Every Number We've Checked

Every article here starts the same way: two sources give different answers to the same question, and we go back to the original filing to find out why. The headline is the finding. Sources sit under each claim inside the article.

Insurance

How Much Does Car Insurance Go Up After an Accident? One at-fault accident costs 14% at one insurer and 73% at another — the same crash. Massachusetts publishes an actual point schedule; most states do not.

Surprise Ambulance Bills - The $100 Cap Congress Never Passed Ground ambulances were left out of the No Surprises Act. A federal committee recommended a $100 patient cap in 2024; it has not passed.

Home Insurance Claim Denials: 44% or 6%? Why Nobody Knows The viral "44% denied" figure is not a denial rate. It counts claims closed without payment, which includes claims below your deductible.

Medical Costs

HSA vs FSA: Does Your FSA Roll Over? It Depends on Your Plan "Does my FSA roll over?" has three correct answers, and your employer picked which one applies to you. The carryover cap is $680 for 2026 — it changes every year, and older articles still quote $500.

How Much Is COBRA Insurance Monthly? It's 6.6x What You Paid Your employer was paying about 84% of your single premium. COBRA charges 102% of the whole thing — roughly 6.6x what came out of your paycheck.

Dental Insurance Annual Maximum - Why Is It Still $1,500? No law sets it. The cap has barely moved in about forty years, and the viral "$17,000" figure is something else entirely.

Surprise Ambulance Bills - The $100 Cap Congress Never Passed Ground ambulances were left out of the No Surprises Act. A federal committee recommended a $100 patient cap in 2024; it has not passed.

Money & Retirement

How Much Do You Need to Retire? The $1.46M 'Magic Number' The $1.46M figure is a survey answer. It fell $200K, then rose $200K, in two years.

How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Child? $300K vs $320K Every current estimate reflates one 2015 USDA survey. USDA has not published an update since 2017.

How Much House Can I Afford With a $100K Salary? Same $100,000 salary, same rate, same assumptions — and the answer ranges from $353,000 to $753,000 depending on which DTI standard the calculator uses. The 43% cap everyone cites was removed in 2021.

How Much Does Unemployment Pay? Your State Decides Most of It The same federal program pays $235 a week in Mississippi and $1,208 in Washington. Both figures come from the Labor Department’s own January 2026 table.

How Much Does an Employee Really Cost? It's Not Your Salary BLS measures it directly: $46.60 an hour total, of which wages are only $32.60. The famous 1.25x-1.4x rule is not a government statistic — it traces back to one MIT Sloan lecturer.

What Percentile Is My Salary? The Average Is Misleading The SSA itself says 67.6% of wage earners make less than the average wage. Drop the lowest brackets from its own table and the median jumps from $43,263 to $54,684 — with nobody getting a raise.

When Do You Get Your Final Paycheck — and Is PTO Paid Out? Same worker, same last day: $0 in Texas, $2,307.69 in California, $6,923.08 in Colorado. There is almost no federal rule.

401(k) Fees: How Much Am I Really Paying? - 0.99% vs 3.77% Two identical 50-person plans can cost 0.99% or 3.77% a year. Four documents show you your own number.

Credit Karma Score vs FICO — Which Do Lenders Use in 2026? Two different products built by different companies. The gap is usually small — but often just big enough to move you one pricing tier.

Credit Card Points Value in 2026: 2 Cents or 4x More? Chase points run about 2.05 cents; plain cash back barely half a cent. How you redeem changes the answer more than which card you hold.

Social Security Break-Even Age: Why the Numbers Disagree Calculators say 78, 80, or 82 and all are technically right. The assumptions differ, not the arithmetic.

Bills & Utilities

Does Unplugging Really Save Money? Why 5% and 23% Differ NRDC measured 218 watts, then removed 25% before publishing the famous 23%. Their sample was a gas-heated California house — at the U.S. average the same energy is 12.0%.

Why Is My HOA Fee So High? 1 in 4 Dollars Goes to Reserves One dollar in four goes to future repairs, not this month’s service. And the famous “74% of HOAs are underfunded” comes from the same table a reserve-study firm also reads as 66% Fair or better.

Leave the AC On All Day or Turn It Off? - 4 vs 8 Hours Under four hours it is close to a coin flip. At eight hours, setting it back wins by up to 11%.

Unlimited Data Plans - 5GB or 500GB? The 2026 Fine Print Every "unlimited" plan has a number attached, anywhere from 5GB to 500GB depending on the carrier.

Electric Bill Rates - Why 1 kWh Has 4 Prices (2026 Data) The same kilowatt-hour can cost 31.8 or 52.2 cents on one plan in one month, depending on the hour.

Consumer Prices

Are Lucky Lottery Stores Real? We Checked 30,000 in Texas We matched sales and $1,000+ wins for 30,054 Texas stores. The luckiest is the busiest — and half of big wins come from $100 tickets. Strip those out and the rate goes flat.

How Many Shots Are in a Fifth? (It's Not a Fifth Anymore) A fifth hasn’t been a fifth since 1980. And Korean soju grows 15 mL in the US — 360 isn’t on the federal bottle list.

