the paper on Sunday and want that feeling back. People who have real money on the line and can't afford to be entertained instead of informed. People who are tired of being sold to.
If that's you, tomorrow's issue is ready.
One more thing
If you subscribe and it's not for you, unsubscribe. No hard feelings. We'd rather have 50,000 people who actually read us than 500,000 who don't.