The toughest part of this holiday season: making a 2026 budget. Personal financial chaos has become a full-blown crisis.

David Deal's 2026 outlook is what he describes as a "whack-a-mole of worry." While he's 62 and presumably approaching retirement , 65 is "just a number" for him, not a milestone marker for throwing in the towel on his career like his parents' generation. The thing that really has him wound up, though, is healthcare, which he calls a "DEFCON 1" situation. Deal, a marketing consultant who lives in the Chicago suburbs, and his wife pay for their own insurance, and their premiums are going up by 25% next year. He's worried one slip on the ice this winter could mean financial disaster. A family member's recent two-hour trip to the ER cost them thousands of dollars, even with insurance, and the episode has him spooked. "For me, it's the double-whammy of skyrocketing premiums and also the skyrocketing costs of actually getting care," he says. "We are literally at a point where we can't afford to be sick, and we can't afford to be healthy." He emphasizes that he means a collective "we" - he knows he's far from alone in his predicament. " Uncertainty" has been the word of the year for business. Policy whiplash is emanating from the White House - it's hard to keep up with the turmoil around tariffs, immigration, and presidential outbursts toward the Federal Reserve. Anxiety over a potential AI bubble is palpable, even as companies spend on the technology like there's no tomorrow. The stock market is still strong, but it's a bumpy ride. Inflation remains a looming threat. Businesses are clearly on edge. The focus tends to be on corporate volatility, but for ordinary people, the turbulence is far more personal and far less manageable. Millions of Americans are about to see huge jumps in their health insurance premiums in 2026. Federal workers are coming off the longest government shutdown on record, enduring more than a month without a paycheck. The economy is increasingly unaffordable , and tariffs are likely to exacerbate the problem. The costs of childcare, education, and housing continue to climb. And on the income side, things aren't looking so great as the labor market starts to crack. The hidden crisis in the American economy is personal insecurity. Even for people who are generally fine, there's a nagging feeling the rug could be pulled out from under them at any moment, whether it's a layoff, a divorce, or next week's grocery bill. "Households are exposed to much more risk and sources of shock than businesses," says Kathryn Edwards, a labor economist and the co-host of the Optimist Economy podcast. "The risk of shock is getting higher, the cost of shock is getting higher, and the insurance is getting worse." Americans are ending 2025 significantly more pessimistic about the direction of their financial situations than they were at the start of the year, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment gauge from early December. Its reading on personal finance expectations is 12% below where it was at the beginning...

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