Personal Finance
Day-to-day money decisions for individuals and households. Practical guidance on budgeting, saving, spending, credit, debt management, and financial planning.
Latest in Personal Finance
A 2024 data breach at insurance broker Alera Group pays anyone notified up to $3,500, or about $50 with no proof — but claims close June 29
What happened at Alera Group Alera Group, one of the largest independent insurance brokerages in the United States with more than 4,000 employees and over...
Hospitals quietly offer “prompt-pay” discounts of 10% to 30% — but only if you ask before the bill goes to collections
Somewhere in the billing office of nearly every nonprofit hospital in the country, there is a written policy that could knock 10% to 30% off...
Max your HSA, invest it instead of spending it, and save your receipts — it’s the only account never taxed going in, growing, or coming out
A $350 eye exam receipt sitting in a Google Drive folder doesn’t look like a retirement asset. But for anyone running a Health Savings Account...
Americans are sitting on $29 billion in U.S. savings bonds that quietly stopped earning interest — and a free Treasury site finds yours by Social Security number
A savings bond your grandmother slipped into a birthday card in 1987 hit its 30-year maturity in 2017, stopped earning interest that same month, and...
Hospitals routinely overcharge — request an itemized bill, and you can dispute the errors that studies find on most of them
Picture a three-night hospital stay for a broken ankle. The summary bill arrives: $47,000. But when the patient calls the billing department and asks for...
A wrong line on a FEMA flood map can force thousands in flood insurance you don’t need — and you can appeal the designation off your home
Your neighbor pays nothing for flood insurance. You pay $2,500 a year. The only difference? A line on a federal map that places your property...
Filing a single home-insurance claim can raise your premium for years — because a hidden report called CLUE tracks every claim you’ve ever made
Last spring, a homeowner in suburban Denver called her insurance company about a slow leak behind the dishwasher. The damage was minor. The repair bill...
One in seven Americans is owed money they don’t even know about — states are sitting on billions in forgotten paychecks, deposits, and refunds, free to claim in minutes
Government agencies across the country are currently holding more than $80 billion in unclaimed property, according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA)....
About one in five credit reports contains an error serious enough to raise your loan rate — and disputing it online is free and often works within weeks
Picture this: you apply for a mortgage, get approved, and then learn your interest rate is a quarter-point higher than expected because a bank reported...
Paid medical bills and balances under $500 no longer show up on your credit report — a quiet change that has lifted credit scores for millions of Americans
Not long ago, a $200 lab bill that fell through the cracks of insurance could land on your credit report, knock 30 or 40 points...
Your car is quietly sending your driving data to brokers who sell it to insurers — and you can shut it off in the vehicle’s privacy settings
You never signed up for a driving monitor. You never plugged a tracking device into your OBD port or downloaded a telematics app promising a...
Anyone who subscribed to the streaming service MUBI may qualify for a cash payment from a class-action settlement — the deadline to file a claim is June 9
MUBI, the streaming service that originally built its reputation on a rotating selection of 30 hand-picked films and has since expanded to a larger curated...
Insurers aren’t just raising home premiums anymore — they’re dropping policies outright, and the cancellations are spreading from California to Texas, Arizona, and Idaho
Somewhere in a suburb outside Austin, a homeowner who has never filed a claim and never missed a payment pulls a letter from the mailbox....
The health FSA limit rises to $3,300 this year — but whatever you don’t spend by December usually vanishes, handing your own money back to your employer
A worker who set aside the full $3,300 in a health flexible spending account for 2025 and spent only $2,400 on medical bills lost $900...
A new batch of class-action settlements pays out before July — Krispy Kreme is sending up to $3,500 and Trader Joe’s about $100, most with no proof required
Krispy Kreme customers who placed online orders and Trader Joe’s shoppers who bought certain grocery products may be in line for cash payouts this summer,...
Summer airfares are running 21% above last year — but analysts say the cheapest move is to wait and book August, when fares finally drop
Summer airfares are running 21% above last year – but analysts say the cheapest move is to wait and book August, when fares finally drop...
Every major streaming service except Amazon raised prices in 2026 — Netflix’s top plan now runs $26.99 a month, and the typical household is juggling four subscriptions at once
Every major streaming service except Amazon raised prices in 2026 — Netflix’s top plan now runs $26.99 a month, and the typical household is juggling...
Health insurance just got brutal for millions who buy their own coverage — the average ACA premium more than doubled this year, from $888 to $1,904, after subsidies expired
Open your health insurance bill for 2026, and the number staring back might make you do a double take. For a 55-year-old self-employed consultant earning...
Your “pay in 4” purchases now show up on your credit score — FICO started counting buy-now-pay-later loans, and more than half of Americans have used them
That $120 pair of sneakers you split into four payments at checkout? It may already be sitting on your credit report. FICO has started incorporating...
Carrying the average $6,600 card balance now costs $1,462 a year in interest alone — and rates aren’t expected to dip below 19% before 2026 ends
Open your latest credit card statement, find the line that says “interest charged,” and multiply it by 12. If you carry a balance anywhere near...