Money Hacks

At the end of each month, I plan to share my favorite post from the Money Hacks sister site, Get Rich Slowly. This month I liked 10 ways to save money on books:

1. Avoid new releases
2. Screen books by reading reviews
3. Read the classics online
4. Search for bargains at thrift stores, etc.
5. Make Amazon an all-purpose research tool
6. Make frequent use of your public library
7. Explore used book stores
8. Use internet tools to find cheap books
9. Buy only what you intend to read
10. Share your books with others

Read the entire article for more detailed information.

Other personal finance bloggers have been writing about how to save on books, too. Free Money Finance recently wrote about Consumer Reports choice for the best place to save on books. The Simple Dollar went further, describing a method to leverage the free Borders rewards program to get greatly reduced prices on books (and other media).

Grocist may be one of those hacks that is more trouble than it’s worth. Or it may be the best thing since sliced bread. Here’s how it works:

1. Buy a barcode scanner. Plug it into your computer.
2. Sign up at Grocist.
3. Scan the barcodes of any packages before you discard them.
4. Grocist looks up the product information in the UPC database.
5. This information is used to construct a grocery list.

Whether or not this will save you time and money, it’ll certainly make you the geekiest shopper in the produce deparment! (And how much disposable income must a person have in order to justify the purchase of a barcode scanner?)

[Grocist, via Matt Haughey]

One of the trickier parts of investing is keeping track of all the stocks that interest you. When I was young, my friends did this with pen and paper. (Not that they actually invested, mind you, but they followed the market.) Then they graduated to spreadsheets. Now there are all sorts of applications that let you watch stocks on your computer. Stocktickr is a web-based stock-tracking tool.

StockTickr is a free portfolio tracker with an important twist: all watchlists are shared among all users! There are hundreds of users sharing their watchlists right now via StockTickr. StockTickr is a great way to generate trading ideas by browsing the stocks on the site. Because all watchlists are shared, you can view reports on the most popular stocks added recently or see which stocks have been the most profitable for StockTickr users.

The site lists the following features:

• Categorize your watchlist using tags (kind of like categories)
• Track picks from other users that trade like you do
• See how the stocks in your watchlist have performed since you added them
• Set up email alerts for stocks in your watchlist
• View the alerts in other users’ watchlists
• Identify trends by viewing your performance by tag
• View aggregate reports generated from all stocktickr users
• Add other users to your friends list and track trades from all your friends
• Subscribe to RSS feeds of most any view in stocktickr - there are feeds for each user, each tag, and more!
• Coming Soon! For a small monthly fee, you’ll have access to lots of tools that will help you become a better trader!

I’m satisfied with the OS X stock-tracking widget. But stocktickr tempts me.

JLP at All Financial Matters has compiled a list of fifty easily overlooked tax deductions.

Last night I was looking through The Ernst & Young Tax Guide 2007. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Ernst & Young Tax Guide, it is a HUGE (over 700 pages) book that covers the federal income tax in detail. Basically, the book is IRS Publication 590 in an expanded version with lots of tips, tricks, and other cool stuff. That said, here’s a list of the fifty most easily overlooked deductions in alphabetical order (you’ll have to consult the Guide for more information on each deduction).

Among the more common things that people might be able to deduct are:

• Accounting fees for tax preparation services and IRS audits
• Casualty or theft losses
• Commissions and closing costs on sale of property
• Contraceptives, if purchased with a prescription
• Dues to labor unions
• Home improvements
• Subscriptions to professional journals

The complete list is fifty items long, though there’s no additional information on each item other than the fact that it may be tax deductible.

[All Financial Matters: 50 of the most easily overlooked tax deductions]

DealMine is a new site that allows users to compare prices and find deals on a variety of products and services. According to founder Scott Cherkin:

DealMine.com aggregates discounts and rewards from AAA, AARP, Upromise, American AAdvantage, Ebates, Delta SkyMiles, Visa, American Express and many more, and matches them up to price comparison technology. 

