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| Subscribe to The Daily Money newsletter. Come for our roundup of each day's top stories from USA TODAY Money. Stay for the pop-culture references and financial news-inspired playlist. |
| Good morning and happy Friday, Daily Money readers. Jayme Deerwester here with you. Let's start out with some good news. |
🗞 Food news you should know 🗞 |
| Dairy Queen's Free Cone Day is back. After a two-year hiatus amid the pandemic, the annual frozen freebie fest, held around the first day of spring, returns Monday. |
| The chain is giving away free small vanilla soft-serve cones all day, while supplies last. Long lines are expected for the popular ice cream giveaway. |
| The limit is one free cone per person and mall locations are not participating. The offer is not valid on digital or delivery orders. |
| Meanwhile, McDonald's is spicing things up and bringing back its viral Szechuan Sauce for a limited time starting March 31. Just try not to freak out this time, "Rick and Morty" fans, mmmkay? |
🚨 More stories you shouldn't miss 🚨 |
| GET REWARDED FOR RATTING OUT RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS: U.S. offers $5 million for information leading to the seizure of assets linked to foreign corruption. |
| THE WORLD'S FIRST CRYPTO WAR: Ukrainian officials launch an official crypto donation website, collecting $120 million to fight Putin's invasion. |
| LOTION RECALL: Jergens Ultra Healing Moisturizer recalled for possible bacteria. |
| NOT-SO-STUPID GOOGLE TRICKS: Learn how to use voice typing or add accents. |
| USA TODAY WOMEN OF THE YEAR: Meet Linda Zhang, the engineer behind Ford's all-electric, in-demand F-150 Lightning. |
| 💡Daily insight 💡 |
| Over the past two years, we've heard about businesses gaming the system to collect PPP loans they didn't actually need or weren't eligible to receive. Now USA TODAY has found that some private charter schools had their hands out, too. |
| More than 1,000 of the publicly funded but privately operated schools that educate a fraction of U.S. children jumped at the chance to collect forgivable loans up to $10 million after Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program in March 2020. |
| While more than 90% of all eligible businesses across the country took the roughly $800 billion in loan allocations, charter schools were among the first to get the money – ahead of mom-and-pop shops and minority-owned companies – during the early days of the crisis when the economy was cratering and many business owners scrambled to get a financial lifeline. |
| And charter schools were uniquely positioned to get the loans – even though they continually received funding from taxes, just like traditional public schools. But unlike those schools, which educate the vast majority of American children, charters qualified for what would eventually become pots of free money because they are considered a business. |
💵 Taxes 💵 |
| If you are getting a tax refund, it's not the windfall that it may seem to be at first glance. All that's happening is you are getting back money that you overpaid and didn't actually owe. You're getting your own money returned to you – without interest – after you've been without that cash for months as you waited to file your tax return. |
| The money also isn't there for you if you really need it. If you have a financial emergency, those funds could potentially have been used to cover your costs. Unfortunately, the IRS won't send you back the money you prepaid early just because you need it. |
| It's easy to adjust your withholding with your employer to avoid having too much taken out. The best tax software can help you figure out what you'll owe and how much to have withheld. |
🎧 Mood music 🎧 |
| Today's lyric from Muse's "Uprising" was inspired by more than one story featured in today's newsletter: "Rise up and take the power back. It's time the fat cats had a heart attack." |
| LISTEN WHILE YOU WORK: Remember, you can listen to this song and every track I've quoted in the newsletter in the Daily Money Mood Music playlist on Spotify. |
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