I’ve been a big fan of The Penny Hoarder ever since I discovered it on Facebook, and have found lots of creative ways to earn and save both large and small amounts of money. If I had to sum up one major theme I’ve seen consistently, it’s to regularly take inventory of your bank accounts and credit cards and always be on the lookout for better rates, promotions and offers.
I’ve been meaning to change over my bank accounts for a long time now. I used to have checking and savings accounts with a small community bank that offered high interest rates and benefits, but since People’s United bought them, I’ve been getting hit with tons of monthly fees: a monthly maintenance fee, plus ATM fees charged by both the ATM and People’s.
I’ve also had a high-yield savings account with American Express for years, which I opened when they were offering 4%-5% interest. Now the account earns a meager 0.9%, and after some research, I realized I could do much better.
Finally, I opened a Chase Sapphire Preferred card about six months ago to take advantage of a 40,000 points bonus offer (which translated to $400 cash back). The card’s rewards are OK, but there are better cash-back credit cards out there and I wanted to close it before the company started charging me the $95 annual fee they’d waived the first year.
After browsing the Penny Hoarder for a couple of hours one afternoon, I came with a plan that will not only save me $10-$15 a month in fees, but will actually generate an estimated $1,240 in interest and rewards annually. Here’s how I’m planning to change my financial strategy.
Move My Checking and Savings Accounts
I closed my People’s United checking and savings accounts and moved them to Santander. Santander’s Extra 20 checking account is free with a direct deposit of $1,500 per month.
Plus, each month you can earn up to $20 in bonuses deposited to a linked savings account. The first bonus is $10 for your direct deposit of $1,500 or more, and the second bonus is $10 is for completing two online bill payments using Santander’s portal.
By moving my accounts to Santander, I not only saved $10-$15 in monthly fees but I will earn $240 per year in bonuses.
Total annual bonuses: $240
Open a Kasasa Account
I moved my savings from American Express to two Kasasa Cash accounts. Kasasa is a program I learned about on The Penny Hoarder, that helps community banks stay competitive with larger national (and international) banks. Terms will vary by bank, but generally you need to enroll in online banking and make 12 debit card purchases a month to qualify for a higher interest rate plus other benefits like reimbursements for ATM fees charged by other banks. If you miss a month, you get a lower interest rate, but no matter what, the Kasasa accounts are generally free.
I found a Kasasa Cash account at a local community bank that offered 2% interest on balances up to $10,000. They also offered a free Kasasa savings account at 1% interest on balances up to $50,000. The balance in my American Express account was about $18,000, so I moved $10,000 to my new Kasasa checking account and $8,000 to savings. I set up a small weekly direct deposit to the checking account for the amount I usually budget as spending, to ensure I get my 12 debit card transactions a month without ever touching the $10,000 in savings.
Total annual interest: $280
Try Credit Card Arbitrage
I opened a new credit card to try this credit card arbitrage strategy, also called “stoozing,” I read about on The Penny Hoarder. Credit card arbitrage is when you use the credit card company’s money to earn interest and other rewards by taking advantage of 0% interest and bonus offers. Instead of paying your balance each month, you take the money and deposit it into a high yield savings account.
I opened a Citi double cash back card, which has no interest for the first 15 months and no annual fee, and offers 1% cash back when you make a purchase and 1% back when you pay it off. I moved every automatic payment I could over to this card (gym membership, cable, etc.), plus I plan to use this card for every purchase except the 12 monthly debit card transactions required to earn interest on my Kasasa cash account.
Rather than paying the balance off in full each month like I would normally do, I’ll move the money into my Kasasa Savings account, where it will earn 1% interest. At the end of the 15-month interest-free period, I’ll pay the balance in full out of my savings account. Any money left over will be mine to keep.
I estimate my annual spend to be $24,028 and at 3% (1% interest + 2% cash back) I’ll earn $720. I also closed out the Chase Sapphire Rewards card I’d opened to take advantage of a promotion, and saved the $95 fee I would’ve been charged later this year.
Total earnings (interest + cash back): $720
Grand Total: $1,240
I’ve often heard people complain that it’s too difficult or time consuming to change banks, but I did the majority of the work online in an hour or so. For upwards of $1,200, it’s definitely worth the effort!
Your Turn: How much have you earned or saved by switching to a new bank account or credit card?
