The financial news that actually matters
Roughly 35.9 million Comcast Xfinity customers had their personal data stolen in a late-2023 cyberattack, and the company is now paying for it. A $117.5 million class action settlement gives affected customers two paths to compensation: file documentation of specific financial losses and claim up to $10,000 in reimbursement, or skip the paperwork and collect…
When Maria Gonzalez of Ashburn, Virginia, opened her April 2026 electric bill, she thought there had been a mistake. The total: $247 for a three-bedroom townhouse, up from $182 the same month a year earlier. That is a jump of roughly 36%. “I called Dominion and asked if my meter was broken,” she told a…
A buyer financing a $38,000 pickup truck at 7.5% interest will pay roughly $5,700 in loan interest during the first year of the loan. Starting with 2025 tax returns, that full amount could come straight off the buyer’s federal tax bill, thanks to a new deduction for auto-loan interest tucked into the One Big Beautiful…
Picture a retired teacher in Ohio pulling $95,000 a year from her pension and Social Security, comfortably below Medicare’s surcharge threshold. She converts $20,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth, a routine tax-planning move. Two years later, her monthly Part B premium jumps from $202.90 to $284.10. The notice from the Social Security Administration…
If you were born in 1960 or later and you turn 62 this year, a decades-old change to Social Security law is finally catching up with you. For the first time, every American reaching the earliest claiming age in 2026 has a full retirement age (FRA) of 67, not 66 or 66 and a few…
About two years ago, roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers were placed into administrative limbo. Courts blocked the SAVE repayment plan before it could fully launch, servicers stopped collecting payments, and monthly bills dropped to zero. Now that limbo has an expiration date. The U.S. Department of Education has confirmed that loan servicers will…
Millions of Americans who paid late-filing or late-payment penalties on their 2020 or 2021 federal tax returns may be owed that money back by the IRS. The catch: the deadline to claim it is July 10, 2026, now fewer than 50 days away, and the IRS has done little to spread the word. The IRS…
Hundreds of thousands of homeowners who trusted Lakeview Loan Servicing with their mortgage payments may be owed money, and the window to collect it is closing fast. A $26 million class action settlement is paying affected borrowers up to $5,000 each, but the claim deadline is June 22, 2026. Anyone who misses it will almost…
A homeowner in suburban Houston who locked in a 2.9% mortgage rate in early 2021 recently opened her annual escrow analysis letter and found a $247 increase in her monthly payment. Her interest rate hadn’t changed. Her principal balance was shrinking on schedule. But her county had reassessed her home’s taxable value up by 28%,…
Roughly 3.7 million parents hold federal PLUS loans, and every one of them who has not yet consolidated faces a deadline that could reshape their finances for decades. June 30, 2026, is the last day a Parent PLUS borrower can consolidate into a Direct Consolidation Loan and keep access to income-driven repayment and Public Service…