The financial news that actually matters
A general consumer finance category covering everyday money decisions, budgeting, saving, debt management, credit behavior, and personal financial improvement strategies.
Gasoline prices no longer move together across the country the way they once did. In the week ending Sept. 21, 2026, the Gulf Coast was the only one of the five regions the federal government tracks where regular gasoline averaged under $4 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Every other region sat…
A single week of pump prices in the Midwest just moved more than any other part of the country did, and it happened fast enough to matter to a household budget set once a month. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest weekly gasoline survey shows a regional swing wide enough that a driver filling up…
A single corroded bolt is the entire failure point behind Volkswagen and Audi’s newest steering recall. If the right-side bolt attaching the steering rack to the subframe rusts through, the steering rack housing itself can break, and Volkswagen has told regulators that risk exists on 208,724 Tiguan, Atlas and Audi Q3 SUVs built between 2018…
A fuel tank that is not properly secured to a truck’s frame can do more than rattle loose over time. It can leak fuel or detach entirely while the vehicle is moving. Ford has told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that this is possible on 223,472 F-150 pickups built across five model years, and…
A dashboard warning light only helps if it comes on when it is supposed to. FCA US, the Jeep brand’s parent, has told federal regulators that a software error in nearly 202,000 Grand Cherokee, Wagoneer and Cherokee models can keep the tire-pressure monitoring system from detecting a genuinely low tire, leaving the warning lamp dark…
General Motors has told federal safety regulators that the backup camera on more than 300,000 late-model Buick and Chevrolet SUVs can fail at the exact moment it is supposed to help a driver avoid backing into someone. The company has opened a formal recall rather than a quiet software patch, and it is instructing dealers…
Michigan is one of dozens of states splitting a nationwide settlement with subprime auto lender Credit Acceptance Corporation, and its cut is sizable on its own. State residents with Credit Acceptance auto loans are set to have about $70.3 million in debt wiped out, on top of a smaller cash payment to some borrowers, under…
No state has shed a larger share of its food-stamp caseload than Arizona. Since the spring of 2025, more than 400,000 people have come off the state’s SNAP rolls, a decline the state’s own benefits agency has now put a number and an explanation to. Arizona’s story is less about a single rule than about…
Consumers who filed a claim years ago in the packaged tuna price-fixing settlements are now running into a different problem: some of the checks the case’s administrator mailed out this month will not go through at the bank. The settlements, which total $152.2 million, finished accepting claims back in 2024, so the issue now facing…
The federal government’s main energy forecaster is flagging a supply problem before winter heating season has even started. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest short-term outlook warns that low distillate fuel inventories could push up prices for residential heating oil in the Northeast, the region where the fuel still heats a meaningful share of homes….