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.
Consumers who were charged for Amazon Prime memberships they never agreed to can now file for refunds through a federal program that requires no receipts, no screenshots, and no proof of purchase. The Federal Trade Commission, which accused Amazon of enrolling people without clear consent and then making cancellation deliberately difficult, maintains an active refund…
Americans flying for the Fourth of July this year will pay roughly $830 for a domestic round-trip ticket, a 5% jump from 2025, according to AAA’s booking data for the holiday period. The increase lands as AAA projects 72.2 million people will travel during a nine-day window around Independence Day, a figure that would set…
Costco Wholesale kept ringing up sales gains through the quarter ended May 10, 2026, even as broader U.S. retail spending showed signs of cooling. The company’s latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission details continued growth in merchandise revenue and membership-fee income during a stretch when government data pointed to softer results across…
Millions of American households earning less than $30,000 a year are running out of room in their budgets, and the discount retailer that depends on them most is feeling the squeeze. Dollar General has described its core shoppers as “very stretched,” a characterization that aligns with federal data showing persistent price increases on groceries and…
Walmart shoppers are pumping less than 10 gallons of gas per trip for the first time since 2022, a shift the retailer’s chief financial officer has called “an indication of stress.” The pattern points to real-time pressure on lower-income households as fuel prices stay elevated and broader inflation continues to climb. With consumer sentiment falling…
American car buyers face a punishing sticker price. The average transaction price for a new vehicle sits near $49,000, hovering close to its all-time peak. That figure has climbed sharply since 2020, driven by pandemic-era supply shortages, a shift toward larger trucks and SUVs, and persistent cost pressures across the auto supply chain. For households…
Roughly three million Texans who hold state hunting and fishing licenses have been told that an unauthorized actor gained access to a vendor system storing their driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and residential addresses. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department disclosed the incident after Texas Cyber Command flagged the intrusion, putting…
Eastman Kodak confirmed that hackers broke into its systems and stole data after the ShinyHunters extortion group claimed responsibility for taking 2.2 million records from the imaging company. The breach places Kodak, a 135-year-old brand that has spent the past decade rebuilding itself around commercial printing and advanced materials, squarely in the crosshairs of one…
More than half of Americans are now putting groceries, utilities, and rent on their credit cards because their paychecks cannot keep up with the cost of those basics. New federal data released on May 12, 2026, from both the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a picture of households stretched so…
Up to 14.2 million email login credentials tied to six Japanese internet service providers were exposed after attackers compromised a shared backend email system operated by KDDI, one of Japan’s largest telecommunications companies. The breach turned a single point of intrusion into a sprawling, multi-company security failure, putting millions of users at risk of account…