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.
3M is recalling about 53,634 Scotch thermal laminators sold on Amazon because they can overheat and start fires. Owners can get a refund, and the money comes as a check in the mail. The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall on October 15. The laminators sold for between $44 and $56. The commission lists…
Michigan regulators approved a $139.2 million a year gas rate increase for Consumers Energy on October 15, handing the utility a little more than half of what it asked for. The Michigan Public Service Commission cut the company’s $240 million request, and the state’s attorney general says a typical residential customer will still see a…
Maryland could owe about $240 million a year in food stamp benefit costs starting October 1, 2027, if its payment error rate stays at 10 percent or higher, the state’s Department of Human Services says. At the same time, many households now have to show a recent utility bill to get the full utility allowance…
Food pantries are starting to receive free eggs as part of a nationwide settlement with three of the biggest egg producers. Cal-Maine Foods, Versova and Hickman’s Egg Ranch will donate 53 million eggs and pay a combined $3.3 million to 17 states, which accuse the companies of rigging a benchmark price used across the egg…
Dollar General must now charge the lowest price shown whenever the shelf tag, ad and register disagree, at every one of its New York stores. The rule comes from a settlement announced October 15 by Attorney General Letitia James, after state investigators were overcharged at 11 Dollar General stores in western New York. The company…
Pennsylvania Treasury will auction about 6,000 unclaimed items online on Wednesday, October 28, including jewelry, coins, currency and precious metals. The sale money does not go to the state for good. Treasury says the proceeds from every item sold are held indefinitely so a rightful owner can claim them, and the place to search is…
North Carolina households with someone 60 or older get the first crack at heating aid this winter. The state’s Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, known as LIEAP, takes applications from those households alone for all of December. Everyone else has to wait until January 1, when the same limited pot of money opens to all other…
Chicago-area households that include someone 60 or older, or someone living with a disability, can apply now for heating aid through CEDA, the agency that runs the region’s utility bill program. The early “Priority Period” began October 1, a month before every income-eligible household can sign up on November 1. Households facing a shutoff can…
Arizona borrowers whose cars Hughes Federal Credit Union repossessed between 2019 and 2023 stand to share a $7 million settlement fund. The same deal would wipe out about $25.6 million in balances the credit union says those borrowers still owe after the sales. Anyone who wants out has until November 20. The settlement is not…
Former customers of Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com are being mailed a second round of refund checks from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, drawn from a new $117 million allocation. Each check is good for only 90 days from the date it was issued. After that, the money does not simply wait. The administrator says the…