Dad Joke
Why are skeletons so calm?
Because nothing gets under their skin.
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
The truck was $28,999 online. At the desk it’s $31,400. As of yesterday, the FTC says the ad was the lie.
You found it on the dealer’s website Sunday night. $28,999, the color you wanted, forty miles away. You took a half day, drove over, test-drove it, and sat down at the desk. Now there’s a “reconditioning fee,” a “protection package” that’s “already installed,” a $499 doc fee, and a line at the bottom explaining that $28,999 was the price with their financing. You’re looking at $31,400 and a salesperson who says everybody pays it.
Here’s the thing most people believe, and it quietly stopped being true: the ad price is a starting point. Yesterday afternoon the Federal Trade Commission’s staff published a set of price-transparency FAQs for car dealers, and the sentence at the heart of them is this: the advertised price must be “the actual price any consumer can walk in and pay.” The only things a dealer may leave out are charges the government makes you pay — tax, title, registration. Everything the dealer requires goes in the number. Their own example: a $40,000 car with an $85 doc fee has to be advertised at $40,085. A $2,000 “discount for using our financing” is fine only if the price you’d pay with any financing is the biggest number on the page. A car that was already sold, left online to get you in the door, is deceptive. And an add-on can’t be presented as required, or as something they “can’t take off.”
I want to be straight about what this is and isn’t. It is not a new rule — the FTC wrote one of those, the CARS Rule, and a federal appeals court threw it out on procedure earlier this year. I wrote about that yesterday, because the yo-yo financing scam it would have curbed is still legal in most states. What came out yesterday is FTC staff saying, in plain English, that the FTC Act itself — the law they have always had — already forbids the bait price. Staff guidance isn’t binding on the Commission itself, but it is the standard the FTC sues under, and it names the exact tricks. This got a one-paragraph press release and no coverage I can find, which is why I’m handing it to you now.
What I’d actually do with it. Before you drive anywhere, screenshot the listing — price, date, the page it’s on. At the desk, when the number is higher, ask one question: “Which of these lines is a charge the government requires me to pay?” If the answer is none of them, the ad was the problem, not you. Walk. Then spend two minutes at reportfraud.ftc.gov with the screenshot. The FTC says its enforcement runs on the complaints it sees; you’d be surprised how few people file one.
Somebody you love is car shopping this month — the kid with the first real job, the parent replacing the sedan, the friend who “found a great deal online.” Forward this before they drive to the lot. The screenshot is the whole defense, and it costs nothing.
A word from your money
I was $28,999 when you left the house and I was $31,400 when you sat down, and nothing about me changed on the drive over. That $2,401 wasn’t a fee. It was the ad. I don’t mind being spent on a truck. I mind being spent on the gap between a number somebody printed and the number they meant.
Six days, then a week and a half: two claims with your name possibly on them
700Credit, by Tuesday, September 22. If a dealer ran your credit in the last few years, it may have gone through a company you’ve never heard of, and 5.8 million people got a letter this summer saying their Social Security number was exposed in its October 2025 breach. I covered it in August; here’s the reminder, because the claim deadline is September 22 — about $50 with no proof, up to $2,500 with receipts, plus two years of credit monitoring. 700Credit denies wrongdoing, and no court has found otherwise. If the letter is in a pile somewhere, this is the week to find it.
ABC Legal Services, by September 28. If a process server ever handed you papers in a debt lawsuit, the company that employed them had a breach too, and there’s a settlement with a claim window closing in twelve days. I laid out who qualifies and how to file yesterday; it hasn’t gone out by email yet.
Two to check this week
239,131 Ram 1500 trucks from the 2025 and 2026 model years are being recalled because a radio-software bug can blank the backup camera. The fix is a free software update, over the air or at a dealer; owner letters start September 24, and you can check your VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls tonight. No injuries reported. It follows a separate seatbelt-buckle recall in July covering more than a million Rams, so if you own one, check both.
The countdown timer isn’t real — that’s the claim, anyway. Two Washington shoppers are suing H&M, alleging its emails said “Just HOURS left!” and “20% off ends tonight!” and then the same sale ran the next day, or a bigger one arrived two days later — roughly 557 emails a year, by their count. It’s an allegation under a Washington email law, nobody has ruled on it, and H&M hasn’t been found to have done anything. I’m including it because the mechanism is the useful part: a deadline in a subject line is a sales tool, not a fact, and the only one that ever cost you money was the one you believed.
