Main Street Dollars

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Millions of student-loan borrowers who enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan are now on a clock. A federal court blocked the plan, the Education Department has begun sending notices giving borrowers 90 days to move to a different repayment plan, and interest is accruing again. Do nothing and you can be pushed into the Standard…

North Carolina recovered a record $3.7 million in unpaid wages for workers this year

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in Workplace Rights

A record year for one state’s labor department is really a record year for the workers who got their money back. North Carolina announced that it recovered $3.7 million in unpaid wages this fiscal year — the most it has ever clawed back for workers shorted on their paychecks. Behind that headline number is a…

The average overdraft fee is about $27, and you can turn off debit-card overdraft coverage

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in Fees & Overdraft

An overdraft fee is one of the few bank charges you can switch off in advance, and most people never do. The average fee runs about $27 a shortfall, and some banks still charge $30 to $35 — enough to turn a $5 coffee bought on an empty account into a $40 morning. A federal…

The 2027 Social Security raise is now projected at 3.6 percent, about $70 more a month

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in Social Security

The early read on next year’s Social Security raise is now 3.6 percent, and on the average retirement check that works out to roughly $70 more a month. It would be the biggest cost-of-living bump in a few years, larger than the 2.8 percent that took effect this January. But the figure is an estimate,…

A Maryland woman got 70 months for a romance-scam front company whose victims sold homes and drained retirement accounts

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in Fraud & Scams

The Justice Department put the damage in a single sentence: “Many victims drained their retirement accounts, sold their homes and vehicles, returned to work after retirement, and borrowed substantial sums from friends and family.” That is a description of households, not of a defendant, and it is the part of this case worth reading twice.…

Home heating oil costs 39.1% more than it did a year ago

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in Utilities & Energy

The bill for oil heat does not arrive in twelve manageable pieces. It arrives in a driveway, usually in late summer or early fall, when a truck pumps a few hundred gallons into a basement tank and leaves behind a single invoice. For the households that heat this way, that delivery is the largest fixed…

Medicare’s negotiated price for the inhaler Breo Ellipta is $67 a month starting January 1, down from a $397 list price

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in Medicare

There is a specific group of people for whom this number means something immediately: the 626,000 Medicare Part D enrollees who filled a Breo Ellipta prescription in a single year, most of them managing COPD or asthma. Starting January 1, 2027, Medicare’s negotiated price for a 30-day supply of that inhaler is $67. The 2024…

Fairview stops scheduling UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage patients on January 1, and names three insurers it will still take

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in Medicare

If you carry a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage card in Minnesota, this change will most likely reach you at a scheduling desk. You call to book a follow-up for next spring, you read off the name printed on the card, and the answer is that the appointment cannot be made. M Health Fairview has put the…

The IRS is dropping the paperwork for first-time penalty relief and applying it automatically

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in Rule Changes

For years, the way an otherwise punctual taxpayer got out of a late-filing penalty was to write a letter. You called the number on the notice, or you mailed a written statement or a Form 843, and you asked the IRS to look at your record and take the penalty back off. The penalty was…

Americans now owe $1.263 trillion on credit cards, and the average rate on cards charged interest reached 22.15%

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