Auto loan balances in the United States reached $1.713 trillion at the end of June, the highest figure recorded in a series the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has published since 2003. The quarterly increase was $28 billion. It landed in a quarter when total household debt went down, which is what makes the…

Two OCC rules that preempt state interest-on-escrow laws took effect June 18, 2026. Ten states filed suit in Oregon federal court on August 11 asking a judge to vacate them.

Roughly 7.5 million people were enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan when the courts brought it to an end, and every one of them now has a deadline to choose something else. The widely circulated version of that deadline is a single date on the calendar. The Education Department’s own description is different, and the…

Home equity lines of credit spent more than a decade going out of style. They were the instrument most associated with the 2008 housing collapse, balances shrank year after year, and a generation of homeowners came to treat borrowing against the house as something you did not do. That period is over, and the reversal…

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…

Start with the rate on the card in your wallet rather than the number in the headline. If you carry a balance from one month to the next, the Federal Reserve puts the average rate on accounts like yours at 22.15 percent for the second quarter of 2026, up from 21.52 percent three months earlier.…

Buried in the escrow section of a mortgage statement, under the property taxes, there is a line for hazard insurance. Most months nobody reads it. But if that line has ever carried a charge for a policy you did not buy, from an insurer you never chose, in a month when your own homeowners policy…

When a wrong charge shows up on your credit card, you are not stuck paying it and hoping for the best. Federal law gives you a clear right to dispute a billing error in writing, and while the card company investigates, you can withhold payment on the disputed amount without it being treated as late…

Millions of borrowers who parked their federal student loans in the SAVE plan are being pushed to make a decision, and the clock is short. After courts ruled the SAVE repayment plan unlawful, the Education Department began moving borrowers off it, giving each one 90 days to pick a new plan. Miss that window and…

A new primary record puts the FTC’s University of Phoenix refund distribution into practical household terms. Timing, eligibility and remedy determine whether the FTC’s University of Phoenix refund distribution changes a real budget. The official details of the FTC’s University of Phoenix refund distribution are now clear enough to verify. Zelle payments target people who…