Ron Lieber

I am the Your Money columnist for The New York Times, writing about everything from retirement savings and college tuition to credit reports and taxes. My beat is beating the system.

What I Cover

I write about everything under the sun that hits you in the wallet. (Some people call this personal finance, but I find the term bland and off-putting.) I have a special affection for topics that involve large sums of money, opaque pricing and decisions where our emotions can lead us astray. If you’ve noticed me writing a lot about paying for college in recent years, that’s why.

My Background

I’ve never written about the stock market or the economy as isolated topics. I look at what those topics mean for everyday people. I’m a proxy for readers who are plenty smart and perhaps numbers-averse — and live in a world where nonexpert individuals are increasingly forced to make big-dollar decisions in arenas that are complex either by design or neglect.

I’m the author of “The Price You Pay for College” and “The Opposite of Spoiled.” I helped launch the Personal Journal section of The Wall Street Journal in 2002 and wrote the Green Thumb column when the Saturday edition of the newspaper began in 2005. I joined The Times in 2008 and have won the Gerald Loeb award — business journalism’s highest honor — three times for my work since then.

I live in Brooklyn with my family, including my wife and colleague Jodi Kantor.

Journalistic Ethics

Back when Twitter was more useful, I practiced a public form of self-advocacy in an effort to lead by example, calling out corporate bad actors that I had found wanting in my own life as a consumer because of their dumb rules or obtuse systems. But I never use my platform or position for personal gain — and if I sense that a company or its representatives have figured out what I do for a living, I don’t accept compensation or refunds from them. Instead, I ask that they use my exchange with them to improve their processes for others. My reporting did lead to The Times firing Equifax; that was super fun. You can learn more about The Times’s ethics policy here.

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