Kerrie Urban is a regular reader of The Penny Hoarder and loves finding great deals. She also blogs atThe Reward Ninja.
Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life.
1. Hermann Hesse on knowledge and wisdom
Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish… Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.” – Hermann Hesse
This is something I bump up against time and time again when writing articles on The Simple Dollar.
I often find that there are ideas and conclusions that I have inside of me that make perfect sense within the context of the varied things I have done and the books I have read, but when I try to write them down in a simple and short way, they either sound like nonsense or they sound like nothing.
I think of those things as being the “wisdom” that Hesse describes here.
On the other hand, many of the articles I end up writing don’t deal so much with the life conclusions I have drawn, but instead on the path I took to get there. What are the specific things that I’ve done that have worked for me and pushed me forward?
I think of those things as being the “knowledge” that Hesse describes.
The wisdom that people collect often requires the life experiences and learning of that person in order to really make sense. The best thing anyone can do for anyone else is aid them on their path to wisdom, because trying to give wisdom directly is basically useless.
We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.
I am absolutely in favor of people reaping the rewards of their savings and hard work. That’s one of the guiding ideas behind The Simple Dollar, that if you work hard and are smart about your earnings, you can do great things with it and live a powerful life.
At the same time, I’d have to be blind not to see that there is a gigantic gap between the wealthy and the poor.
For me, the problem isn’t so much with the adults that are making active choices about their own lives, but with the children. Children don’t choose to be born in a broken home or in a home of privilege. They don’t choose whether they get parents that read bedtime stories to them every night or parents that drink themselves into a stupor every night. They don’t choose whether to be born into a family that will care about the nutritional value of every meal or into a family where no one even cares if supper is on the table.
By the time the children are old enough to step away from their families, the die is mostly cast for their life and the accumulated advantages of simply being born into a family that cares is enormous.
The older I get, the more this troubles me. I don’t know what the solution to the problem is, but I do know this: every moment we waste in calling each other names and not even listening to each other’s solutions is a moment where some kid doesn’t eat, where some kid doesn’t get decent medical care, where some kid doesn’t have someone read them a story.
The fact that this problem wasn’t addressed twenty or thirty years ago is affecting my life in a negative way right now. Because we didn’t deal with it, society is lacking some of the great minds and leaders and workers we may have had.
The fact that we aren’t dealing with it right now will affect my life in a negative way down the road. Because we’re not dealing with it, society will be lacking some of the great minds and leaders and workers we may have had.
I’m a big believer in planting mustard seeds for the future. To me, children are perhaps the most important mustard seed we have outside of our immediate life. The seeds we plant now in the children in our community, our state, and our society as a whole are what will be the bedrock of our society in twenty or thirty years, when we’re older and we need that bedrock more than ever.
Rather than being angry that someone is suggesting a solution you don’t like to ensure that children are fed, safe, and educated, step back for a moment and realize that he or she is trying to solve a real problem and that’s a great thing. Rather than getting angry and calling them a name because you don’t like the solution, pat them on the back because they’re thinking about the problem.
3. Nikola Tesla on the future
“The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of a planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation of those who are to come and point the way.” – Nikola Tesla
You can never build anything great solely by living for today. The path to achieving something worth remembering is to look at your actions and what they imply for your life ten or twenty years from now.
The more actions you take each and every day that have a positive impact ten or twenty years from now, the better your life will become over time.
The life you want doesn’t happen immediately, no matter what you do. It happens down the road, and it requires you to lay a foundation now, to plant seeds now. The best thing you can do today is always to lay a foundation for the days down the road.
We rarely invite Tiny Desk alumni back to the confines of Bob Boilen’s work space, but we couldn’t resist this time. Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis and Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux have both given solo Tiny Desk performances. Since then they’ve paired up for concerts and a new album of works composed especially for their combination of instruments.
Although the harp and guitar are both instruments you pluck and strum, they seem to come from different corners of the classical world. The guitar conjures up the legacy of zesty Spanish music while the harp must contend with the cliché of its angelic role in the orchestra. But when Kondonassis and Vieaux are together, the two instruments seem to merge into a singularly evocative voice. Kondonassis joked that they could call it a “guitarp” until someone quickly Googled and told us there actually is such a contraption.
Music for harp and guitar isn’t easy to come by, so Kondonassis and Vieaux have been busy commissioning works like the opening “Elysian,” part of a larger suite written for the duo by Gary Schocker.
