Dad Joke
My wife told me I have no sense of direction.
I have no idea where that came from.
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
The number hiding in your grocery bill went up 58% this year, and nobody sent you a memo
Picture the truck. Not the one you drive — the one that brought every single thing on the shelf you’re standing in front of. The bread, the diapers, the cat litter, the bag of apples. All of it rode on diesel, and diesel is now $5.97 a gallon, up $2.20 in a single year. A year ago it was $3.77. That’s a 58% jump on the fuel that moves everything you buy.
Here’s why I’m putting this at the top of your Monday. When the grocery total keeps coming in higher, most people quietly blame themselves. I must be shopping badly. I must be less disciplined than I used to be. You’re not. You’re standing at the end of a supply chain whose fuel bill went up by more than half, and that cost lands in the price of the eggs long before anyone prints a headline about it.
And your own tank isn’t spared. Regular gas is $4.16, up 97 cents from a year ago — roughly 30% more for the same commute, and I’d bet the raise that was supposed to cover it never arrived. If you’re in California, diesel is $7.76 and regular is $5.68. These are the government’s own numbers, straight off the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly fuel update, released September 9 — and they get replaced tomorrow, which is why I’m handing them to you today rather than after the fact.
One more thing from the same page, because it changes who you should be mad at: crude oil is 52% of what you pay at the pump. Taxes are 12%. The station owner’s slice is inside the 15% that covers distribution and marketing. The person ringing you up is not the one doing this to you.
What to actually do with this. If your budget has felt wrong since spring, stop treating it as a willpower problem and re-run it with the real numbers: fuel and food are up, and by more than you were told. The most expensive mistake I watched people make over thirty years was covering a cost-of-living gap with a credit card “just until things settle down.” Things are not settling down. Name the gap, cut something you can see, and don’t finance the difference.
You know who in your life drives an hour each way to work and hasn’t had a raise this year. Send this to them today. They’ve been blaming themselves for a budget that a $2.20-a-gallon diesel jump broke for them, and nobody has told them the number.
Two things to pull out of the cupboard tonight
Both from the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall list this week, and both put money or safety back in your hands.
The fire extinguisher that fails in a fire. Prepared Hero is recalling about 31,000 fire spray canisters because they can deteriorate while sitting in the cupboard and then rupture or fail to work when you actually need them. Nine have already exploded or broken down in storage. It’s the one product you buy specifically for the worst day of your life. Flip yours over: if the base says 09/2024, you’ve got one. The CPSC says they were sold on PreparedHero.com and Amazon from October 2024 through January 2026 for $18 to $30. Free replacement at 888-457-2672, and don’t toss it in the trash — it’s pressurized and has to go to hazardous-waste disposal.
2.3 million candy bottles, full refund. Ricky Joy’s Sour Crush candy bottles — the ones with the green monster on the front, in blue, red, green and pink — are recalled because the rolling ball can come off and choke a child. According to the recall notice they were sold at H-E-B, Walmart.com and candy shops nationwide from January 2023 through May 2026, about $3 a bottle or $13 to $32 a pack. Most people throw a recalled food in the bin and eat the loss. Don’t: they’ll send you a prepaid shipping label and refund the money.
The $225,000 tax pitch that just earned a man five years
You may have sat through this one at a seminar, or heard it on a podcast: put your business inside a stack of trusts and a “private family foundation,” own nothing, control everything, and legally stop paying tax on almost all of your income.
On Friday the Justice Department announced that the Texas man selling that exact package — for fees as high as $225,000 — was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison. He told clients to route about 98% of their business income through layered trusts, run their cars, entertainment and mortgage payments through the trust accounts, and deduct it all. He even steered them to tax preparers he’d picked out himself. Prosecutors say the scheme hid more than $27 million from the IRS.
Here’s the part that matters for you. He’s the one going to prison. The clients who paid him are the ones who still owe every dollar of the tax he “eliminated,” plus penalties and interest. A promoter who tells you the tax simply disappears — and who also wants to choose your accountant — is describing a crime with you as the co-signer.
Same week, same agency: an Illinois woman got 27 months for sending “fictitious financial instruments” to the IRS — fake checks, money orders and payment vouchers, the “secret Treasury account” nonsense that gets passed around in debt forums. She sought $4.6 million in refunds and still has to pay back $303,672. If anyone in a hard spot has been handed that “solution,” this is what it costs.
There is no such thing as “investment insurance,” and the SEC just said so out loud
This one didn’t make the news beyond a wire notice, and it should have. Last Wednesday the SEC charged a New Jersey man and his two companies with running a $16 million Ponzi scheme aimed, the SEC alleges, at Christians of Ghanaian heritage in New York and New Jersey — retirees, taxi drivers, home health aides, students, an ailing widow with young children, two churches and a prayer group. Most had never invested before.
The tell, in the SEC’s own words: investors were told their money was protected by “financial, investment insurance.” That product does not exist. No policy insures an investment fund against losing money, and anyone who says one does is describing the scam, not the safeguard. The SEC alleges more than $5.8 million went to the founder’s personal expenses, including buying and furnishing his house, and about $6.6 million went to pay earlier investors with later investors’ money. These are allegations; no court has found liability.
If someone at your church, your job or your family table is being pitched a “safe, insured” return by a person from your own community, that shared background is the sales tool, not a reason to trust it.
Money you may be owed without filing a thing, and one with five weeks left
Costa sunglasses, automatic payment. The rule you’ve internalized — no claim form, no money — is wrong here. Costa Del Mar agreed to a $23.9 million settlement over charging more than the “nominal fee” it promised for lens and frame repairs. If you bought non-prescription Costa sunglasses before January 1, 2018 and were charged more than $11.95 for a repair between April 2015 and January 28, 2026, you get paid automatically unless you opt out. Florida residents are excluded, oddly, and Costa admits no wrongdoing. Nothing to do except make sure they have your address.
Globe Life and American Income Life data breach, deadline October 19. If you got a letter in October 2024 saying your personal information — including Social Security numbers and health-policy details — was exposed, you’re one of 532,578 people in this settlement. Up to $5,000 for documented losses, $18 an hour for up to four hours of your time, and two years of credit monitoring that you activate with the unique code in your letter. There’s no cash instead of the monitoring, so find that letter. Claims close October 19, 2026.
What I published Friday
Three pieces that haven’t gone out by email yet:
FCA’s Valve Train Warranty Settlement: What’s Automatic — and What You Have to Claim — Ram, Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler owners, read this one.
The IRS Filed a Tax Lien Against Me. Here’s What to Do Right Now. — the honest version, not the seminar version.
Damon Day’s Tesla Has 185,000 Miles. Here’s What 6 Years of Repairs Really Cost. — real numbers from my co-host’s actual car.
If this issue told you one thing you didn’t know, it’ll tell somebody you love one too. Forward it, or send them to yourmoneyactually.com — it’s free, and I don’t sell their address to anyone.
Nothing here is advice for your specific situation. It’s what I’d tell a friend across the kitchen table, and a good friend would also tell you to check the details against your own life before you act.
Here’s what thirty years of sitting with people in money trouble actually taught me: the ones who got out were not the ones with the biggest raise or the luckiest break. They were the ones who looked at the real number — the ugly one — and made one decision that week instead of none. You can do that today. The number is in this email.
— 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.