Because sometimes things just need to be said….
Newsworthy items that need my commentary.
Walmart’s “early Black Friday” sale started today. Black Friday is November 27. You can do that math without a calculator, and so can Walmart. The retailer is running three events this year, per Retail Dive: early deals November 12 through 15, the main Black Friday sale November 23 through 29, then Cyber Monday from November …
Tomorrow is Veterans Day, and anyone with a military ID and a free morning can eat for free from breakfast straight through dinner. Denny’s is giving away an Original Grand Slam until noon. Golden Corral runs a free “Thank You” dinner starting at 4 p.m. Outback is handing out a free Bloomin’ Onion today and …
The Thanksgiving price panic is here, and the number at the center of it is two dollars. PwC says the average American family will spend about $90 on the big dinner this year, up from $88 last year. That’s it. A latte and a half. If a $2 bump on the biggest meal of the …
Every October, the same headline shows up: your Social Security raise is coming, and Medicare is going to eat it. This year the raise is 3.6%, announced October 14, and the headline is already back. I ran the numbers, because that’s apparently my hobby now. The average retired worker gets about $75 more a month, …
Tonight, millions of Americans will hand a stranger’s kid a piece of chocolate that costs more than it did last year, and then complain about it in the group chat. The National Retail Federation expects Halloween spending to hit $13.5 billion this year, up from $13.1 billion in 2025. That works out to about $115 …
Your electric bill has a lot in common with a bad relationship: it keeps going up, nobody explains why, and the other party seems to be doing great. Here’s the scorecard. Electricity prices rose about 40% between 2021 and 2025, according to the nonprofit PowerLines. Utilities asked regulators for a record $31 billion in rate …
Some nights your dreams are lovely. You’re at the beach, everybody you like is there, and the whole thing makes perfect sense until you wake up and wish you could go back. Other nights your brain apparently raided a pharmacy. You’re at work in your underwear while your third-grade teacher, who is now a giraffe, …
Full disclosure up front: I run this one. Two weeks ago Hurricane Isaias came ashore near Destin as a Category 2 with 105 mph winds, and a lot of people on the Gulf Coast spent that week squinting at cone graphics that looked like a plate of spaghetti someone dropped on a map. That’s the …
Picture two stores a few blocks apart buying the exact same bottle from the exact same distributor in the same month, and the little one pays more. According to the FTC, that was happening in the booze business. On October 2 the agency announced a settlement with Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the biggest wine …
On Wednesday morning the government will announce what it thinks your groceries cost, and then decide how big a raise retirees get for it. Estimates for the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment are sitting around 3.5 percent, up from 2.8 percent this year. The official number lands October 14 alongside the September inflation report, and …
If you can sign up for something with one tap, you should be able to quit it with one tap. New York City just made that the law, and it took a city to do what Washington couldn’t. As of October 1, businesses in the city that sell subscriptions and auto-renewals have to let you …
Gas stations used to compete by guessing what the guy across the street would charge. Now, according to a lawsuit filed in California, they let a computer do the guessing for all of them at once. Three California drivers sued in late June, claiming BP, Circle K, Marathon, Walmart and Albertsons, which together run more …