Anything that sounds even vaguely non-Western is a good fit for the duo because most cultures enjoy their own versions of the harp and guitar. Alan Hovhaness, an American composer with a global outlook, weaved Asian ideas into his Sonata for Harp and Guitar, subtitled “Spirit of Trees.” And the duo ends by beating out the interlocking rhythms of the African candombe, which Argentine composer Máximo Diego Pujol placed in his Suite mágica.
I listened to this in a loop for several hours the other day. The music just flows along and sweeps me into a contemplative mood that’s just perfect for writing (at least for me).
The thing that got me is that, at many points, the guitar and harp just merged together. I could not tell you for sure which of the two instruments was playing at many points because they just melted together in an amazing way.
Listen, especially as a background music when you’re doing something else like doing the dishes or writing an article. You’ll be glad you did.
5. Buckminster Fuller on information, communication, and people
“I have to say, I think that we are in some kind of final examination as to whether human beings now, with this capability to acquire information and to communicate, whether we’re really qualified to take on the responsibility we’re designed to be entrusted with. And this is not a matter of an examination of the types of governments, nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with economic systems. It has to do with the individual. Does the individual have the courage to really go along with the truth?” – Buckminster Fuller
The internet has such incredible positive potential for humankind. It can enable all of us to find information at an instant’s notice, filling our minds and our curiosities with facts and details about the world.
Yet, so often, the opposite happens. Even more than accurate information, the internet is loaded with page after page of people spreading dishonest information and thoughts and ideas. They write things with agendas behind them, attempting to skew and carefully select facts and charge the few remaining ones with high emotional energy in order to sway people rather than inform them.
The internet is full of anonymous commenters who seek nothing more than to spread negativity and bile. It’s full of people on social media spreading half-baked opinions and pretending that those opinions are fact, and then yelling at and de-friending anyone who dares to question those ideas.
The only person that can make it better is me. And you. We have to have the courage to realize that our deepest convictions might not be the right ones. We have to have the courage to admit that sometimes we’re wrong. We have to be willing to listen to facts that don’t line up with what we already believe – and sometimes even change what we believe. We have to respect that others aren’t just going to fall in lockstep with what we think – and that doesn’t make them “bad” or “evil.”
I’m going to be honest with you. I was in the process of learning how to write iOS apps for the last several months because I had an idea of an app in my head. This is almost exactly that app, and I’ve been using it almost nonstop for weeks.
The idea behind Streaks is that you define up to six simple tasks that you want to do each day. For me right now, it’s “study philosophy for an hour,” “do a set of planks,” “read for an hour (ideally with kids),” “walk a mile,” and “floss” – I don’t have a sixth right now.
Each day, you just fire up the app and check off the ones you’ve done. For each one, it keeps track of your “streak” – how many days in a row that you’ve done it.
This is basically my “wall calendar” in a simpler app form. What I’ve found over the years by doing this in analog form is that the longer the streak gets, the stronger my urge to make sure I do this thing happens to be. It’s a great motivator.
There’s another element, too – I try to pick tasks that are pretty easy for me to complete. The only task there that I have to stretch to complete much at all is the hour of study. In truth, most of the time when I meet those tasks, I tend to do a lot more than that, as the task just serves as a starting point.
When I’ve walked a mile, for instance, I might be a mile from the house, so I keep going. When I’ve read for an hour, I might be in the middle of a chapter, so I keep going. You get the idea.
This app has been wonderful for me over the past month or so. Highly recommended.
7. Walt Whitman – A Clear Midnight
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
At the end of a day of work, thought, love, joy, and sadness, where does my heart lie?
It lies at home with my family, with a quiet moment to think as I drift off to sleep, my wife warm next to me, my children in slumber down the hallway.
There is no better ingredient for a restful sleep.
8. Arthur C. Clarke on humanity, alone or not
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” ― Arthur C. Clarke
My children are curious little creatures and they ask a lot of questions, some of them quite tough. Why are we here? Who made everything?
The other night, after some stargazing, my daughter asked me whether there were places like Earth out there among the stars. I told her that I thought that there was.
She’s watched enough children’s movies with aliens in them to ask the next questions. Are there really aliens out there on those places like Earth? I told her I didn’t know, but that I thought so.
