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.
More than a million people who paid for so-called instant cash advances through the Brigit app are about to receive a second round of refund checks from the Federal Trade Commission. The agency is distributing 1,052,038 payments totaling more than $6.8 million, adding to the $9.8 million it sent in November 2024. Altogether, the FTC…
Roughly 80 million Americans are owed money on matured U.S. savings bonds they never redeemed, and the federal government is sitting on approximately $30 billion of those obligations. The bonds stopped earning interest years or even decades ago, yet the cash remains uncollected. A federal tool that once let people search for their missing bonds…
Nearly half a million people who paid for credit-repair services that turned out to be a pyramid scheme are about to get some of their money back. The Federal Trade Commission announced in March 2026 that it is mailing more than $10.9 million in refund checks to 443,048 consumers who were charged by an operation…
Families enrolled in high-deductible health plans can set aside up to $8,750 in a health savings account for the 2026 tax year, shielding that money from federal income tax when it goes in, while it grows, and when it comes out for qualified medical expenses. The IRS published that ceiling in Rev. Proc. 2025-19, alongside…
Subscribers who paid for YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream during a specific period tied to Disney’s content distribution practices now have until September 8 to file claims for a share of a $50 million antitrust settlement. The resolution stems from Biddle et al. v. The Walt Disney Company, a class action in the United States…
Americans reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, a nearly 20 percent jump from the prior year, with bank impersonators responsible for the costliest losses among all business-impersonation schemes. The Federal Trade Commission received more than 1 million imposter scam reports last year, making it the single largest fraud category, accounting for nearly…
The U.S. Treasury promises that every Series EE savings bond purchased today will be worth twice its purchase price after 20 years, regardless of the fixed interest rate it earns along the way. With the current EE bond rate set at 2.40 percent, that fixed rate alone would not double a bond’s value within two…
Gasoline prices dipped from May to June 2026, giving drivers a small break at the pump, but the cost of a gallon of unleaded regular still sits 27.3 percent above where it was a year earlier. That gap between short-term relief and persistent annual inflation hits hardest for households on Social Security, pensions, or other…
Roughly one in seven Americans has unclaimed money sitting in a state treasury, and most of them have no idea it exists. State governments across the country collectively hold an estimated $70 billion in dormant assets, ranging from forgotten bank accounts and insurance payouts to old 401(k) balances and utility deposits. The money keeps piling…
Wyoming’s State Treasurer returned $24 million in unclaimed property to residents and former residents, with a single check totaling nearly $977,000. The payout adds to a pattern of large disbursements from the state’s Unclaimed Property program, which has previously issued individual payments as high as $6.7 million and set a record of $7.4 million in…