Whither interest rates?

Welcome to The Money, where we break down financial news and provide the TL;DR version of how decisions by the Federal Reserve, government and companies impact you.

The Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged again in a meeting this week and scaled back its forecast from three rate cuts to just one this year, following a run of higher-than-expected inflation in early 2024.

The outlook will likely disappoint forecasters, who were briefly buoyed by an encouraging inflation report that came out the same day.

As of today, most forecasters think the Fed will start easing rates in September. At the week's start, investors' projections were very different.

Why did I buy that?

That love-hate relationship with social media extends to purchases, too.

According to a new study by Wallethub, nearly 3 in 4 people have made an "unnecessary purchase" via social media. Two out of 3 Americans believe social media is encouraging overspending.

Prompts for big tips spark backlash

Signs of backlash against "tipflation" are emerging, but not enough to make them go away.

A survey by the personal finance site Bankrate finds that the frequency of tipping has generally declined in every category, including restaurant servers and rideshare and taxi drivers.

And guess which generation is leading the rebellion.

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