Paul L. Underwood is a writer and editor specializing in finance whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Texas Monthly and more. Paul lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, two ...

Budgeting, quite simply, is the act of spending your money efficiently. The importance of budgeting cannot be overemphasized, and whether you’re looking at your individual finances or running a ...

Discover the difference between fixed and sunk costs. Learn why all sunk costs are fixed but not all fixed costs are sunk, and understand the significance in financial decisions.

Discover how to calculate contribution margin, a key profitability metric, by subtracting variable costs from sales revenue.

Being able to survive and thrive as a business owner has as much to do with managing costs as it does with generating revenue. Like the chief financial officer of any company, you have to be concerned ...

Cost structures (the ratio of fixed to variable costs) vary across and within industries. Hospital managers and policymakers can make better decisions when they under-stand cost structures, including ...

The world of microeconomics and business decision-making hinges upon a key concept: marginal cost. In the simplest terms, marginal cost represents the expense incurred to produce an additional unit of ...

When it comes to figuring out what kind of mortgage you need, the most common question asked is whether you should go fixed or variable. What often slips people's minds is that a variable rate ...

Elizabeth is a freelance contributor to Newsweek’s personal finance team, with a focus on insurance. She has more than four years of experience covering insurance and has written hundreds of articles ...

As you work to create a budget, it’s important to understand how fixed and variable expenses will impact your bottom line. David McMillin writes about credit cards, mortgages, banking, taxes and ...

Rebecca Lake is a certified educator in personal finance (CEPF) and a banking expert. She's been writing about personal finance since 2014, and her work has appeared in numerous publications online.