- Screw April Fool's Day. I'm about ready to clear my entire feed queue. #
- I definitely need a reason to get up at 5 or I go back to sleep. #
- Bank tried to upsell me on my accounts today…through the drivethru. #
- Motorcycle battery died this morning. Surprise 4 mile hike. #
- RT @ramseyshow 'The rich get richer &the poor get poorer' is true! Rich keep doing what rich people do & poor keep doing what poor people do #
- RT @ramit: "How do you know if someone is a programmer?" I cannot stop laughing imagining half my programmer friends – http://bit.ly/9MOipi #
What’s In Your Wallet?
- Image via Wikipedia
Seeing Crystal play copycat made me want to play, too.
This won’t take long. I quit carrying a wallet a few months ago in favor of a Slim-Clip. That helps eliminate wallet clutter.
Here goes nothing:
- $0. I usually carry a $150 or so all the time. I haven’t made it to the bank in a few days, and I spent my last $7 on parking.
- USBank Flex Perks VISA check card. 0.5% back on all purchases and, theoretically, up to 25% back on some.
- Penfed Platinum Cash Rewards VISA card. 1% on everything, 2% on groceries, 5% on gas. We don’t use this much, since we are primarily a cash family.
- Driver’s license.
- My health insurance card.
- Wells Fargo VISA debit card for my business account.
- Expired health insurance card.
- Car insurance cards. Car, truck, and motorcycle. 1 expired and 1 valid for each.
- AAA card.
- Carry permit.
- Business cards for 2 attorneys.
- Dental insurance card.
If I go through the rest of my pockets, I have a pocket knife, 16 cents, a Gerber Artifact, and my library card.
Including my jacket pockets will add a Cold Steel Sharkie, business cards, a lighter, another pocket knife, a fingernail clipper, a small moleskin notebook, a ticket to Evil Dead: The Musical and matching brochure, a pad of checks, hand-sanitizing wipes, and a diaper to the list.
Now that I’ve gone through my stuff, I threw out the expired cards. My jacket will certainly accumulate more stuff over the winter, but it’s spent the last 6 months in the closet.
What’s in your wallet?
Why Going Green is Good for the Pocket
Going green is about making changes, some of them very small, to lessen the impact you have on the planet and its precious resources. But if it can be both good for the planet and good for your pocket then who would seriously not want to ‘go green’?
Saving money is at the top of most people’s minds at the moment, so check out your credit card at Moneysupermarket to ensure you are getting the best deal and see how going green can affect the rest of your finances.
Most of the things we can do to reduce our consumption of both energy and materials are automatically going to save us money.
Some of the more obvious steps to make your home more energy efficient can result in substantial savings, such as fitting good insulation, having double glazing and putting up thick curtains to keep the heat inside.
These simple tips are not all that can be done in the home, as by starting to think differently about how you use the different areas of your home, you’ll find out how zonal living can save you even more.
Zonal living is about only using energy as you need it in the home. Heating can be varied from room to room, ensuring that the temperatures in each room are adjusted according to when and how the room is used.
Keeping bedrooms cool at night, for example, not only saves you money, but also promotes better sleep. You can achieve zonal heating by fitting thermostatic valves to your radiators and using electrical timers to switch heaters on and off at appropriate times.
Most of us now have more electrical appliances in our homes than we actually use and each of them can be steadily consuming energy even when not in use.
The worst culprits are probably the TV and DVD player, because it’s so convenient to use the remote to switch them off. You might think you’re turning them off, but all that’s happening is you’re putting them on standby. Spend a few seconds actually switching off appliances at the plug and you’ll be amazed at the savings over the course of a year.
The same applies to cell phones. Nowadays, most of them recharge in a couple of hours or less. If you leave them to charge overnight, you’re simply wasting energy and money.
Could you cut down on your usage of the tumble dryer? Nothing in the white goods department uses up quite so much energy as these noisy machines so, if you can, buy a washing line and rediscover the joys of laundry dried by the breeze and sun; your bank account will reap the benefits.
Fuel costs only ever seem to go up, so adopting a more efficient style of driving will help your pocket as well as the planet. The Drive 55 campaign claims that keeping within the speed limit of 55 mph can cut as much as 50% off your fuel bill.
When you move away from a junction or lights, you can use up large amounts of gas, so learning how to use your gears smoothly is another way of saving cash.
None of these steps require great changes but taking a little time and putting a little thought into your energy consumption will help save you money and help conserve energy and resources.
Post by Moneysupermarket.
Discount Gift Cards: How Much Can You Save?
Do you know where you shop regularly?
Would you be happy if the things you bought there were suddenly, magically discounted?
It could happen.
I don’t think the game store down the road is suddenly going to institute a “Jason Rocks” discount program, but some of the bigger chains I visit have an unofficial option that can save you money, and it’s not a five-finger discount.
