Author: sms@airmail.net

Categories
Coupons

5 Coupon Mistakes You’re (Probably) Making

Think you’re good at couponing? Maybe you’ve got a system down and you feel like you’re really saving money using coupons. Here’s the thing – I can guarantee you that you’re doing something wrong.

This post is all about the 5 coupon mistakes you’re (probably) making. You may not be making all of them, but these coupon pitfalls are so common, it’s likely you’re already deep in at least one of them.

1. You’re Buying More Than You Need (Because Coupons!)

I’ve seen it happen too many times not to comment on it right up top in this post. You don’t have to use every coupon you find. This is even true for those really great once-in-a-lifetime coupon finds that offer deals you’ll never see again.

Buying more stuff than you need just because you have a coupon for it is a great way to wipe out your coupon savings in a single purchase. Also, you’ll stuff your cabinets and storage spaces with stuff that is less likely to get used anyway.

Adequate storage is crucial to successful couponing, so don’t stock up on stuff you don’t think you’ll use.

2. You’re Ignoring the Fine Print

The people who create coupons use a lot of the same tactics as advertisers. That includes a confusing or misleading “headline” that’s explained better in fine print. Terms and conditions of coupons vary so much that it’s hard to make any sweeping statement about them, other than “you should read them.”

You don’t have to be an extreme couponer to understand that fine print is an important part of a coupon transaction.

Coupons often apply to specific products, or specific numbers of products. You may be shopping for a travel size toothpaste with a coupon that excludes travel size items.

Save yourself the frustration and added expense of failed couponing attempts by reading the fine print as if it were holy scripture.

3. You Haven’t Embraced New Technology

I say “technology,” but really I’m talking about apps.

Between couponing apps and store-specific or branded apps, your phone is going to basically need an entire folder called “Coupons” or something just to keep it all straight.

If you aren’t using apps to expand your coupon savings and make your couponing life easier, you’re missing out on a ton of potential savings and convenience.

Lots of stores let you link your frequent shopper card or rewards card to your app or virtual store wallet, which streamlines the whole process and gives you another avenue to hunt for deals.

Thanks to geolocation, you can find site-specific coupons or bargains, provided you have all the necessary tech running and your phone is broadcasting the necessary data to the store.

4. You’re Screwing Up the Timing

It’s not just about avoiding expired coupons – timing is important when you use coupons altogether.

The most basic example of how to use timing to your advantage – saving a grocery coupon for use when an item is already on sale. These days, you can almost always stack a sale price and a coupon and save even more money.

You can also use timing to decide when not to use a coupon. This happens to our family a lot at the grocery store. What we do is check the store brand cost of an item (per ounce) against the final coupon sale price of the name brand item we were going to buy. If we can save more on the store brand, we sometimes do that and save the coupon for use at a later date.

5. You’re Shopping in the Coupon Pages

It’s easy to get a little too into couponing. You can go too far in the direction of an obsession with savings and end up outspending your own thriftiness.

A big mistake I see people making is shopping by looking through coupon offers. I think this is the wrong way to do it.

Here’s what we do when it comes to groceries,

First, we make our menu for the week. Next, we check the pantries and cold storage to find out what we don’t have. At that point, we have a grocery list. Next, we break out the coupon box. We match our list to the coupons we have. If need be, we go coupon-hunting to fill in the gaps.

If you do it the other way, by looking through your coupons to decide what to shop for, you’re putting yourself at risk of buying the wrong groceries. Not to mention you’re ripping through your coupon stock at a faster pace than you should.

Conclusion

Using coupons to save on things you buy is a good thing, nobody can deny that. However, the couponing mistakes in this post may do you more harm than good.

Check your couponing behavior, look out for the mistakes identified here, and save with confidence.

Categories
Banking

Which Big Bank Has the Most Fee-Free ATMs?

My wife, ever the financially astute member of our household, absolutely despises paying ATM fees. To her, those little $2 and $3 charges are the acid that eats away at our weekly expenses. I’m not a big stickler about avoiding ATM fees, much to her chagrin. This got me thinking – which big bank has the most fee-free ATMs?

If you, like my wife, hate paying ATM fees, consider opening an account with one of the national banking providers on this list.

