“Turns out, Americans with a net worth of more than $100,000 are more likely to have credit card debt than people who have a negative net worth. Taking a deep dive into the numbers, 58 percent of people with this level of net worth owe at least $2,500, and 39 percent are carrying at least $5,000, Bankrate.com found.”

“Retail sales—a measure of purchases at stores, at restaurants and online— rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in October from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected a 0.2% increase. The rise in October follows a drop in September, when sales fell 0.3%, the same as previously estimated.”

““Consumers know less about credit scores but think they know more,” said Stephen Brobeck, CFA senior fellow. “Taking our online credit score quiz provides an easy way for consumers to update their credit score knowledge,” he added. More than 230,000 individuals have taken the Credit Score Quiz , developed and maintained by CFA and VantageScore.”

“Fed Gov. Lael Brainard said in a speech Friday that the Fed’s 2018 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, expected to be released later this month, would show that while economic security has been “marginally” improving, many U.S. citizens—both in- and outside the middle class—were still in a position of “financial fragility.” Americans’ widespread inability to shoulder an emergency expense “is something that is very pronounced in recent years, and we should be taking a hard look at it,” Ms. Brainard said. “It’s still a pretty large percentage of our respondents who find it difficult…to meet what may seem like relatively manageable expenses.””

“Fyre Festival taught us many things. Among them: always bring your own snacks, be wary of events marketed with a combination of Bahamian pigs and influencer supermodels, and—perhaps most usefully—always book with a credit card.”

“The economy is robust, unemployment is sitting at 3.7%, its lowest mark in nearly half a century, and interest rates, though moving upward, are still relatively low. So why are credit-card delinquencies, application rejections, and involuntary account closures all on the upswing?”

“First Data Insights provides a look into U.S. consumer spending as it happens. Welcome to data at the speed of commerce.”

“Dude Solutions, the leading provider of operations management services to education, and SchoolPay, the most advanced enterprise payment solution in the K12 market, today announced an agreement for SchoolPay to power payments in various Dude Solutions systems.”

“One of the great memes of recent years was Florida Man, “the world’s worst superhero.” So named for the large quantity of bizarre news stories with the template “Florida Man (fill in the blank),” the meme covered everything from attempting to use a taco as a form of identification to calling 911 repeatedly over the size of a restaurant’s clams. Now, mobile payments has its own Florida Man story thanks to Michael John Oleksik, who punched an ATM in Cocoa for the most baffling reason.”

“If you’re a shopkeeper, who do you trust to repay a debt? For most of history, only someone you knew personally, which was fine since most of the people you encountered would be from the same small community.”