MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending both in stores and online, announced on Wednesday that U.S. consumers had spent more than $850 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 this year ― an increase of about 5 percent compared to 2017.

Paid Leave, Social Security, the dirty business at hand with the new bills being proposed.  How will they affect you. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s generic version of Mylan NV’s life-saving allergy injection, EpiPen, at a time when regulators are looking to lower healthcare costs.

U.S.-listed shares of Teva jumped 6 percent to $23.88, while those of Mylan were down 1.3 percent at $37.31.

Finally it's time to stop!  Stop hating your body and start embracing the precious gift given to you for a short amount of time, but how?

Sears Holdings Corp reported a near 12 percent fall in quarterly comparable-store sales on Thursday and said it will close 72 more underperforming stores in an effort to stem growing losses.

The company listed assets in the range of $500 million to $1 billion and liabilities in the range of $500 million and $1 billion.

Just how safe is your cellphone?  How's cancer, low sperm count, impaired memory and hearing sound?  California suggests cellphone users of all ages take precautions to limit exposure to radiation that's being show to cause these medical issues with cellphone users. 

Tis the season to get together with the in-laws.  Do you find yourself excited or loathing these time together?  Struggling to survive, how can you turn this dynamic around?  Is it possible? 

“I want to share my story and make people aware that this can happen to anybody.”

Love your job, hate your job? Studies are showing that it's those coworkers, you know the ones that lift you up when you're down, those who make you laugh when you need it; turns out these are the people that make all the difference in how long you stay at a job.  How do they do it, what's it take to be one of "them." 

Ever had a bad day where you just feel like you can't do "it?"  Studies have shown that a lack of paid sick leave harms workers’ physical health, but it may also be linked to psychological distress that can ultimately take a toll on workers’ mental health and employers’ bottom lines.  

Seems like no matter how hard we try, one can never be truly prepared or financially secure to handle everything life throws at you.  Life is filled with unexpected expected events and expenses that rock your world.  During these times of potentially heightened emotional stress, the flexibility and accessibility of a personal loan can be a smart way to cover the costs. They provide competitive, fixed interest rates, a fixed monthly payment amount, and a payoff date so you know exactly when you’ll free of the debt. 

Every morning, as I drink my morning cup of coffee, I scroll through my Facebook news feed, and it does not take me long before I come across a “friend’s” post that causes me to shake my head, and think “Why would they post that?” In today’s social media savvy world, people are often quick to send out a tweet, update their Facebook status, or post an item without thinking first. Maybe I think this way because I am a divorce attorney, but I cringe when I read some of these posts. If you are going through a contentious divorce, about to go through a divorce or just finalized your divorce, or you and your spouse are engaged in a heated custody battle, please heed this simple advice:

As the new school year is about to begin, I’d like to offer some tips for the newly-divorced or new members of a blended family to ease the transition and try to avoid unnecessary conflict.

If you get sick in California, and you are covered by the state’s Medi-Cal health insurance, you will be pleased to know that your health care just got better. California is the first state to recognize that spiritual care is a standalone discipline in health care and a trained and certified palliative care chaplain must be available for any patient who wants one. Spirituality, defined in the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care is a “fundamental aspect of compassionate, patient-and family-centered care that honors the dignity of all persons.”

Falling victim to identity theft is never a fun situation to find yourself in, as I recently discovered when I learned my personal information was used to file a fraudulent tax return. Now that everything has been taken care of and things are starting to pan out, I’m sharing the lessons I learned to not only help other victims of tax identity theft, but also to inform non-victims of the problems I faced so they can learn from the experience — and pass along this information to others. After all, education is one of the best defenses against scams and fraud. That said, here are three things I learned from falling victim to tax identity theft.

Make no mistake about it, divorce is hard. Even if you and your spouse expect to have an amicable dissolution, the emotional and financial challenges that come with divorce can make it one of the most difficult things you’ll ever go through in your life.

Many people are blindsided by divorce and haven’t taken the necessary steps to ready themselves for the reality of the proceedings. However there are a few key things you can do before starting down the road to divorce to empower yourself and put yourself in the most favorable position possible.

Getting a divorce requires a lot of adulting. (And yes, “adulting” is now a verb.) The timing on that couldn’t be worse, because when you’re getting a divorce, adulting is extremely challenging.

To make it easier, I’ve developed some divorce attorney-approved guidelines for adulting during your divorce:

We all know that wearing SPF is important, but chemical sunscreens ― the kind you’ve probably been wearing for years ― can be irritating for some people with sensitive skin. That’s where mineral sunscreen comes in.

Mineral sunscreens help prevent sun damage, just like traditional sunscreens, but they do so using physical blockers like zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide. These ingredients work by reflecting the sun off your skin, as opposed to absorbing and transforming harmful rays on the skin as chemical sunscreens containing the likes of oxybenzone, avobenzone and homosalate do.

When it comes to hunger in America, there’s both good and bad news.

The good news is that the percentage of Americans living in “food insecure” households — meaning their eating patterns are disrupted or their food intake is reduced — appears to be on the decline, according to anti-hunger advocacy group Feeding America’s latest Map the Meal Gap report.

Pinpointing when to buy your plane ticket can be a major headache. Thankfully, this map lays the rules out brilliantly.

Analysts at CheapAir reviewed more than 351 million individual airfares sold on more than a million international routes in 2016. They tracked flights from the day they went on sale (usually about 11 months in advance) until the day of takeoff to see when each fare hit its lowest point.

Did you know that with the exception of Christmas, people spend more money on Mother’s Day than any other holiday? The forecast for 2017 is $23.6 billion, and if you think scammers aren’t on the job, there’s a new marshmallow bridge spanning Loon Lake I’d to sell you a piece of.