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.
Handing cash, a car, or the family home to a child can feel like a generous, sensible move late in life. But for anyone who may need Medicaid to pay for a nursing home, a gift made at the wrong time carries a hidden cost: it can push the start of coverage back by months….
Nursing-home Medicaid usually requires an applicant to spend down countable assets to a few thousand dollars before coverage begins, a threshold that can wipe out a modest lifetime of savings. Yet one common expense is treated differently: money set aside in advance to pay for a funeral and burial. In most states, an irrevocable prepaid…
Guardianship court can strip an older adult of control over their own bank accounts, drain thousands of dollars in legal fees, and drag on for months, all because no one signed a single document first. A durable power of attorney is the paperwork that heads that off, naming a trusted person to handle money if…
Millions of people took the prescription stop-smoking drug Chantix before its maker pulled every lot from pharmacy shelves over a possible cancer-causing contaminant. Now a $44 million settlement gives those buyers a way to recover some of what they paid, and the window to file a claim closes in the middle of September. The case…
A short claim form and a firm deadline stand between eligible consumers and a payment of up to $160 from a Farmers Insurance telemarketing settlement. The money resolves allegations that agents marketing Farmers coverage placed calls and texts that ran afoul of federal telemarketing law, and the window to file closes in mid-September. For anyone…
The size of a monthly food-stamp benefit is not a flat figure; it is the end of a calculation that subtracts certain costs from a household’s income. Buried in that formula is a provision written specifically for older and disabled Americans, and it is one of the most overlooked. Households that include a member who…
A backyard grilling staple has landed at the center of one of the summer’s largest consumer recalls. Conair has expanded its recall of Cuisinart wire-bristle grill brushes to roughly 3.6 million units after more reports that small metal bristles can break off, cling to a grill grate or food, and be swallowed. Owners are entitled…
For most people, a Social Security check feels untouchable — earned income, protected by law, safe from creditors. But there is a major exception, and it catches older borrowers off guard: a defaulted federal student loan can let the government reach into that monthly benefit and take a slice before it ever lands in a…
A divorce decree can split a house, divide a pension, and end a marriage, yet leave one thing untouched: the beneficiary form naming a former spouse on a retirement account or life insurance policy. Those forms do not update themselves when a marriage begins or ends. Until someone changes them, a stale designation can hand…
A “free trial” is rarely as free as it looks. The offer hands over a card number for a week or a month of no-cost access, and unless the customer cancels in time, the trial quietly rolls into a paid subscription that renews on its own — month after month, often at a price the…