I’ll admit it – spending money to get money is as unnecessary these days as it is redundant. The average ATM fee is now $3.14. Pull cash out once a week, and you’re spending $165 a year to pull cash out of a machine. You wouldn’t pay a $165 annual ARM fee to join a bank, would you?

This post identifies a few banks around the country that offer a large number of free ATMs as part of their marketing. As in, free ATMs are baked into the advertising of their accounts.

Citibank

My favorite big name bank with a lot of free ATM access is Citibank. They have something like 65,000 ATMs in their network that won’t charge you a dime to get your cash. But a few years ago, it got even better.

Now that you can use your Citibank card for free at Costco, CVS, Target, and a few other big retailers, it’s really easy to find a place to withdraw money without paying a fee. If you aren’t near one of these ubiquitous stores, you can check out Citi’s worldwide ATM network and find a free place to get cash near you, even in other countries.

Quontic Bank

Quontic Bank members have access to “90,000+ ATMs across the nation.” You won’t pay any fees from withdrawing from these ATMs. I looked at their ATM Locator and it looks like you can use ATMs at places like CVS and Walgreens as well as a few big grocery retailers and big box stores, all for no cost. That’s really convenient because it’s easy to remember: “If you need cash, go to Costco,” or whatever.

Axos Bank

Axos Bank offers a few accounts that offer free ATM withdrawals, but a little differently. Besides their network of 91,000 free ATMs nationwide, Axos Bank’s Rewards, Cashback, and Essential checking accounts offer “unlimited ATM reimbursements.” If you open a Golden checking account with Axos, you’re limited to $8 in ATM fee reimbursements per month.

If you have one of those three accounts, every ATM is fee-free, provided you don’t mind waiting for a monthly reimbursement rather than the quick hit of “I didn’t pay for that!” at the time of withdrawal.

Paramount Bank

Customers of Paramount Bank can use any of 37,000 Money Pass ATMs nationwide for no fee. They can also get reimbursed for up to 20 out of network ATM withdrawals per month. You have to wait to the end of the month for the bank to pay you back, but for those of us that operate on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual budget, that’s no big deal.

I think twenty withdrawals per month is plenty. Honestly, if you’re getting cash more than five times a week, you probably have some other financial issues to consider before you tackle your ATM fee structure.

LendingClub

LendingClub is famous for their debit card cashback rewards program, as they should be. But I also love their unlimited ATM fee reimbursement policy, which is also based on a monthly rebate system. They have a network of around 40,000 ATMs that members can use for no fee, but even if you have to go outside that network, they’ve got you covered.

As a LendingClub user, I can vouch for their customer service when it comes to reimbursing fees – their refund policy is wide-open, and I’ve always felt welcome to appeal for a rebate when one wasn’t granted.

Conclusion

Good news – access to free ATMs is increasing. As banks use their ever-larger networks to compete for business, more and more financial services companies are using things like rebates to make the process of withdrawing cash a little less painful.

The banks on this list provide solid financial services with a focus on giving customers free access to their funds.

Categories
Real Estate

Is It Better to Own or Rent a Home?

I’ve wondered about home ownership vs. renting for a long time. I think lots of us think about this early in our careers when we first start to stack a little bit of money together. Is it better to rent or own a home?

This post describes the ups and downs of both home ownership and renting. I’ll also try to answer the question as best I can towards the end of the post.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Home Ownership

Most of us have had the dream of owning our own little piece of the world. Home ownership is a version of that; provided you understand that the bank is the true owner of your home (until you pay off the mortgage).

The biggest feather in home ownership’s cap is financial. Buying a home means that you’re building equity – the market value of your home minus what you owe on the home. To many people, buying a home is an investment in their financial future.

Another bonus for homeowners is customization. Your home is your home, and provided you stay within certain parameters as outlined in your city’s building code, you can do what you want with it.

One potential drawback of buying a home – changing financial markets and predatory lending practices. Do I even have to bring up the 2008 Housing Crisis? Not every home purchase is a wise investment. A 30-year mortgage locks up decades of potential savings in a property that’s not guaranteed to grow in value.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Renting

Okay, so having a landlord breathing down your neck and driving by to squint at you every now and then is no treat. But, if you can deal with the concept of not owning the place where you sleep, there are benefits to short-term rentals.

