Dad Joke
What do you call a fake noodle?
An impasta.
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
Your Social Security is already protected from collectors, and your bank has to do it for you
Somebody asked me this week about being chased by collectors while living on retirement income. Worth answering out loud, because in that spot the fear does more damage than the debt.
A private debt collector cannot garnish your Social Security. Not with a judgment, not with a threatening letter, not ever. Same protection covers SSI, VA benefits, federal retirement and disability, servicemember pay, railroad retirement and FEMA assistance — the CFPB lists them all.
Here’s the part almost nobody knows. If a collector does get a court order and serves it on your bank, the bank must look back at the last two months of federal benefits that were direct-deposited and leave that money available to you. The CFPB’s own example: $1,000 of Social Security a month means “the bank must allow you to use up to $2,000.” You don’t apply. You don’t file anything. It happens because the money arrived by direct deposit.
Two real exceptions: the government can still reach Social Security for back taxes and federal student loans, and so can child or spousal support. Private creditors cannot.
I’m telling you because of what I’ve watched people do for thirty years. They cash out a 401(k) to pay a collector. They drain their last savings. They do it fearing the loss of something the law had already put beyond reach — often to pay debt a bankruptcy could have erased. That’s the expensive mistake, and it gets made in the dark.
If that’s where you are, ask me directly. Free, private, and I’m not selling anything.
The gas and carbon monoxide detector in your hallway might not go off
On August 20 the Consumer Product Safety Commission told people to stop using a “4 in 1” plug-in natural gas and carbon monoxide detector, model KH158. CPSC says it sold under eighteen brand names — ARIKON, ELECOIN, KH Alert, Sooguard, NICGOL and more — on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Micro Center and Snapklik from June 2024 through July 2026, for $13 to $140.
CPSC is aware of 91 reports of these failing to alarm during actual gas or carbon monoxide leaks.
Here’s why it’s in today’s email rather than filed away: the manufacturer has refused to recall them. CPSC’s warning is here. No notice is coming. No refund, no replacement, no letter. If you don’t happen to hear about it, you don’t hear about it.
So go look tonight. Plug-in combination gas/CO detector with a SELF-TEST button and three lights — green POWER, yellow FAULT, red ALARM? Unplug it, bin it, replace it with one meeting the UL 2034 standard.
Carbon monoxide has no smell. The detector is the entire warning system, and 376,974 of these are out there.
A bank failed on Friday and nobody lost a dollar
Pennsylvania regulators closed Tioga-Franklin Savings Bank in Philadelphia on Friday, and Second Federal Savings and Loan assumed every deposit. The branch reopened Monday under the new name. The FDIC’s notice says depositors “will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship,” and loan customers just keep paying as usual.
Nobody filed a claim. Nobody waited on a check. Bank failure is terrifying in the abstract and boring in practice, and it’s worth watching one work. Inside the insured limits, here’s what it looks like from your side: the sign on the building changes.
Now the one you can actually go improve
The FDIC publishes what the average American bank pays. As of last week, savings accounts average 0.38% and interest checking averages 0.07%. The table is here.
Now compare that with what's actually on offer. A decent cash account pays somewhere in the region of 3.5% — and I'm using that as an illustration, not a quote, because these rates move constantly. Call it roughly nine times the national average on savings, with instant access and nothing locked up.
On $10,000, the gap between 0.38% and 3.5% is about $38 a year versus about $350. For fifteen minutes of moving money.
Both Betterment and Robinhood run cash accounts paying many times what a high-street bank does, and both are in the Bonus Section at the bottom, each with a plain link beside my referral link — use whichever you prefer.
One honest catch on Robinhood, because nobody else will tell you: the good rate needs their paid Gold tier, about $5 a month. I pay for it myself and at my balance it earns its keep — but run the numbers on yours, not mine. Roughly $60 a year means you need somewhere around $2,000 parked before the subscription pays for itself. Below that you're renting a rate you aren't really earning. Betterment's has no subscription attached.
Don't take my numbers for any of it: go and see what they're actually paying today, then go and look at what your own bank pays you. That comparison is the whole job.
Rare money chore: pure upside, nothing locked up, no catch.
Money you might actually be owed
The Money Source robocalls, $1.5 million. If this mortgage servicer called you with a prerecorded or artificial voice between February 6, 2019 and May 7, 2025 after you’d told them to stop, you’re in the class. The unusual bit: there’s no claim form. Don’t opt out and you’re paid automatically. Deadline to exclude yourself is October 7, 2026. Details.
Crossroads Trading data breach, $600,000. Notified about the February 15, 2025 breach? It’s $25 with no documentation, up to $5,000 with proof of losses, $100 if you live in California. Deadline October 13, 2026. Details.
What I published today
New Mexico is erasing pandemic unemployment overpayments for nearly 30,000 people — there’s a waiver window, and the collection pause is broader than most people have been told.
Your mortgage approval isn’t proof you can afford it — the federal rule saying a lender has to actually verify you can repay.
Before you go
Want the deeper version? My weekday briefing goes long on one story instead of wide on six.
And the detector — you probably know somebody who bought a cheap plug-in alarm online because it was cheap. Two-minute text.
Everything here is my read on the news, not instructions for your situation. You know things about your own life that I don’t.
Look at what today has in common. Benefits already protected, and nobody told you. A detector that won’t alarm, with no notice coming. Money you’re owed that pays out whether or not you ever hear your name. None of it is complicated. It’s just quiet — and the quiet is the part that costs people.
That’s why I still do this after thirty-odd years. Not because the news is cheerful; plenty of days it isn’t. It’s because the gap between what’s true and what people have been told is usually exactly where their money is sitting. You closed a little of it this morning just by reading to the bottom.
Now go check the detector.
Back tomorrow.
— 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.
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)
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. 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.