Affordability
Free Professional Advice For First-Time Homebuyers
Somebody Will Give You Straight Advice About Buying a House, for Free, and Isn’t Selling You Anything Every generation is supposed to hand the next one an easier time of it. That has been the arrangement for a long while, and it mostly held. It isn’t holding now. My kids’ generation is delaying the big…
Free Help For People Struggling With Gambling
The Phone Number on the Counter There is a phone number posted at the register where you buy scratch tickets. State law requires it to be there. People rarely see it. Here is what is behind it, because it is more than most people expect, and because gambling is the rare money problem where Minnesota…
Minnesota’s Free Quit Tobacco Program
You Already Paid for Quit Partner MN I was paying for gas in Chaska a couple weeks ago and looking at the wall behind the register while the guy in front of me bought a pack of cigarettes. I wasn’t doing math at the time. I did it later. On January 1, Minnesota’s cigarette taxes…
$35 Emergency Insulin From MN Program
There’s a Law That Gets You Insulin for $35. Almost Nobody Knows About It. In 2017 a 26-year-old man named Alec Smith aged off his mother’s health insurance. He had Type 1 diabetes. The insulin and supplies he needed ran about $1,300 a month, which he did not have, so he started stretching what he…
Gas Is Over $4 Again In Carver County
9 Things That Actually Help Carver County residents are watching the dollars rack up instead of the gallons when they fill up their tank these days. They used to just look at gallons. The Minnesota average that day was right around four dollars. A month before that it was $3.62. A year ago it was…
The Child Care Squeeze
Here is something you can do at your own kitchen table tonight. It takes about ten minutes and a bank statement. Add up what your house actually costs you in a month. Not just the mortgage payment. All of it: principal, interest, property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, the utilities. In Carver County, the middle of that…
One Layoff Away: Why Financially Secure Families Still Feel Vulnerable
For Zach, affordability is not only about what things cost. It is about whether a family can count on being secure next month. Zach has a good job. He saves carefully. He considers his family financially secure. And yet, since becoming a father, he has found himself thinking constantly about what could happen if one…
From Farm To Table
Farmers are getting squeezed, and it’s coming for all of us. Because of the war of choice in Iran, global oil prices have surged, driving diesel costs sharply higher. For farmers, diesel isn’t optional. It runs tractors, combines, irrigation systems, and the trucks that move crops. When diesel spikes, their costs explode overnight. And farmers…
Manufactured Homeowners’ Bill of Rights
This past weekend, I spoke with a woman in Brandondale who was furious about something more people should know about. The Minnesota Senate recently passed a Manufactured Home Community Bill of Rights. It would add basic protections: limit rent increases, require justification for increases, provide clear utility billing, and add safeguards when communities are sold.…