KEY POINTS

The Fed's interest rate reduction trickles down to family budgets in a variety of ways

The cut does impact mortgage rates, but not in the way most people think.

While lending costs may go down, interest earnings are also likely to decline.

For the first time this year, the U.S. Federal Reserve made an adjustment to its benchmark interest rate, assessing a .25% cut in a move driven by a weakening U.S. labor market.

The quarter point cut announced Wednesday, which puts the monetary body’s target rate in the 4.0% to 4.25% range, is the first since last December when the Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee made the last of three straight interest rate reductions to end the year, shaving 100 basis points off its intra-bank overnight lending rate.

Wednesday’s rate c

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