The financial news that actually matters
A pound of ground beef costs $6.70. A gallon of regular gas just crossed $4.48. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is sitting around 6.22%. Each of those numbers comes from a federal data source or major industry tracker, and each one, on its own, is enough to reshape a family’s monthly budget. The problem is…
Time is nearly up for displaced Spirit Airlines passengers hoping to lock in discounted rebookings. The rescue fare programs arranged by the U.S. Department of Transportation and four major carriers are set to close as early as May 15, 2026, depending on the airline. After that, travelers on routes Spirit once dominated will face a…
Roughly 7.5 million federal student loan borrowers are about to face a decision that could reshape their monthly budgets for years. The U.S. Department of Education has declared the SAVE repayment plan unlawful and is winding it down. Starting July 1, 2026, loan servicers will begin notifying SAVE enrollees that they must choose a replacement…
A week ago, filling a 15-gallon tank with regular gasoline cost about $61.65 at the national average. Today it costs roughly $66.90. The national average price of regular gasoline jumped 35 cents to $4.46 per gallon for the week ending May 23, 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is the steepest single-week…
A round trip between Fort Lauderdale and Detroit used to cost as little as $78 on Spirit Airlines. Today, the cheapest nonstop on that route rarely dips below $140. That is not an outlier. Across dozens of city pairs where Spirit was often the lowest-priced carrier, fares have climbed roughly 14% since the airline stopped…
The spring homebuying window just got more expensive. After drifting down to 6.30% in mid-April, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reversed course and climbed to 6.39% by the second week of May, according to Mortgage News Daily. The catalyst was not domestic: it was a military…
Millions of taxpayers filed their 2025 returns this spring expecting a refund check in the mail. It is not coming. Not automatically, anyway. Starting with the 2026 filing season, the IRS no longer mails paper refund checks by default. If your return posted without direct deposit information, the agency processes it, calculates what you are…
A couple hunting for a three-bedroom in the Dallas suburbs this spring will scroll through roughly 30% more active listings than they would have found a year ago, according to metro-level tracking from Realtor.com. Phoenix looks similar. Nationally, the number of homes sitting on the market has climbed about 20% from the trough recorded in…
Married couples filing jointly in 2026 will keep $32,200 of their income completely free of federal tax, up $2,200 from the 2025 standard deduction of $30,000. That bump exists because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in the summer of 2025, made the higher deduction levels from the 2017 tax overhaul permanent….
The U.S. Treasury just gave savers a reason to log into TreasuryDirect. As of May 1, 2026, newly purchased Series I savings bonds earn a composite annual rate of 4.26%, the highest yield the government has offered on I bonds since the 5.27% rate set in November 2023. That rate applies to any bond bought…