Then I asked her whether she would feel happier if there were aliens or if there weren’t any. She didn’t say anything for a long time, but I know she heard me because she reached over and held my hand after a moment.
It’s one of those questions where neither answer particularly makes you feel safe.
The Dam Keeper is a 2014 American animated short film directed by former Pixar art directors Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi. It tells the story of Pig, an introverted youth who lives in a windmill and keeps a dark fog from engulfing his town. Although socially rejected by his peers, he is befriended by the artistic Fox.
I was blown away by this short animated film, much like I’ve been blown away by some of the recent ones in front of Disney and Pixar films (like Paper).
I watched this just last week with my seven year old standing next to me and my five year old on my lap. We watched it. They wanted to watch it again. Then again.
Later, my nine year old comes up stairs and asked me what the name of the “pig movie” was. He found it on Youtube and the three of them watched it another few times.
It’s just mesmerizing and well-executed, the type of thing that made me wish I had the artistic skills to pull such a thing together.
10. Otto von Bismarck on the horror of war
“Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” – Otto von Bismarck
Whenever we commit anyone to a battlefield, whether the cause is great or not, we are paying a heavy price, one that many of us overlook. As a nation, we are frightfully willing to flip that switch of “military action” to take on anything we see that we don’t like in the world.
The end result? More death.
I often wonder how many Mozarts and Einsteins we’ve blown up with unintended bombs, how many young Beethovens and Newtons we’ve left without parents so that their flame is snuffed out.
How many fathers and mothers have died fighting for a cause they were conscripted for, leaving a parentless child behind?
How many wars are really worth that? Not nearly as many has have been fought.
11. Peering through the grass
One of my favorite things to do with my children is to wander in open fields with them, wherever we can find them. We always find interesting things as we explore, whether it’s a bone from a long-dead animal, some unusual butterflies, a strange plant, or something else.
I often find myself wondering what this all looks like from their angle, so I’ll often kneel down in the grass, bringing my eye to their level and peering at the world through simple breaks in the tall grass.
Everything looks so different.
I get so used to how the world looks from my own eyes that sometimes it is really powerful to look at the world from the angle at which others see it.
Many thanks to A Guy Taking Pictures for this image.
12. Ingmar Bergman on working together
“Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.” – Ingmar Bergman
The greatest things in the world aren’t always in lockstep with what we believe.
The greatest things in the world don’t have to be twisted to our own specific desires and wants.
The greatest things in the world go far beyond one individual person, and require each of those persons to contribute to something that doesn’t perfectly match their own desires.
If a bank has closed one of your accounts in the past because of excessive overdrafts or unpaid fees, you can get blacklisted. But some banks will offer you a second chance at a checking account. Photo: David Goehring
Second-chance checking accounts are exactly what they sound like: another chance for you to use a checking account responsibly, even if a bank closed one of your accounts in the past because you mismanaged it. Considering how difficult it can be to pay bills without a checking account, these special accounts are a chance to make your life easier — and manage your money more responsibly — the second time around.
How does second-chance checking differ from regular checking?
Though they’re not as common as they used to be, free checking accounts remain an option at several banks. When it comes to second-chance checking, however, you’ll probably have to pay a monthly fee of $10 to $15 (or even more). You may also be subject to account minimums that require you to maintain a certain minimum balance. Otherwise, there’s not much of a difference between the two.
If you manage your money responsibly for a certain period of time, you may become eligible for a regular checking account, much like graduating from a secured to an unsecured credit card.
Why would a bank close my account in the first place?
There are several reasons your bank might shut down your checking account. Most commonly, it might happen after one too many overdrafts. Perhaps you were bouncing checks left and right. Maybe you racked up other banking service fees that went unpaid. Or maybe your account was flagged after suspicious activity such as a sudden influx of large deposits.
Whatever the reason, your bank or credit union will probably report any issues to a company called ChexSystems that tracks closed accounts. Essentially, once you’ve been reported to ChexSystems, you’ve been “blacklisted” as a high-risk customer. The next time you try to open a checking account, many banks will deny the request based on your history.
Banks that offer second-chance checking, however, will give you a bit more leeway. (Note that if your account was previously closed for suspected fraud, you may be out of luck with second-chance accounts, too.)
What if I need a checking account for bad credit?
It’s easy to confuse second-chance checking accounts for bad-credit checking accounts. That’s because bad credit and previous checking-account problems often go hand in hand.
