September 15th, 2026
By Margaret Allen
PRESENTED BY Crowne Point Tax & Wealth Counsel
THIS WEEK
The Cut You Were Waiting For Just Got Cancelled
The FOMC meets today and tomorrow. The official statement lands at 2 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.
That is not what markets will be watching.
They will be watching whether the Fed hikes.
Six weeks ago, a hike was unthinkable. A weak July jobs report had traders pricing in cuts. Now Kalshi puts hike odds at 48% and the CME’s FedWatch is a coin flip.
The setup flipped fast.
Kevin Warsh gave a hawkish keynote at Jackson Hole on August 29. The August payrolls report came in strong at 162,000 new jobs. And August CPI, released September 11, kept the annual rate above 3% for the eighth straight month.
The doves’ argument evaporated in three weeks.
Now the debate is not whether to cut. It is whether to hike.
That is a bigger deal for your household than most weeks of Fed coverage would suggest.
A 25-basis-point hike does not sound like much. It shows up on your next credit card statement, adds to your variable HELOC rate the same billing cycle, and pushes mortgage rates that had been drifting down back the other way.
So the Fed has one decision to make tomorrow.
Your household has three worth making today.
Three things worth checking before tomorrow afternoon:
Look at your variable-rate debt line by line. Credit cards, HELOCs, and adjustable mortgages all re-price against the fed funds rate. A quarter-point hike costs a $10,000 credit card balance about $25 a year — trivial in isolation, but compounding on top of ~20% APRs that are already the most expensive line in most household budgets.
Lock the yield while it lasts. Top high-yield savings are still around 4.10% APY and one-year CDs still list above 4%. If the Fed hikes, those rates will inch higher; if it holds, they may slip. Locking a portion of your cash into a CD before tomorrow freezes today's rate either way.
Do not rebuild your plan around a decision you cannot predict. The strongest financial plans work whether the Fed hikes 25, holds, or (unlikely) cuts. Any plan that only works in one scenario is a bet, not a plan.
Tomorrow is one meeting. Your money runs on the twelve months after it.
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ALSO THIS WEEK
A Hike Would Show Up on Your Next Statement
This is the part most Fed coverage skips.
The federal funds rate is not just an economist number. It sits underneath the interest rate on nearly every variable-rate product in a household budget.
Good to know if you are a bank.
Painful if you are carrying a balance.
The average credit card APR is 20.12% right now. Home equity lines of credit are averaging 8.24%. Adjustable-rate mortgages tied to the SOFR index re-price roughly with the Fed’s benchmark. Even auto loans, which are not directly tied to Fed decisions, move sympathetically.
That creates a simple problem.
The Fed sets a wholesale rate. Your bank passes the change through to you at retail speed.
A quarter-point hike hits a credit card balance within one to two billing cycles. It takes months to trickle through fixed-rate mortgages you already have — but it hits new ones within days.
Do not treat variable-rate debt like it will stay where it is.
Reprice it against a rate that just went up a quarter point, then decide what to do.
For most households right now, that means starting with credit cards, HELOCs, and any adjustable rate that has not been fixed in a year or more.
QUICK HIT
The Yield Window Is Still Open
The national average savings account still pays 0.38%. Top high-yield accounts still pay above 4.00%.
That gap is more than 3.6 percentage points.
For anyone with cash parked in a big-four bank checking account, that is real money each month you are voluntarily skipping.
The Fed decision does not change this.
If the Fed hikes, top yields will tick up but the gap will not close.
If the Fed holds, top yields may slip but the gap still exists.
The exercise takes ten minutes:
Pull your current savings APY.
Compare against today’s top rates.
Decide whether the difference is worth an account move.
Move the money or accept the cost.
Waiting on the Fed to fix your APY has been a losing strategy for two years running.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Three Moves Before Tomorrow
There is one day between this issue and the September Fed decision.
You do not need that one day to guess whether Warsh hikes.
You need a plan that works whether the Fed hikes or holds.
First, price the debt as if the hike happens.
Ask what your credit card and HELOC payments look like if the next move is another quarter point up. If that number creates a problem, the balance needs attention before the meeting, not after it.
Second, lock what you can lock.
A one-year CD at 4%+ freezes today’s yield through next September whether the Fed hikes, holds, or cuts.
Third, pay the Q3 estimated tax deadline.
Today, September 15, is the IRS deadline for third-quarter estimated tax payments. The 6% underpayment penalty starts accruing tomorrow on anything you owe but did not pay.
Three dates matter this week:
Today (September 15): Q3 estimated tax deadline + FOMC begins
Tomorrow (September 16, 2 p.m. ET): rate decision
Rest of week: how markets absorb it
Everything between them is commentary.
Price the debt. Lock the yield. Pay the deadline.
Do those three things and you will care a lot less about guessing the next Fed headline correctly.
That’s the week. See you next issue.
Margaret Allen
Editor-in-Chief
Smrtt Money
P.S. Tax season doesn't wait — and neither do the rules. The sooner you have a strategy in place, the more you keep. Book your free 30-minute session here.