How Much Does a Wedding Really Cost? The Missing Median The Knot’s $34,000 average comes from its own members. The last year it published a median, the two figures were 34% apart.

How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Child? $300K vs $320K Every current estimate reflates one 2015 USDA survey. USDA has not published an update since 2017.

Delivery App Markup - 83% or 15%? Why Both Numbers Are Right Markup studies say 83%. Industry data says 15%. They measure different things.

Credit Card Points Value in 2026: 2 Cents or 4x More? Chase points run about 2.05 cents; plain cash back barely half a cent. How you redeem changes the answer more than which card you hold.

Airline Pricing Algorithms: Why Tuesday Isn't Cheaper Google analyzed 4,000 markets: booking on Tuesday saves about 1.3%.

Myths & Claims

Was Heathcliff Black? What Wuthering Heights Actually Says The novel never settles Heathcliff’s race — five conflicting guesses from characters, and ‘swarthy’ appears zero times.

Are Lucky Lottery Stores Real? We Checked 30,000 in Texas We matched sales and $1,000+ wins for 30,054 Texas stores. The luckiest is the busiest — and half of big wins come from $100 tickets. Strip those out and the rate goes flat.

How Many Shots Are in a Fifth? (It's Not a Fifth Anymore) A fifth hasn’t been a fifth since 1980. And Korean soju grows 15 mL in the US — 360 isn’t on the federal bottle list.

How Much Does a Wedding Really Cost? The Missing Median The Knot’s $34,000 average comes from its own members. The last year it published a median, the two figures were 34% apart.

What Does the Phantom of the Opera Look Like Unmasked? Leroux gave Erik a mask that hid his whole face. The 1911 translation is 15% shorter than the French.

Is Mr. Hyde Smaller Than Dr. Jekyll in the Original Book? Stevenson wrote Hyde smaller than Jekyll. “Ape-like” appears 3 times — never about his face.

How Much Do You Need to Retire? The $1.46M 'Magic Number' The $1.46M figure is a survey answer. It fell $200K, then rose $200K, in two years.

What Does Frankenstein's Monster Look Like in the Book? Frankenstein is the man who built him, not the creature. All five traits Universal claims appear zero times in the novel, and the creature narrates 20.1% of it.

Does Unplugging Really Save Money? Why 5% and 23% Differ NRDC measured 218 watts, then removed 25% before publishing the famous 23%. Their sample was a gas-heated California house — at the U.S. average the same energy is 12.0%.

Do Left-Handers Die 9 Years Earlier? Tracing the 9-Year Myth The claim traces to one 1991 letter about 987 deaths. The underlying gap was eight months.

Leave the AC On All Day or Turn It Off? - 4 vs 8 Hours Under four hours it is close to a coin flip. At eight hours, setting it back wins by up to 11%.

Airline Pricing Algorithms: Why Tuesday Isn't Cheaper Google analyzed 4,000 markets: booking on Tuesday saves about 1.3%.

BMR Calculator Results: 1,395 vs 1,485 Calories, Why? Formula choice explains part of it. The activity multiplier explains far more.

2026 Global Heatwave Causes: Super El Niño Meets a Heat Dome Three separate mechanisms stacked. How each one works.

Fan Death in Korea: Why This Sleeping Myth Won't Die Where the belief came from, what the evidence says, and why it persists.

By the Book

A different kind of counting: instead of prices, we count words in the original text — downloading the full public-domain source and searching it directly.

Was Heathcliff Black? What Wuthering Heights Actually Says The novel never settles Heathcliff’s race — five conflicting guesses from characters, and ‘swarthy’ appears zero times.

What Does the Phantom of the Opera Look Like Unmasked? Leroux gave Erik a mask that hid his whole face. The 1911 translation is 15% shorter than the French.

Is Mr. Hyde Smaller Than Dr. Jekyll in the Original Book? Stevenson wrote Hyde smaller than Jekyll. “Ape-like” appears 3 times — never about his face.

What Does Frankenstein's Monster Look Like in the Book? Frankenstein is the man who built him, not the creature. All five traits Universal claims appear zero times in the novel, and the creature narrates 20.1% of it.

What Does Dracula Look Like in the Book? Zero Fangs Stoker’s Count is an old man with a long white moustache. The word fang appears zero times in 160,810 words — and Lucy’s eye colour is never stated at all.

Did Sherlock Holmes Ever Wear a Deerstalker? 0 in 60 Stories Deerstalker, curved pipe and the famous line: zero each across 658,554 words. Doyle described everything about Holmes except his hair colour.

Homer Never Describes the Sirens - 8 Lines Out of 12,107 Both epithets describe sound. The fish tail originally belonged to Scylla.

Netflix Pride and Prejudice - Darcy's 12 Words in the Novel Austen gives Darcy twelve words of physical description.

Tech & AI

Agentic AI in 2026: Why Autonomous AI Agents Are Everywhere What separates an agent from a chatbot, who is actually deploying them, and where they still break.

Each article carries a section listing what we could not verify. How we check things is set out on the “How We Check Numbers” page.