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.
The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget request proposes eliminating all federal funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the third consecutive year the administration has proposed zeroing out a program that roughly six million low-income households use to help pay for heating and cooling. Congress rejected the same proposal for the previous…
A nearly $360 million settlement is open for claims from renters whose landlords used RealPage’s pricing software, resolving antitrust claims that the software let property managers coordinate rent increases across competing buildings. With older Americans making up a growing share of the country’s renter population, the settlement reaches well beyond any single city or property…
A robocall lawsuit against Concora Credit has produced a $9.375 million settlement for people who say the company called their cell phones with prerecorded or artificial-voice messages even though they were never Concora customers. Older consumers are frequent targets of exactly this kind of automated dialing, since a reassigned or long-inactive phone number can sit…
The Federal Trade Commission is sending another wave of payments tied to Amazon’s tip-withholding settlement, this time using Zelle transfers to reach Amazon Flex drivers who never cashed an earlier paper check. The new payments add to more than $60.6 million the agency has now returned in a case involving tips withheld from drivers between…
Three separate antitrust settlements covering some of the most commonly prescribed generic drugs in the country have reached final court approval, and the claims window is open for people who paid out of pocket for those medications over a decade-long stretch. The combined pool totals roughly $533 million, and the deadline to file a claim…
A federal court in Ohio has cleared the way for eligible Kroger pharmacy customers to file for a share of a $17 million settlement over how the company priced prescriptions for insured shoppers. The case centers on a narrow accounting question — what price a pharmacy reports to an insurer as its “usual and customary”…
Utilities across the country filed for $9.4 billion in electric and natural gas rate increases during the first quarter of 2026, a pace on track to challenge the record $31 billion in requests utilities sought over the whole of 2025. The tally comes from PowerLines, a nonpartisan consumer group that tracks rate case filings with…
Auto insurance premiums fell for a second straight month in August, according to new government inflation data, a rare stretch of relief in a part of the household budget that has moved almost entirely in one direction for years. The motor vehicle insurance index dropped 0.8 percent for the month, on top of a 0.3…
Gasoline prices climbed 27.4 percent over the twelve months ending in August, and the broader energy index rose 16.3 percent over the same span, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Consumer Price Index report. In August alone, gasoline accounted for more than a third of the entire monthly increase in prices nationwide, even…
Airline ticket prices climbed 23.4 percent over the twelve months ending in August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Consumer Price Index report, one of the steepest annual increases recorded anywhere in the release. The jump arrives as many retirees plan flights to visit adult children and grandchildren, attend a family milestone,…