By adding deals from price comparison search results we can help people find the best deal for them based on who they are.  For example, most AAA members (65mm of them) do not realize that they get 10% off at Target.com, AARP members (35mm of them) get 4% discount on Home Depot gift cards or Amex cardholders get 10% off at Overstock.com — we think this is important information to consider in the comparison shopping process.

Our goal is to help people figure out the best program to use when they are shopping for anything.

The site also features a Daily Deal Blog, which highlights deals from around the web, such as housewares at JCPenney.

DealMine offers various extensions, including a Firefox add-on. The site is in beta, and various parts don’t work. I could not access the FAQ, for example, and there were some display issues with the blog. Still, DealMine looks like an interesting way to save money.

Bankrate has a list of ten ways to come up with cash for a down payment on a new house.

1. Pay off your credit cards
2. Ladder CDs to boost savings
3. Use special programs
4. Tap your IRA
5. Borrow from your 401(k)
6. Get a gift
7. Ask for a raise
8. Get a second job
9. Look for lost loot
10. Auction unwanted items

By using one or more of these methods, one can accumulate a sizable chunk of change. The bigger the down payment, the less one has to finance. That’s a good thing.

[Bankrate: 10 ways to come up with a down payment]

Here’s an amazing opportunity for residents of the United States. This Friday, January 26th, you can receive free, professional retirement advice by phone courtesy of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

Get free, personalized answers to your financial questions. For the fifth time, we are joining with the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) to sponsor Kiplinger’s Jump-Start Your Retirement Plan Days. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. eastern time on Friday, January 26, NAPFA members across the U.S. will be standing by to take your calls and answer your questions.

Normally, these fee-only planners, who are well versed in investments, taxes, insurance, estate planning, and retirement and college saving, charge clients $100 to $250 an hour. But on Jump-Start Days, you pay nothing — not even for the phone call. Just dial 888-919-2345.

Our retirement hotline is a public service that is offered to all, not just Kiplinger’s subscribers. If your questions can’t be answered on the spot, you may be referred to resources on the Internet that will help you find the information you need.

This is an amazing opportunity. If you’ve been wanting to seek retirement advice, now is the time to do it.

[Kiplinger's Personal Finance Journal: A Free Retirement Checkup]

Originally posted at Get Rich Slowly on 22 Sept 2006.

Over at AskMetafilter, a user wants to know what to do with all his pennies.

I have a lot of pennies. They accumulated over the past twelve years. I need a permanent solution to this problem other than a big jar. What do you do with your pennies?

My favorite answer so far — because it’s handy and prevents you from accumulating new pennies — is this:

Carry around four pennies with you at all times; whenever you make a cash purchase, you can always give the cashier a couple of extra pennies instead of getting a couple of extra pennies back. Once you get into the habit, it’s not so hard; I successfully got rid of two years’ worth of pennies this way over the course of about nine months.

Andy Rooney hates the penny, too.

[AskMetafilter: Going Penny-Crazy]

Dayana Yochim at Yahoo! Finance writes that you should forget making a list of financial New Years Resolutions.

Make things even simpler: How about instituting just one new money habit for ‘07? My suggestion is this: Save money every day.

By making “save money every day” your vow, you bring mindfulness to your spending. Mindfulness is the practice of being aware your thoughts and actions. This may seem obvious, but it can be a powerful tool.

How often do you grab a pack of gum or a candy bar or a magazine while in line at the grocery store? Is this a conscious act? Is it an actual decision? Or is it a reflex? Yochim writes that three habits will help you save money every day:

1. Make more conscious cash decisions.
2. Keep the bigger picture in constant view.
3. Always shop with a list.

Make “save money every day” your resolution for the coming year!

[Yahoo! Finance: Forget resolutions: pick one good money habit in 2007]

Here’s a little app that’s sweeping the internet: Price Protectr 2.0 is designed to save consumers money after they’ve purchased big-ticket items.

