Category: Your Money

More than half of the older adults who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program never sign up, according to research built on the federal government’s own participation data. For a retiree stretching a fixed income against rising grocery bills, that gap can mean leaving hundreds of dollars a year on the table simply because…

Wartime veterans and their surviving spouses who need help with everyday tasks like bathing, dressing, or managing medication may qualify for an added, tax-free monthly payment on top of a basic VA pension. The money is meant to offset exactly the kind of long-term care costs that blindside older households: a home health aide, an…

When the Federal Trade Commission wins a case against a company that took money from consumers through fraud or deception, it often gets that money back and mails it out as a check, no application required. The catch that surprises a lot of recipients: the check comes with an expiration clock. The FTC’s standard instruction…

Owners of certain Hyundai and Kia vehicles equipped with a specific airbag control unit have well over a year left to file a claim in a settlement worth up to several hundred dollars per vehicle. The case resolves allegations that the control units, supplied by ZF-TRW, can fail to trigger airbags and other safety systems…

Farmers and large-equipment owners who paid John Deere or one of its authorized dealers for repairs over the past several years have until the end of the year to file a claim in a $99 million settlement. The deal resolves a multiyear antitrust lawsuit accusing Deere of restricting access to repair software and steering customers…

Electricity bills haven’t just gone up since the pandemic-era price swings of 2021 and 2022 settled down; they’ve kept climbing faster than most other household costs, and residential customers in particular have absorbed the brunt of it. A multi-year analysis from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group puts a hard number on a…

A credit-reporting mistake that stuck a bankruptcy label on people’s files without a matching bankruptcy record is now being resolved with cash. Roughly 21,000 people will receive an automatic $100 payment with nothing to file, and thousands more can submit a claim for up to $1,000 before the October 30, 2026, deadline. For older Americans…

Electric and natural gas bills have been climbing in nearly every part of the country, and for retirees paying those bills out of a fixed Social Security check, the increases are no longer a rounding error. A tracker maintained by two nonpartisan research groups shows how widespread the pressure has become, tallying rate increases and…

Millions of people who filled a prescription with insurance at a Kroger pharmacy over the last several years may be owed money, but unlike some recent settlements, this one requires actually filing a claim. A federal class-action settlement resolving Kirkbride v. The Kroger Co. covers anyone who paid for a prescription using insurance at a…

Roughly 102 million people who bought apps or in-app content on the Google Play Store are about to see a small deposit show up in PayPal or Venmo, and most of them will not have to do anything to get it. A federal court gave final approval on April 30, 2026, to a $700 million…