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Once the haze clears from Thanksgiving sales, you might feel like a triumphant bargain hunter — or maybe you’ll be panicking over your receipts. Either way, you’re not alone.

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“Retailers have been pushing people to shop earlier and harder for years,” says Melissa Caro, a certified financial planner based in New York City and founder of digital platform My Retirement Network. “It’s incredibly normal to overshoot a bit on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.”

In fact, holiday shoppers plan to spend $1,107, on average, for gifts this year, according to a NerdWallet study, which is $182 more than last year’s average. read more

Since it started as a hashtag in 2012, GivingTuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, has become one of the biggest fundraising days of the year for nonprofits in the U.S. This year, nonprofits face uncertainty about how donors may respond to a range of changing factors.

High prices may affect how much small dollar donors give this year or how many charities they will support. But President Donald Trump’s tax and spending legislation, which passed in July, also included a new charitable deduction of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples for the majority of tax filers. That could incentivize more households to give.

For larger donors, a strong stock market usually indicates they will give generously. These major donors also make up an increasingly important share of overall charitable donations and are more likely to give than less economically well off households, according to a study from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in partnership with Bank of America. read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Starbucks will pay about $35 million to more than 15,000 New York City workers to settle claims it denied them stable schedules and arbitrarily cut their hours, city officials announced Monday, hours before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders visited striking baristas on a picket line.

The development came amid a continuing strike by Starbucks’ union that began last month at dozens of locations around the country.

The workers want better hours and increased staffing, and they are angry that Starbucks hasn’t agreed on a contract nearly four years after workers voted to unionize at a Buffalo store. Union votes at other locations followed, and about 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned stores are now unionized. The coffee giant also has around 7,000 licensed locations at airports, grocery stores and other locales.

Workers and the company dispute the extent and impact of the strike, but Mamdani, Sanders and some state and city officials sought to amplify the baristas’ message by mingling with scores of strikers and supporters outside a Starbucks shop in Brooklyn. read more

Associated Press

Bitcoin and companies tied to cryptocurrencies extended a nearly two-month swoon Monday, tracking with a broader market sell-off in technology companies that many see as overvalued.

Bitcoin slid 6.5% after being down nearly 12% earlier in the day, settling in just above $85,000. The most-traded cryptocurrency is down about 33% since hitting a record $126,210.50 on Oct. 6, according to crypto trading platform Coinbase. Bitcoin had soared since April in line with the stock market and driven partly by a more crypto-friendly tone in Washington.

Companies that enable investors to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, as well as the growing number of companies who have made investing in bitcoin their main business focus, were hammered in Monday’s sell-off.

Coinbase Global fell 5.4% and online trading platform Robinhood Markets lost 4.4%. Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms dropped 2.8%.

Strategy, the biggest of the so-called crypto treasury companies that raises money just to buy bitcoin, tumbled 10%. The company has reported holding 649,870 bitcoin. As of 1 p.m. ET Monday they were worth about $55 billion. read more

By THALIA BEATY

NEW YORK (AP) — “Times are tough. We take care of us.”

In early November, Kashish Ali posted those words to her Instagram story as part of a yearslong practice she’s had to fundraise for food and drop it off at community fridges in Atlanta, where she’s from, and now in New York, where she lives. Ali, who is 32 and a first generation Pakistani immigrant, estimated that her friends and family have trusted her with thousands of dollars over the past couple of years.

For her, it’s a practice of giving back and creating connection. It’s also part of a growing interest in grassroots efforts to meet community needs that many call “ mutual aid.” Often, mutual aid just comes down to neighbors helping neighbors, and as many face high prices, cuts to government programs and political uncertainty, organizers say interest has swelled. Donating effort or time to mutual aid organizing is also another way to mark GivingTuesday, which falls on Dec. 2 this year, and has become a major day to support nonprofits. read more