Ever buy stuff from stores that offer a 30 day price protection guarantee? If they lower their price within 30 days of when you purchased it, they’ll refund you the difference. Sounds great… except how often do you remember to the check price again? Now you don’t have to. Let Price Protectr do it for you! It’s free. It’s easy. It’s free and easy money. How often do you get that offer?

Here’s how it works:

1. Buy something from one of fifteen supported merchants, including Amazon, Costco, and Sears.
2. Find the item you bought online. Copy-and-paste the URL to Price Protectr.
3. Enter your e-mail address. (Price Protectr promises not to spam you.)
4. Sit back and relax. If Price Protectr notices the price drop at any time during the protection period, you’ll receive an e-mail.

That’s it. Sounds great. I can’t wait to try it.

bump bump, bump bump

Do you hear that? It’s the heart of Money Hacks.

When I started this site in October, it was on a lark. I had a vague notion that a second site about personal finance would be fun to keep. At the time, though, I didn’t really know how to run this site while also running Get Rich Slowly. I have a better idea now.

And so I’ve resuscitated Money Hacks. There’s a pulse here. I’ll be posting tips and tricks on a regular basis. I may not reach a daily level for some time, but that’s my goal: one tip each day. As part of the process, I’ve redated everything from October of 2006 to January of 2007. It just makes things look nicer.

Thank you for your patience — all sixteen of you who subscribed!

Cheap Eats is a weblog devoted to inexpensive food. The site features recipes, reviews, tips and more. Cheap Eats recipes include cost, instructions, and numerical ratings, as well as witty evaluations of the end product. A recent entry described attempts to make homemade Gatorade. The recipe produced two liters of the stuff for only eighteen cents. The reviewer gave the homemade Gatorade three points out of ten. More successful recipes include:

• Home fried potatoes (8/10)
• Frito pie (8/10 — “I am pretty damn impressed with Frito Pie. I think I’ll do this every Easter.”)
• Ghetto pizza (9/10 — “For me Ghetto Pizza ranks right up there with the best Cheap Eats for people living at home…it is extremely cheap and uses readily available ingredients.”)

Cheap Eats also has restaurant reviews. It has food tips. It discusses using leftovers for lunch. The Cheap Eats hall-of-shame features such atrocities as the world’s most expensive sandwich. There’s an entire section of recipes under $3.

NetworthIQ™ is a handy web app that’s all the rage among personal finance bloggers. (Did you know there was a subgroup of bloggers that focus on personal finance? It’s true.)

No one wants a physical, but we all need one now and then, just to keep tabs on our well being. Your finances deserve nothing less, and determining your net worth is a good first step. It’s all about keeping track of your overall financial health. NetworthIQ™ is a social personal finance manager designed to make monitoring your net worth easy and, dare we say it, maybe even fun. Heck, it’s even free.

This is an easy tool to use. Registration is quick and unobtrusive. You then enter basic financial information such as the value of your home, the balances on your debts, the value of your retirement, etc. The app calculates your net worth, and tracks it from month-to-month.

The real value of NetworthIQ™ is the ability to compare your information with that of other users. You can view info based on a variety of parameters: education, location, income, etc. You can keep your personal net worth private if you’d like.

How to Destroy a Credit Card

Kaushalmodi posted an artistic Flickr photoset of a shredded credit card.

Wachovia Bank, N.A. recently announced that it was withdrawing the collaboration of MBNA from the Wachovia credit cards and now the credit cards would be issued by Wachovia itself. So here I am in the process of destroying the credit card by MBNA.

Really, there’s nothing earth-shattering or “how-to” about this. It just looks pretty:

An AskMetafilter user wonders: What are your strategies for avoiding overdraft fees?

