ArcaMax

Times are tough. Inflation is at a 40-year high. Restaurants continue to face budget-busting challenges from the pandemic and labor crisis. But that's not all. As I write this sentence, food prices have increased by 18%, a number that may be even higher as you read.

Here's the weird thing. You may look at the menu for your favorite restaurant ...Read more

Q: We have rented an apartment to the same gentleman for the last 10 years. We sign a new lease each year, and he has been a great tenant. Sadly, he recently passed away unexpectedly. What are we supposed to do with his belongings and the lease? — Sandy

A: When someone passes away, their legal existence continues in their “estate.” An ...Read more

There are so many good reasons to make your own household cleaners. It's cheaper, healthier and greener, too. The homemade household cleaners I share with you from time to time do not contain chemicals. That means you can always count on them to be nontoxic.

Dear Cheapskate: The copper post tops on my deck are becoming tarnished. Do you know of...Read more

While it's true that life is uncertain, there's at least one thing of which I am very sure: I will never be held hostage for refusing to iron.

Unlike Billie Jo Tyrrell, whose son Robert held her at gunpoint for six hours because she refused to iron his clothes, I love to iron. I'm not saying that I would be that thrilled to do it for a 29-year ...Read more

The St. Louis region’s largest real estate trade group on Monday unveiled a plan to boost African American homeownership as part of an effort to redress its decades-long role in perpetuating housing discrimination.

The St. Louis Realtors say the new initiative is an atonement for how it helped to keep the region segregated; many African ...Read more

Beth Akers began her freshman year at Ithaca College in upstate New York. But she had qualms about the debt she would take on at that private school, so she transferred to a less-expensive public school: the University at Albany-the State University of New York, or SUNY.

“And the rest, as they say, was history,” Akers said in an email. “I...Read more

If there is one thing most people take for granted, it is food. U.S. supermarkets are always well stocked, and we don't think much about how all that food gets there. When pushed to consider it, I wager most of us assume there are huge warehouses somewhere filled with enough food to feed the nation for some unknown period of time.

The truth is,...Read more

Americans are seeing the fastest wage growth in decades, and the majority of workers in a Bankrate survey say they’ve gotten at least some kind of income boost over the past 12 months — but the hottest inflation in almost four decades could be keeping them from fully reaping those benefits.

Nearly half of workers (48%) got a raise this past...Read more

The average American’s credit score is 716 according to FICO, the company that created the most-used credit scoring formula. FICO publishes this data every six months, and this is the third time in a row that the average credit score has been 716.

Before this plateau, there had been a steady upward trend. The average credit score has not ...Read more

If you speak English in your home, your kids are not likely to come out speaking Italian. Kids learn through observation and imitation. And they don't miss a thing. Children are shaped from the very beginning of life by the way their parents live. They are ever-attentive witnesses of grown-up behaviors. They take their cues from what they see ...Read more