The Senate just left your state’s crypto-fraud cop on the beat, and you should know why that matters
The FBI counted $11.4 billion in reported crypto-fraud losses last year, up 22 percent, and the average loss was $62,604 — that’s not a number, that’s a retirement account or a house down payment. Since 2017, state attorneys general have brought more than 330 of the enforcement actions against those scams, often in cases where “victims had no federal or private recourse.” Those figures come from a letter fifteen state attorneys general sent the Senate on Monday, warning that the crypto bill being voted on, the Clarity Act, could strip them of that role. Yesterday the bill failed its procedural vote, 49–50, so for now nothing changes — which is exactly the point. If someone in your family gets talked into a “guaranteed” crypto return, the state AG’s office is frequently the only door that opens. Keep that number where you can find it, and know it was on the table this week.
The record-income headline, and the line on it that’s about your house
The Census Bureau reported yesterday that real median household income hit $87,460 in 2025, the highest since they started counting in 1967, up 2.6 percent after inflation. You’ll see that number everywhere today. Two things it doesn’t say. Median means half of all households are under it, and if your raise last year was under 2.6 percent, you fell behind the household that made the headline. And further down the same release: Medicaid coverage fell for the second year running, and 26.7 million people had no insurance for the entire year of 2025. If your coverage lapsed in a renewal you didn’t know about, say so to the billing office before the first statement arrives — an uninsured bill negotiated on day one is a different animal from the same bill six months later, when it has a collector’s name on it.
What I published yesterday
Three that haven’t reached the email list yet:
They Said the Government Banned ‘Yo-Yo’ Car Financing Scams. The Rule Never Took Effect. — the companion to today’s lead.
If a Process Server Ever Handed You Debt-Lawsuit Papers, Your Name May Be in This Breach Settlement — the September 28 claim above.
I Filed Bankruptcy and a Creditor Is Still Trying to Collect. Here’s What to Do. — the automatic stay has teeth, and this is how you use them.
If one of these was news to you, it’s news to somebody you know. Forward it, or send them to yourmoneyactually.com. It’s free, and I don’t sell the list.
Nothing here is advice for your specific situation. It’s what I’d say across the kitchen table, and across the kitchen table I’d also say check the details against your own life before you act on any of it.
One more thing. The dealer, the countdown email, the “guaranteed” coin — every one of them works by making you decide fast. The people I’ve watched climb out of real trouble weren’t smarter or luckier. They got slower. They took the screenshot, they slept on it, they asked the one question. You can do that starting today, and it costs nothing.
— Steve
Bonus Section
A few places I actually use, and what I get out of telling you. Each one shows a plain link and my referral link. If you use mine, the company may hand us both a small bonus. The plain link goes to exactly the same place — it just pays me nothing, and you nothing. Use whichever you like; genuinely, it’s your call.
I’ve also listed places I like that pay me nothing at all, so you can see the difference.
Cash that actually earns something
Betterment — their Cash Reserve account is the closest thing here to a plain high-yield savings account. (my referral link)
Robinhood’s cash sweep pays competitively too. The good rate sits behind their paid Gold tier — I pay for it myself — so on a small balance the subscription can eat the gain. It’s under Investing below. Do the arithmetic before you subscribe.
And one where nobody pays anybody: TreasuryDirect is the government’s own site. You buy Treasury bills straight from the Treasury with no broker in the middle — $100 minimum, in $100 increments, terms from four weeks out to a year. There is no app, no bonus and no referral link in existence for it. I mention it because for money you know you won’t touch for a few months, it’s usually the honest number the others have to beat.
Saving without having to think about it
Acorns — rounds up your spare change and invests it automatically. I pay for it, and the reason is simple: it saves money I’d otherwise spend without noticing. (my referral link)
And the version that costs nobody anything, me included: a standing transfer out of checking on payday, at the bank you already have. Acorns works because it moves the money before you notice it; a transfer you set once and forget does the same thing. If you’d rather not open another account, do that instead — I’d genuinely rather you saved something than used my link.
Investing
Robinhood — the platform I run my own experiment on. Uninvested cash is swept to FDIC-insured program banks, so it doubles as a cash account. The competitive rate requires their paid Gold subscription, which I pay for myself — worth it at my balance, but do the arithmetic on yours. And note Robinhood doesn’t pay that interest itself; the program banks do. (my referral link)
And three I recommend on merit, where I get nothing at all: Vanguard for low-cost index funds, Schwab for a full-service brokerage, and American Century — I was a happy customer there for decades.
Rates and terms move, and each of these has its own conditions. Go look at today’s numbers before you move a dollar.
A free conversation about your situation
Damon Day is an independent debt coach, and my co-host on Get Out of Debt Guy — you can also hear us on Spotify. I want you to know that before you decide anything. I receive no payment for this referral.
The consultation is free. The only time money changes hands is if you decide you want to hire him as a consultant. Go to DamonDay.com and schedule — he doesn’t cold-call anybody, and neither do I.
Or ask me, anonymously
Ask Steve — free, private, and I’m not selling anything. No account, no email, no sales pitch at the end of it.