The most obvious benefit to renting is financial. It simply costs less to rent than it does to purchase a home. Renters pay much less up front than home purchasers. Sure, you’ve got to shell out first and last month’s rent, a security deposit, and maybe a few other fees. That’s still nothing compared to what homebuyers spend at the beginning of a home purchase.

An unsung benefit of renting your home – mobility. You can relocate much easier if you’re on a lease than you can if you own your home. People who change jobs or job sites frequently may not want to deal with selling a house every few years. If a career change is in the cards for you, buying a home may not be wise. For these people, renting makes good sense.

What are the drawbacks? The most glaring one involves your personal finances. Renting means you aren’t building equity. Your rent goes to someone else’s bank account and isn’t earning you a dime.

Another downside of renting – you lose the ability to customize or update your space. I’ve never had a landlord tell me to just go ahead and paint and do whatever I want to their home. While this means your landlord is generally responsible for repair work, it also means you’re stuck with that neon green shag carpet in the living room.

Which Is Better? That Depends …

Okay, so – is it better to rent or to buy?

The answer depends on a bunch of different factors.

The first one is geographic – are rental rates low enough where you live that buying a home just doesn’t make financial sense? That’s the case in lots of American cities. In Austin, Texas, for example, the monthly costs of ownership are about three times the monthly costs of renting. Austin is full of young people at the beginning of their careers – maybe not the best time to settle down and buy.

If you’re a young person working in one of Austin’s emerging industries, renting is probably better than buying.

However, the opposite is also true in some places. In Pittsburgh, you’ll save about $600 a month buying a house instead of renting. People in Pittsburgh who’re ready to put down roots should abandon their lease and get into a mortgage.

Conclusion

If you want to know if it’s better to rent or to buy a home, you need to consider your age, your income, any upcoming career changes, and the financial context in the place where you’re living.

For some people, it’s cheaper to rent. For others, it makes more financial sense to buy.

Categories
Earning

Need $20? Try These Three Things First

Hey, we’ve all been there. You need $20 – and you need it relatively fast.

Maybe you need to cover your checking account to avoid an overdraft fee. Maybe you found a book you really want to buy but you don’t have the cash.

Whatever the reason, when you need a quick infusion of cash, try one of the three things in today’s post before you try anything else.

Donate Plasma

Use a resource you’ve already got – namely, your blood plasma – to earn some quick cash.

Don’t be scared – plasma donation is totally painless, relatively quick, and you can play on your phone while you’re donating. It takes a little under an hour, and you’ll get your cash loaded onto a prepaid debit card before you leave. You get instant access to your money.

How does it work?

At most plasma donation centers in America you’re going to make $50-$75 per appointment. That’s not considering bonuses for new customers.

When I was in college, the local plasma donation center was a big commercial operation. They paid me nearly $1,000 in my first month, which was a huge boon for me. After that first month, the pay normalized to (I think) $60 per visit.

Typically, you can go twice a week, though some days allow healthy clients to donate as often as every other day.

Your pay is slightly dependent on your weight, since people who weigh more can give more plasma per session.

You can make a lot more than a quick $20 donating plasma – and you’re doing it for a good cause. The companies that pay for your plasma use it to make medicine that helps people worldwide.

Jump Into the Gig Economy

I order DoorDash often enough that I’ve considered slinging food for them more than a few times. It seems like the most accessible way to earn a few bucks with stuff I already have – namely, my car and the gas in it.

The best Dashers, as they’re called, are making $20/hour or more simply picking up and dropping off food orders. If you can get to that level and work an hour a day – bam, $20 extra income every day.

If your goal is simply to make a quick $20, it doesn’t matter the pace at which you work. Spread that out over a few hours and go about your business. At $1 or $2 per mile, it won’t take long for those DoorDash orders to put a crisp Andrew Jackson in your wallet.

Other gig economy situations exist if food delivery isn’t your thing. There’s grocery delivery, booze delivery, and just about every other kind of delivery you can imagine. Tailor your own interests or needs to what’s out there and get earning.