However, while the vast majority of banks will check with ChexSystems to see if you have a spotty banking history, most don’t run your credit history with the major credit bureaus. So, even if you have bad credit, that alone probably won’t get you turned down for a checking account at most banks.
On the flip side, if you have solid credit but are flagged in ChexSystems, it may be possible to find a bank that runs a credit check but doesn’t use ChexSystems when approving accounts. The only way to find out is to call — this isn’t information that a bank will advertise. (You can also search online, but beware of outdated information and never pay for a list of such banks — it could be a scam.) You will probably have more luck investigating online-only banks or local banks and credit unions; major banks almost always use ChexSystems.
Where can I find second-chance checking accounts?
Unfortunately, many of the nation’s largest retail banks don’t offer second-chance checking accounts. (I’ll discuss one notable exception, Wells Fargo, below.) These increasingly risk-averse behemoths don’t need the meager profits that such accounts can offer.
You’ll have much better luck at local banks and credit unions — just pick up the phone and ask around. In fact, credit unions can be a particularly good place to look since their fees are typically lower than banks’ fees. They also have more flexibility to work with customers who have extenuating circumstances, including a previous account closure.
Wells Fargo Opportunity Checking
If you need a second-chance checking account but prefer the convenience of a bank with nationwide reach, Wells Fargo Opportunity Checking is worth a look. With more than 6,200 branches in 39 states, Wells Fargo is the nation’s largest retail bank measured by brick-and-mortar locations. Here are the important details on this second-chance checking account:
Minimum opening deposit: $50
Monthly fee: $10 (can be waived if you make 10 debit card purchases or payments a month; maintain a daily balance of at least $1,500; or have direct deposits of at least $500 per statement cycle)
Benefits: 24/7 access to online banking, free online bill pay, online spending tracker, platinum debit card, free withdrawals at 12,500 ATMs nationwide
Other big-bank options
Below, you’ll find a few more major banks that advertise a second-chance checking account. Keep in mind that availability may vary by branch.
PNC Bank (more than 2,700 branches in Alabama, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin)
Woodforest National Bank (more than 750 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia)
BBVA Compass (more than 680 branches in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas)
GoBank
Though not a traditional brick-and-mortar bank, you can also open a checking account with GoBank. As long as you can pass GoBank’s internal fraud check, you should be good to go. To open an account, you can sign up online or buy a starter kit from Wal-Mart.
You’ll do all of your banking online or via GoBank’s app — there are no physical branches. There are no minimum account balances or overdraft fees, but there is an $8.95 monthly fee unless you have direct deposits of over $500.
What are my alternatives if I’m denied a checking account?
If you’ve tried and failed to open a checking account, even with banks that offer second-chance checking, paying bills and managing your money can be a lot more difficult than usual. Here are a few other ways to pay your bills without a checking account:
Secured credit cards: If you need to rebuild a bad credit history, secured credit cards can be a good first step. You’ll probably have to put down a deposit equal to your credit line, and your fees and interest rate may be steep. But if you use your card responsibly, you’ll be on your way to a better credit score and possibly an unsecured credit card, too. The Simple Dollar offers a guide to the Best Secured Credit Cards that can help you choose a winner.
Prepaid debit cards: Though you’re going to pay higher fees to use prepaid cards than you would to use a checking account, these cards are undeniably convenient. Some prepaid cards are a much better bet than others, so be sure to check out The Simple Dollar’s guide to the Best Prepaid Debit Cards when you’re shopping around. Note that prepaid debit cards won’t help you rebuild a bad credit score, however.
Money orders: If you have to pay a hefty bill and don’t have access to a checking account, a money order is safer than cash. You can track whether they’ve been spent and stop payment, if necessary. They’re also relatively easy to get at banks, post offices, and even stores such as CVS and Wal-Mart. However, keep in mind that fees can add up if you use money orders often. There are also monetary limits — often, you can’t get a single money order for more than $1,000. You may also find that some companies don’t accept money orders.
Money traps to avoid when you don’t have a bank
However you manage without a checking account, be sure to avoid a couple of common traps for people who are shut out of the banking system: check-cashing shops and predatory loans.
