The financial news that actually matters
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…
When Social Security’s last May deposit hits bank accounts on May 27, 2026, retirees born after the 20th of the month will collect a check that looked like a raise back in January but has since been overtaken by rising prices. The 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment added roughly $56 a month to the average retirement…
The following scenarios are hypothetical composites, not based on specific interviews, but they reflect circumstances documented in federal labor and nutrition data for adults ages 55 through 64. Picture a 60-year-old warehouse worker in rural Ohio who picks up 25 hours a week but can’t get more shifts. A 57-year-old home health aide in Mississippi…
A 61-year-old engineer in Dallas maxing out her 401(k) in 2025 could have socked away $3,250 more than her 58-year-old colleague down the hall, and most people in her position never touched the extra room. That gap exists because of a provision buried in the SECURE 2.0 Act that created a higher catch-up contribution limit…
A federal student loan borrower earning $40,000 a year with $35,000 in debt was paying roughly $120 a month under the SAVE repayment plan, according to estimates from the Department of Education’s Loan Simulator. Under the Standard Repayment Plan, that same borrower would owe about $370. That is not a hypothetical scenario playing out years…
The deadline to file a claim in the Krispy Kreme data breach settlement is Saturday, June 21, and anyone who received a notification letter has only days left to act. The settlement offers up to $3,500 per person for documented out-of-pocket losses tied to the late 2024 cyberattack that knocked out the doughnut chain’s online…
A year ago, a buyer in suburban Virginia who asked for a home inspection risked losing the deal. This spring, that same buyer can request repairs, negotiate closing credits, and still have time to sleep on it. The shift is showing up in hard numbers: in April 2026, new listings across the Mid-Atlantic outpaced new…
Maria Gonzalez, a home health aide in San Antonio, pulled her credit report in April 2026 and found the same $4,200 emergency-room bill that had dragged her score below 600 two years earlier. A federal rule finalized in January 2025 was supposed to strip medical collections from credit reports nationwide. Months later, a Texas judge…
Buyers have not had this much room to maneuver since before the pandemic scrambled the housing market. The National Association of Realtors’ Housing Affordability Index has climbed for eight consecutive months through March 2026, the longest sustained improvement since mortgage rates began their sharp ascent in 2022. Active inventory hit 1.47 million homes in April,…
Through the first five months of 2026, the S&P 500 is sitting on a healthy gain. But the cap-weighted index has pulled well ahead of its equal-weight counterpart, a clear sign that the advance is being driven by the very largest names in the roster. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (ticker RSP), which…