Recycle Your Cans

All jokes aside, there’s real money in the stuff we throw away.

The easiest way for people like you and me to turn that waste into money is to recycle aluminum cans.

Recycling centers that accept aluminum cans are all over the place, just Google the one closest to you.

At the average price over the past few months of $0.59 a pound for aluminum cans, you can turn 1,000 cans into $20.

Okay, so, that’s 33 30-packs of beer, or 84 twelve-packs of soda. Most people don’t go through enough aluminum cans on their own to put together a load that you can swap for $20. That’s where you have to get creative.

Growing up, my dad had a few of our neighbors saving their cans for him. He’d mow their lawns once a month to “pay” for taking away their cans. Between our household of three boys and all the neighbors’ cans, he’d have about 1,000 cans a month, good for a bottle of his favorite Canadian whisky.

Here are some more tips for people looking to recycle aluminum cans. I like their suggestions of places to look for extra cans to turn in for cash.

If you need a quick 20-spot, and you can put together a few bags of aluminum cans, you’re already halfway there.

Conclusion

You don’t need to be embarrassed about needing $20. Most people have been in situations where they needed to make quick money. There’s no shame in doing honest work, as described above, for honest pay.

Donating plasma, recycling scrap aluminum, and delivering food are all noble pursuits in their own way.

Hey, we’ve all been there. You need $20 – and you need it relatively fast.

Maybe you need to cover your checking account to avoid an overdraft fee. Maybe you found a book you really want to buy but you don’t have the cash.

Whatever the reason, when you need a quick infusion of cash, try one of the three things in today’s post before you try anything else.

Donate Plasma

Use a resource you’ve already got – namely, your blood plasma – to earn some quick cash.

Don’t be scared – plasma donation is totally painless, relatively quick, and you can play on your phone while you’re donating. It takes a little under an hour, and you’ll get your cash loaded onto a prepaid debit card before you leave. You get instant access to your money.

How does it work?

At most plasma donation centers in America you’re going to make $50-$75 per appointment. That’s not considering bonuses for new customers.

When I was in college, the local plasma donation center was a big commercial operation. They paid me nearly $1,000 in my first month, which was a huge boon for me. After that first month, the pay normalized to (I think) $60 per visit.

Typically, you can go twice a week, though some days allow healthy clients to donate as often as every other day.

Your pay is slightly dependent on your weight, since people who weigh more can give more plasma per session.

You can make a lot more than a quick $20 donating plasma – and you’re doing it for a good cause. The companies that pay for your plasma use it to make medicine that helps people worldwide.

Jump Into the Gig Economy

I order DoorDash often enough that I’ve considered slinging food for them more than a few times. It seems like the most accessible way to earn a few bucks with stuff I already have – namely, my car and the gas in it.

The best Dashers, as they’re called, are making $20/hour or more simply picking up and dropping off food orders. If you can get to that level and work an hour a day – bam, $20 extra income every day.

If your goal is simply to make a quick $20, it doesn’t matter the pace at which you work. Spread that out over a few hours and go about your business. At $1 or $2 per mile, it won’t take long for those DoorDash orders to put a crisp Andrew Jackson in your wallet.

Other gig economy situations exist if food delivery isn’t your thing. There’s grocery delivery, booze delivery, and just about every other kind of delivery you can imagine. Tailor your own interests or needs to what’s out there and get earning.

Recycle Your Cans

All jokes aside, there’s real money in the stuff we throw away.

The easiest way for people like you and me to turn that waste into money is to recycle aluminum cans.

Recycling centers that accept aluminum cans are all over the place, just Google the one closest to you.

At the average price over the past few months of $0.59 a pound for aluminum cans, you can turn 1,000 cans into $20.

Okay, so, that’s 33 30-packs of beer, or 84 twelve-packs of soda. Most people don’t go through enough aluminum cans on their own to put together a load that you can swap for $20. That’s where you have to get creative.

Growing up, my dad had a few of our neighbors saving their cans for him. He’d mow their lawns once a month to “pay” for taking away their cans. Between our household of three boys and all the neighbors’ cans, he’d have about 1,000 cans a month, good for a bottle of his favorite Canadian whisky.

