The financial news that actually matters
A wartime veteran who needs help getting dressed in the morning, or a surviving spouse who can no longer bathe safely without assistance, may be entitled to a tax-free monthly check from the Department of Veterans Affairs worth more than many households spend on rent. The benefit is called Aid and Attendance, it has been…
A tax refund of $3,000 can cover two months of rent, a semester of child care, or a car repair that keeps someone employed. For the tens of thousands of filers whose paper refund checks are stolen from mailboxes every filing season, that money doesn’t just vanish once. It vanishes twice: first when a thief…
Nearly four years after Congress passed the PACT Act with bipartisan fanfare, veterans who filed toxic-exposure claims under the law are running into a painful contradiction: the statute that was supposed to fast-track their benefits has funneled them into one of the slowest processing pipelines at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Multiple veteran service organizations,…
The clock is ticking for roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers still tied to the SAVE repayment plan. Starting July 1, 2026, loan servicers will begin mailing transition notices that give each borrower 90 days to pick a new repayment plan. Anyone who doesn’t respond will be automatically placed into Standard Repayment or a…
For years, the most common reason a worker cracked open a 401(k) under hardship rules was a medical bill. That is no longer the case. Preventing a foreclosure or eviction has become the top qualifying emergency cited by participants in Vanguard’s retirement plans, according to the firm’s 2025 How America Saves report, which tracks roughly…
As of May 27, 2026, Parent PLUS borrowers who have not yet consolidated their federal loans have roughly 34 days to file paperwork that will determine whether they can ever access income-driven repayment. After June 30, the door closes for good. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, eliminates…
A bill that would add $200 a month to every Social Security, SSI, and veterans benefit check for six months has been sitting in a Senate committee since last October, and as of early June 2026, not a single dollar has gone out the door. The Social Security Emergency Inflation Relief Act (S.3078), introduced by…
The IRS will not send you a reminder, and there is no grace period. On June 15, 2026, the second quarterly estimated tax payment for the year comes due. Every self-employed worker, freelancer, and gig-platform earner who falls short will owe a penalty on the unpaid balance, plus interest that compounds daily until the money…
Your phone buzzes: “IRS Notice: Your tax refund of $3,284.00 is pending. Verify your identity to receive payment.” A blue link sits right below. It looks official. It is completely fake. The IRS has never sent refund notifications by text message, and the agency has stated explicitly that it never will. Every text, email, or…
For the past several years, Congress has made veterans wait. Each fall, as Social Security recipients learn their automatic cost-of-living adjustment, roughly 5.3 million veterans drawing disability compensation and hundreds of thousands of surviving military families have had to hope that lawmakers would pass a separate bill granting them the same inflation protection. Some years,…