By the time the costs of gas, insurance, tolls, parking, and car payments are added up, the average American family spends more on driving than on health insurance or taxes.
The “Occupy” movement may purposefully be trying to resist being branded or labeled with specific messages and demands, but there are already plenty of creative types eager to come up with logos and slogans for the protests—and make some profits while they’re at it.
The average consumer is expected to spend less on the winter holidays this year. Yet it’s anticipated that overall holiday spending will rise slightly compared to 2010. How could this be? While middle-class shoppers scale back, rich people—who typically drop four times more dough on holiday gifts than the average family—will be making more purchases [...]
Some Wells Fargo customers who opened their accounts in Florida or South Carolina are getting an unpleasant surprise when they open the monthly statement they receive in the mail: At least some of the statement pages inside don’t belong to them. What’s more, it turns that some of their own potentially sensitive account information has [...]
One reason people give for sticking with their bank even as it adds absurd debit card fees is that soon, all financial institutions are likely to charge for these services. So why bother going through the hassle of switching banks at all? Small banks, online banks, and credit unions understand that the absence of fees [...]
The global financial crisis of 2009 hit consumers hard. Two years later, and they’re still reeling. Spending is down across the board, and even the more affluent are watching their pennies. In this fearful climate, retailers are applying ever more scientific and psychological tactics to lure them back. This was made clear to me on [...]
Hidden bank fees are pushing the working poor out of mainstream banking and into riskier, more expensive alternatives to managing their personal finances. A new study released by the Pew Charitable Trusts provides a stark snapshot of how banks’ embrace of sneaky fees hurt the most vulnerable consumers. One advocate says this illustrates a broader [...]
What’s in your wallet? For travelers who sign up for credit cards left and right and strategically compile bonus points and miles in order to see the world for next to nothing, answering that question takes some time.
The average American’s score was 663 in the third quarter, a drop of four points from last quarter, even as our average credit card debt ticked up to $6,513. But there are some surprises in the state-by-state breakdown.
The stumbling economic recovery has led many of us to rein in our expenses, even on necessities like diapers. But there are a few lucky sectors that benefit from a weak economy — things that let us escape, give us momentary pleasure or temporarily relieve our stress. They’re the small things, like donuts and yoga [...]
Every month, one of the most anxiously anticipated pieces of economic information is the Commerce Department’s spending data. Are people in the malls? How deep are discounts? Spending is cheered; frugality causes concern. In the drama that is the U.S. economy, consumers have been cast as the hero, expected to provide the growth that avoids [...]