Here are some more tips for people looking to recycle aluminum cans. I like their suggestions of places to look for extra cans to turn in for cash.

If you need a quick 20-spot, and you can put together a few bags of aluminum cans, you’re already halfway there.

Conclusion

You don’t need to be embarrassed about needing $20. Most people have been in situations where they needed to make quick money. There’s no shame in doing honest work, as described above, for honest pay.

Donating plasma, recycling scrap aluminum, and delivering food are all noble pursuits in their own way.

Categories
Entertainment

3 Reasons Why You Don’t Win Gambling

Very few people win when they gamble. But most losing gamblers don’t understand why they lose. So I put together a post explaining three reasons why you don’t win when you gamble.

Here are the top three reasons gamblers don’t win:

  • The house almost always wins.
  • You don’t understand how gambling works.
  • You don’t know the difference between luck and strategy.

I know that telling you a reason why you don’t win is that the house usually wins sounds strange. But once you read why the house usually wins in the first section, it’s going to make more sense. So stick with me for a bit.

1 – The House Almost Always Wins

If casinos didn’t make money, would casinos still exist? And if casinos make money, where do you think the money comes from?

Casinos make money from gamblers. So the average gambler loses money. And even if you win sometimes in the casino, the odds are high that you lose more money overall than you win.

Every game in casinos runs in a way that makes the casino money. When you sit down at a slot machine, the casino wins. And when you play a table game, the casino wins. Everything the casino does makes money.

While there are a few ways to win when you gamble, most gamblers don’t know how to do them. And winning strategies and techniques are hard to find and take advantage of.

If you want to stop losing when you gamble, you only have two choices. You can quit gambling or you can quit doing what losing gamblers do.

I assume you don’t want to quit gambling, so you have to stop doing what losing gamblers do.

Losing gamblers play slot machines. And losing gamblers play table games they can’t beat. And they play poker games they can’t beat and bet on games without knowing how to find an advantage.

2 – You Don’t Understand How Gambling Works

If you don’t know how gambling works, you’re not going to win. And even if you do understand how gambling works, you’re still going to find it difficult to win.

Almost every gambling option uses math to determine winners and losers. And the math almost always favors the house.

Here’s an example:

Slot machines use math to produce long-term profit for casinos. You might win occasionally, but every slot machine makes money for the casino because of the math used to program the machines.

Casino table games use math to set rules that give the casino an advantage. Sportsbooks charge vig on each bet to guarantee a long-term profit. And poker rooms charge entry fees and collect rake to lock in a profit.

If you want to have a chance to win when you gamble, you have to learn how gambling works. And learning how gambling works starts with learning how math works in gambling. If you’re not willing to buckle down and study the math behind gambling, you’re not likely to win.

3 – You Don’t Know the Difference between Luck and Strategy

Every winning gambler uses strategy. And they never rely on luck when they gamble. So if you want to stop losing when you gamble, you need to understand the difference between luck and strategy.

Winning gamblers know luck doesn’t exist in gambling. They understand how math dictates everything that happens when they gamble.

And winning gamblers also understand how strategy helps improve their odds and gives them a better chance to win. Gambling strategy uses math to determine the best ways to play.

If it seems like everything comes down to math in gambling, you’re starting to understand why you don’t win when you gamble.

Here are a couple of rules that help you get better results when you gamble:

  • Never gamble if you can’t use strategy to change the odds.
  • Never gamble if you don’t know how to use the best strategy.

When considering a game, see if there’s a strategy you can use. If a strategy exists, learn how to use it. Slots have no strategy, so you shouldn’t play them. Blackjack has a strategy, but you shouldn’t play it unless you know how to use the strategy.

Conclusion

The main reason you don’t win when you gamble is that you do what most gamblers do. And most gamblers lose.

If you want to stop losing when you gamble you either need to stop gambling or stop doing the things that help the house win.

Winning gamblers understand how gambling works. And they understand how to turn the tables on the casinos.

Finally, winning gamblers know that luck doesn’t exist in gambling. Instead, they learn how to use strategy to improve their odds and give them a chance to win.