Check-cashing stores are generally a bad idea because of the high fees: roughly $3 or $4 for every $100. (Unfortunately, banks aren’t much better: Though the check-issuing bank will cash a check for you even if you don’t have an account there, it may cost you a flat $6 or more.) You’re better off cashing a check at your local Wal-Mart, which charges a flat $3 for checks under $1,000.
There is a more important reason to avoid check-cashing stores, however. These shops have a vested interest in upselling you their other products, which often include payday loans, auto title loans, or installment loans.
Payday loans and auto title loans in particular are a very bad deal, with triple-digit interest rates that trap customers into borrowing again and again to pay down their previous loan — a cycle that is very hard to escape. Fall behind on an auto title loan, and you could even lose the car you used as collateral to get the money in the first place.
Second-chance checking can represent a fresh start
Financial institutions aren’t overly sympathetic once you’ve cost them money. If you’re approved for a second-chance checking account, don’t squander your opportunity to prove you’ve turned over a new leaf: Keep a close eye on your balance and avoid overdrafts whenever possible. Make sure you pay any bank fees immediately and in full. And it probably goes without saying, but steer clear of any fraud, such as falsifying information when you open an account.
If you also need to clean up your credit history, be sure to read “What is a Good Credit Score?” It outlines how bad credit can affect you, where to check your credit score, what factors lower your credit score, and the steps you can take to raise it.
Apple recently launched a new music streaming service, Apple Music. It also provides the App Store platform for competing streaming services including Jango, Spotify, Rhapsody and others.
Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight champion Robbie Lawler, who is sponsored by sports apparel company adidas, will not display a stitch of the adidas brand because UFC has a $70 million deal with Reebok to outfit all UFC fighters in Reebok fight kits.
General Motors Co said it was recalling nearly 780,000 crossover SUVs, mainly in North America, because their rear power lift gates could suddenly fall and hit people.
Insert Coin(s), the boutique video-game nightclub/lounge in downtown Las Vegas, has closed after four years because of financial problems but the owner hopes he can reopen it one day.
IT’S a $1 billion project that will swallow up 4000 football fields’ worth of prime agricultural land. And despite angry protests, no one appears to be able to stop it.
Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1gt5Y9h
The first-ever Fantasy Sports Combine is scheduled for next Friday and Saturday at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. The sessions will include talks by fantasy sports experts, broadcasters and sports personalities, including former NFL coaches Mike Shanahan and Mike Ditka.
Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web. From Marketing Land: Committing To Calls: 5 Tips For Integrating Calls With Digital Marketing Optimization Solutions If you want to boost your ad optimization,...
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1JZIcLQ
Before your children turn 18, they are considered minors by law and are limited in what they can do with money. But once they are legal adults, they can make all sorts of financial decisions that can have long-term consequences for good or ill.
Mitch Garber has turned Caesars Interactive into a social gaming giant. After having zero cash flow from social gaming in 2010, the balance sheet may show some $250 million in cash flow this year.
It’s safe to say that talking about your finances — early and often — with your significant other is a great way to avoid fights about money later on in life.
But what if talking about money is a fight?
Odds are that in most relationships, one partner makes more than the other, and sometimes that difference can be significant. So how should a couple handle their income inequality?
A lot of factors play into this decision, such as whether or not you are married, have children or are in school. And with even fewer clear-cut answers, what happens if one of you has more debt than other?
While there’s no right way to manage your money when one person makes more than the other, here’s a look at how to talk about the situation, plus how several real-life couples handle their finances.
How Does the Difference in Income Make You Both Feel?
The first step is always admitting there’s a problem. If an income disparity is a tricky subject in your household, maybe it’s because you haven’t actually talked it through yet.
Making less than your significant other can come with a big ol’ ball of guilt, feelings of inadequacy and even self-denial if you feel like you can’t spend money you didn’t earn.
Making more than your significant other can come with its own concerns. It might be the need to always have the last say in how the money is spent, or maybe that you constantly feel like your partner won’t accept the financial help you are gladly willing to give and that you hate to see him or her struggling when there is no need.
So ask each other how your disparate incomes make you feel. Be candid and open to what your partner has to say, and consider your options moving forward. Here are a few ways couples have made vastly different incomes work for them.
Joint Accounts
My husband makes twice what I make — and it used to be three times as much. While I was still finishing up college, he made all of our household income.
We’ve always solved our income disparity by treating it like it doesn’t exist. It might sound a little head-in-the-sand, but we married young and never knew a time where our money wasn’t his and hers: We’ve always had a joint account and we’ve always decided together how we would spend what was in it.
