Category: Saving & Banking
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Homeowners are borrowing against their houses again, pushing home-equity balances $142 billion above their 2022 low
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…
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With SAVE struck down, student-loan borrowers have 90 days to switch or pay more
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…
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The average overdraft fee is about $27, and you can turn off debit-card overdraft coverage
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…
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Americans now owe $1.263 trillion on credit cards, and the average rate on cards charged interest reached 22.15%
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.…
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Regulators say NewRez billed more than 4,200 homeowners for insurance they already had; it will pay $15.5 million
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…
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Turning off debit overdraft coverage stops a $5 charge from triggering a $35 fee
Buying a $5 coffee should never cost you $40. Yet that is exactly what happens when a debit-card purchase you cannot fully cover triggers an overdraft fee that often runs about $35. Here is the part most people never learned: your bank is only allowed to charge that fee on an everyday debit or ATM…
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Leaving $10,000 in a big-bank savings account can cost about $400 a year versus a 4% online account
The cash sitting in your savings account is either working for you or quietly working against you, and at most big banks it is the latter. Many of the largest banks still pay close to nothing on savings, often around 0.01 percent, while a top online savings account pays roughly 4 percent right now. On…
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Georgia SunTrust customers can claim up to $1,000 from a $240 million overdraft settlement by September 14
If you banked with SunTrust in Georgia years ago and got hit with overdraft fees on debit or ATM transactions, there may be a check with your name on it. A $240 million settlement is paying eligible Georgia account holders between $5 and $1,000, and the striking part is that you do not have to…
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You have 60 days to dispute a credit card billing error and can withhold payment
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…
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Report a lost debit card within two days and you can lose at most $50
Losing a debit card feels like an emergency, and how fast you react decides how much it can cost you. Federal law caps your losses from unauthorized charges on a lost or stolen debit card, but the cap climbs sharply the longer you wait. Report it within two business days and you can lose at…