You can buy discounted gift cards. You can find a gift card exchange being run on a number of websites. How does it work?
There are two kinds of card exchange.
The first simply connects buyers and sellers. If you want to buy a gift card, you browse the list of available cards until you find something you like. You place your order with the exchange, who then take a fee and pass the rest of the payment to the seller, who’s got the job of sending it to you. When you get the card, you get to find out if the balance still exists or if it’s going to expire in the morning. Most people don’t sell a lot of gift cards, so their reputation isn’t really at stake. Avoid these, unless you like gambling.
The second kind of exchange actually buys the cards from the sellers and verifies the balance and expiration date before posting them for sale. When you go shopping, you’re dealing with a company that is putting its reputation–both with its customers and its bank–on the line. If there’s a problem, you’ve got someone to contact who probably isn’t going to vanish.
You visit the site, find a business you want to visit, and buy a card at a discount. The discount ranges from around 3% up to around 30%, with most discounts hovering around 10%. That means–depending on the store–you can get a $100 gift card for $90. Not a bad deal, especially if it for a store you’d be visiting anyway.
Have you ever bought a second-hand gift card? How did it work for you?
You’re Gonna Die, Part 2
You know that, at some point, you’re going to shuffle off of this mortal coil.
You will die.
Hopefully, you’ll have lived your life is such a way that the even won’t be easy for your heirs, but you can do a bit to make the process less painful for them. Do you want them gutting your house trying to find out if you have a will, or does the idea of a treasure hunt for a life insurance policy make you smile?
Assuming you don’t intend to sit in the afterlife giggling about how difficult you’ve made life for your offspring, the first thing you need to do is find a spot to put your important paperwork. This should, ideally, be a fireproof safe, which you can get for under $50. You’re looking for something big enough to hold the things that matter, while being able to withstand a bit of fire, in case the part of “Grim Reaper” is being played by an arsonist.
The next thing you need to do is put your important papers in the safe. Seriously, this beats both filing your insurance papers in a telephone book stacked in the corner and wrapping an envelope full of cash in a 10 year old newspaper and storing it with your recycling. It’s also superior to tucking an insurance policy in a coupon mailer and losing it the cracks of a chair.*
Important papers include:
- Your will
- Life insurance policies, including accidental death policies
- Bank account information, but don’t forget to remove these if you close an account
- Safe deposit box information
- Car titles and lien releases, if applicable
- The deed to your house
- Investment accounts
- Retirement accounts
Things that are not important papers for your heirs:
- The last 30 years of your monthly gas bill
- The last 30 years of your electric bill
- Home Shopping Network receipts
- Child support filings for your 33 year old daughter who has 3 kids of her own
- Coupon mailers
- Credit card offers
- 10 year old angry letters to the police department about that guy in the silver car who ran a stop sign in the grocery store parking lot
The final thing you need to do to make this all work is tell someone about it. Don’t hope somebody will find a book that has “In case of death, my will is here” scrawled inside the cover, buried in your kitchen. Really. And if that is your plan, don’t move the will later, without updating the book.
Your homework over the weekend is to gather up your important papers and put them in a box. Then tell someone about the box.
*I wish I was making this up.
A Problem With Life Insurance
It’s pretty common for someone to buy a life insurance policy and make a minor child or grandchild the beneficiary.
Bad idea.
The reasoning is usually something along the lines of making sure the money goes with the kid, no matter where he ends up, but that money is mostly worthless until the kids grows up. With the UGMA/UTMA (Universal Gift/Transfer to Minors Act) laws, depending on your state, it can be nearly impossible to access that money or use it for the support of the child.
- For example, in Minnesota, I would have to go through the following steps:
- Complete a Petition for Appointment of Guardian and Conservator with a $322 filing fee and request it be reviewed without a hearing.
- Notify any interested parties.
- Consent to and pay for a background study.
- Establish a custodial account at the bank and maintain separate accounting for the money.
That’s just to access the money. As a conservator, I’d be able to use the money for “support, maintenance, and education”, but that does not include investing in a 529 college fund. I could theoretically invest in ultra-conservative growth funds, but if the investments shrink, I could be on the hook for the difference. I’d be a “conservator”, charged with conserving the asset.
After all of that, when the kid turns 18 (or 21 depending on the setup), the money is his to do with as he pleases.
Have you ever met an 18 year old who made really good decisions about money? I had a friend who had a settlement trust pay her a lump sum at 18, 21, and 25. Each time, she bought a new car and partied with her friends for a month before the money was gone. That was nearly $100,000 down the drain.
It’s a much better idea to visit an attorney and set up a trust. Make the trust the beneficiary of your life insurance policies. Then, define who will be the trustee under what circumstances. That way, you can make sure your kids and grandkids can actually be supported by your money.
