Dad Joke
What did the drummer name his twin daughters?
Anna one, Anna two.
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
A thousand cuts
At some point paying for individual streaming feels like a thousand cuts.
When I was a kid we had four free black and white channels. That was not awesome. But it also did not cost upwards of $300 a month for all the internet and streaming services.
Yesterday Disney made another cut. Ad-free Disney+ went from $18.99 to $21.49 a month. Ad-free Hulu, same jump. The versions with ads went up fifty cents, to $12.49. MacRumors has the whole list: new subscribers pay it now, and everybody else on their next bill. Benzinga’s headline says the ad-free plan has nearly doubled since 2023.
Nobody cancels over $2.50. That’s the whole trick. It’s never one big bill you’d fight. It’s eight small ones you stopped reading, each one less than lunch.
Streaming was supposed to be how we got out from under the cable bill. For a lot of households it quietly turned into the cable bill. Same size. Just cut into pieces so it never looks like one.
The thing that moves people isn’t a budget app. It’s adding them all up once, on one piece of paper. The total is usually a surprise, and the service nobody remembers signing up for is usually the first to go. The other move is rotation. One service at a time, watch the show, cancel, pick up the next one next month. The shows wait. They’re good at waiting.
Somebody you love is paying for a streaming service they haven’t opened since spring. I’d forward this to them first. The Disney price goes up on their next bill whether they watch or not, and the only way to see what the whole stack costs is to add it up once.
$977
A man in Mesa, Arizona got diabetes and was out of work. Toby Newton fell behind on his homeowners association dues, and the Mesa Tribune reports what he owed came to $977.
It didn’t stay $977. After a default judgment in June 2025 the total was $6,579, and most of the growth was the association’s lawyer: $3,345 in attorney fees and interest, and $1,042 in collection costs. Last October the house went to a sheriff’s sale. The winning bidder was the HOA itself, at $8,172, for a home he’d bought with a $449,328 mortgage.
He tried to pay. Newsweek reports the association turned down $50 a month on top of his regular dues, and later $200 a month.
Then the story went national. People got loud. And the HOA changed its mind. Its attorney told Newsweek, “The Newtons will stay in their home.” A vote on a payment plan is set for September 29.
Good. I’m glad. But it’s worth being honest about what saved that house. Not the law. Arizona did raise the bar last year, to 18 months or $10,000 before an HOA can foreclose, with a payment plan offered first. His foreclosure was filed in November 2024. The new rule took effect in September 2025. What saved him was a news story and a lot of angry strangers. Most people in that chair never get the strangers.
The quiet hinge in a story like this is the default judgment. It’s what a court hands down when a lawsuit goes unanswered, and after that the other side’s lawyer is the one running the meter. I wrote yesterday about what to do right after you lose a debt case in court, because the days after the judgment matter more than people think.
The refund that never came
Ever sent something back to Amazon and the refund never showed up? Or it came late, came short, or came through and then got charged back? There’s a pot of money for that now. Amazon agreed to a $309.5 million settlement over returns, and a federal judge in Seattle gave it early approval in August. That’s the shoppers’ side of what happened; there’s been no trial.
It reaches back to returns from September 2017. The settlement terms say that if Amazon’s own records show you were shorted, you get paid automatically. Everyone else files a claim at ReturnSettlement.com by December 1, and the form opens by October 2.
One for the freezer while you’re at it: Walmart’s Bettergoods Authentic Italian Lemon Alfredo Fettuccine, the 22-ounce bag, lots L6079C and L6080C, is recalled for possible listeria. The FDA notice says it was sold at Walmart stores nationwide. No illnesses reported so far.
Also on the site yesterday
If mortgage rates are on your mind, I wrote about why nearly one in ten mortgage applications is now an adjustable rate with 30-year rates past 7%. And the FleetCor fuel card settlement is real, and nobody has to file for it.
If any of this was new to you, somebody you know hasn’t heard it either. It’s free at yourmoneyactually.com, and I don’t sell the list. The places I actually use for my own money, and what I get out of telling you, are on one page where they’ll always be.
Nothing here is advice for your specific situation. It’s what I’d tell a friend over coffee, and I’d tell the same friend that the details of their own life outrank anything I’ve written here.
One more thing. Four black and white channels wasn’t awesome. A $300 month isn’t either. Somewhere between them is a number that’s yours to pick, and you’re allowed to get there one small cancel at a time. And if a bill you couldn’t pay has turned into a letter from a lawyer, you’re not the first person that happened to, and it’s rarely the end of the story. Toby Newton kept trying to pay. Trying counts, even before anybody’s listening. I’ll be back tomorrow.
— Steve