Our joint-account-for-everything approach is pretty traditional: It’s what both sets of our parents did, and I suspect our grandparents as well. In fact, when we were newly married, we were shocked to learn that some married friends had separate accounts at all!
We make it work by talking about all of our spending decisions together when wemake our budgeteach month. We know where our money is going to go before we spend it, so there’s no need to fight about it after the fact. If a big unexpected expense pops up, we address it together. We also plan for each of us to have some fun money each month to spend without question, which I think is a key strategy for making everyone feel like they can splurge a little, guilt free.
We’re married and have no children yet, so this approach works pretty well. We have already discussed — and did so in the very early years of our marriage — that if and when we have children, I would be the stay-at-home parent. My husband’s job as a line technician for the local utility company pays more, holds the better benefits and is also extremely unpredictable: He can get held over after work at a moment’s notice, and often gets called in the middle of the night to come in and fix things. While my full-time gig at an ad agency is great, it’s not on the same level as his steady, recession-proof career. Once children enter the mix, one parent will need to be as flexible as possible, and in my case, that means being unemployed or able to work from home.
Our decision to handle our accounts in a joint fashion from the beginning will help make this transition a smoother one — the money will continue to be “ours” even when I’m not contributing any. It’s also a reason I started my own freelance business on the side. I won’t have to go from full salary to zero salary; there will be a little cushion in the process.
Separate but Equal
Some friends of ours go a different route: They have a joint account where they each contribute half of the expenses necessary to pay their rent, utilities, etc. — and then they’re on their own for individual expenses like their car insurance and big-ticket items they want to purchase.
In fact, I’ve known several of these couples — even two friends who lived together with no romance involved. Contributing to a joint account made it easiest to pay bills in a timely fashion, but still allowed them to have complete autonomy in their finances. It was a win-win for them, and I suspect many couples take advantage of this easy-to-calculate way to manage their finances together, yet separately.
Separate but Proportional
Dozens of people around the Internet swear by the proportion rule: If one person makes 60% of the household income, they contribute for 60% of the expenses. The other person contributes the other 40%, which is proportionately fair considering their lesser income. Then, each individual can spend the rest of their income as they wish.
If the difference between your incomes is so drastic that even this doesn’t seem fair, consider rolling in household chores as part of the equation. Do you make only 10% of your total income as a couple, but do 90% of the housework? Seems like a balanced equation to me.
What About When There’s No Choice?
Kelly Gurnett faces a different situation altogether: being the sole earner in a relationship where the other person is physically unable to hold a full-time job. Her husband has been out of work for more than two years now, and he’s still waiting on disability benefits to kick in. In the meantime, Kelly’s income is what’s on the table.
“As much as I’d like to say that ‘love conquers all’ and ‘money is just a number,’” Kelly says, “when only one person is working and the responsibility to carry the household expenses lies entirely on one person’s shoulders, it’s difficult, and it can cause some friction.”
So how do Kelly and her husband make it work? Transparency, open communication, and a lot of give and take.
“Every week, we sit down with our household budget and discuss what’s coming due and how we’re going to pay for it. It helps take some of the stress off of me just to know my husband is in on our finances and I don’t have to make all the decisions by myself,” says Kelly.
When the idea gets a little tough to handle, Kelly also reminds herself of what her husband does bring to the relationship: patience, love and a consistently upbeat attitude even though he is a lot of pain on a daily basis.
“It’s a good kick in the butt that humbles me and reminds me a marriage is about a lot more than just money; it’s about partnership and support and each person doing what they can, whatever that winds up looking like.”
The Bottom Line
Overall? Each system seems to work best when you emphasize the team, no matter which financial arrangement you decide works best for you.
And when those feelings of inadequacy rush in, making you feel “less than” because your paychecks are smaller, or like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders by being the bigger earner? Remember: You didn’t begin a relationship with your partner because of the money they do or don’t make. There’s probably a solution out there that works for you. Keep trying until you find it.
Your Turn: Have you managed a significant difference in income in your relationship? Share your strategies in the comments!
Abbigail Kriebs loves words, food and photography, probably in that order. She’s a Midwestern gal who somehow became a city-dweller and is slowly writing her way back to her roots at Inkwells & Images.
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