Category: Your Money

Travelers booking summer flights face a sharper hit to their wallets this year, with round-trip airfares averaging about $510, an 18 percent increase from the prior summer. The gap between the cheapest and most expensive departure days adds another layer of cost pressure: Tuesday flights run roughly 17 percent less than Sunday departures. For families…

Californians who stream video on ad-supported platforms will no longer have to lunge for the remote when a commercial blares over their show. Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 576 on October 6, 2025, making California the first state to extend broadcast-style loudness limits to streaming services. The law prohibits ads from playing at a higher…

American grocery shoppers are paying 18.4 percent more for coffee than they were a year ago, making it one of the sharpest price increases in any food-at-home category tracked by the federal government through February 2026. That jump dwarfs the 5.6 percent rise across all nonalcoholic beverages and beverage materials, a rate that itself runs…

Wartime veterans who need daily help with basic tasks, and surviving spouses in similar circumstances, can receive monthly VA pension payments as high as $2,873 when Aid and Attendance benefits are included. The VA published updated Maximum Annual Pension Rate ceilings for the period running from December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026, yet many…

Any consumer in the United States can place a one-year fraud alert on their credit file at no cost, and that single step forces every lender or creditor checking the file to verify the applicant’s identity before opening a new account, issuing an additional card, or raising a credit limit. The protection is grounded in…

Travelers stuck on the tarmac or stranded at the gate after a domestic flight delay of three hours or more now hold a concrete financial right: an automatic cash refund for the full fare, taxes, and ancillary fees if they choose not to fly. Airlines cannot swap in a voucher or travel credit unless the…

FICO made its UltraFICO score available to lenders on May 20, 2026, adding checking and savings account activity to the traditional credit scoring formula. The new model, built with data connectivity from Plaid, lets banks factor in deposits, withdrawals, and transfers when evaluating borrowers. FICO says more than 75 percent of consumers with sound financial…

Americans who tucked away savings bonds in desk drawers, safe-deposit boxes, or filing cabinets decades ago now face a new reality: the federal government’s only online tool for tracking those bonds is gone, and more than $26 billion in matured bonds sit idle, earning nothing. As of September 30, 2025, the Bureau of the Fiscal…

Workers whose payroll data was exposed in a breach tied to Complete Payroll Solutions face a June 18 deadline to file claims under a $2.6 million class action settlement. Eligible claimants stand to receive an estimated $100 each, along with three years of credit monitoring. The gap between the settlement’s total value and the small…

Veterans waiting on disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs are seeing faster decisions and fewer errors than at any point in the past two years. The agency reported that average completion time for a disability claim dropped to 80.7 days, down from 141.5 days, while 12-month claim-based accuracy reached 94.02 percent. Those changes,…