I earn enough money to pay all my bills and eat out a bit — it’s the most comfortable I’ve been (financially) in four years. I do not earn enough to have any buffer between paychecks, however. I try to avoid cash and pay for as much as I can with a debit card, via the web if at all possible. Every month it seems that I have miscalculated yet again and the overdraft pile-on ensues.

Speaking as one who has been there, overdraft fees are an indication that you’re not tracking your finances as closely as you think you are. Tracking finances only through receipts, or only through your bank’s web site is inadequate. You need to keep a separate ledger (perhaps a checkbook ledger) or use a piece of software (such as Quicken) in order to track every expense. If you live paycheck-to-paycheck, and fail to track every expense, you will experience overdraft fees from time-to-time. It may be more convenient to only track your expenses via your bank’s web site, but if you do that, you need to realize there are always going to be checks and other transactions “in process” that don’t show on the web site, and consider overdraft fees the price you pay for adhering to such a system.

There are other ways to compensate for chronic overdrafts, of course. Banks offer overdraft protection, which is usually linked to a secondary account (such as a savings account). This is an excellent option for those who repeatedly suffer overdraft fees but are unwilling to record every transaction as it happens. Many people create an artificial buffer in their account. At one time, I had a $100 in my checking account that I would not allow myself to touch. If my balance fell below $100, I just stopped spending. I wasn’t overdrawn in the bank’s eyes (and thus did not receive a fine), but I was overdrawn in my eyes. This worked until I spent that $100.

Overdrafts are a clear indicator of poor financial health. If you suffer from chronic overdrafts, it’s time to evaluate your spending behavior. Build a buffer and track expenses.

Consumerist reports that Starbucks has officially condoned the “ghetto latte” — the practice of bypassing the surcharge for a latte by simply ordering the espresso and adding milk at the condiment bar.

Customization is a fundamental attribute of the Starbucks Experience. We provide condiments to our customers so they can make their drinks to their liking and we appreciate their patronage. We trust our customers to make the choices that are right for them.

[Consumerist: Starbucks okays the ghetto latte]

I’m not a fan of personal credit cards. I don’t carry any, and at Get Rich Slowly I advocate that others avoid them too. Still, many people love them for the bonus programs. (My wife is devoted to her 1% cashback from Discover.)

Those who use credit cards may be interested in Credit Card Tune-Up, a web-based tool that recommends the best rewards cards based on parameters you provide.

Choosing the right credit cards to maximize your cash back rewards can be daunting. There are hundreds of cards to choose from and their reward structures are a mish-mash of tiers, limits, and categories. Plus, credit card companies frequently offer new cards and change their existing cards’ reward structures. The Credit Card Tune-Up tool makes all of that easy. Just plug in how much you spend each month, press Enter, and you’ll be presented with a list of recommended cards sorted from best to worst by your expected annual reward.

This site looks quite impressive. If I used personal credit cards, I’d be all over this!

“Track everything you spend” is one of the key steps to getting rich slowly. It’s easy to do this after the fact using a personal ledger or software such as Quicken. But how do you plan for expenses?

A budget is the best way to see where your money needs to go. Some people keep detailed budgets, and adhere to them religiously. Others — such as myself — keep loose budgets, and use them simply as guidelines. Whichever kind of budgeter you are, PearBudget is an excellent tool to help the process.

PearBudget is a FREE budgeting program, written in Excel. It can be used by almost any spreadsheet program (Excel, Word, OpenOffice, etc.). Setup is a snap, and it takes less than half an hour a month to maintain it and see how you’re doing. (And—did we mention?—it’s free!)

The brains behind PearBudget are currently developing a web-based version of the software. If you’ve been wanting to start a budget, or have been looking for ways to simplify your existing budget process, give PearBudget a try.

Welcome to Money Hacks. This site is devoted to finding tips and tools to save time and money. It was inspired by Merlin Mann’s entry on ‘the 43 Folders of money management sites’. Mann wrote:

In the last week or so, I’ve gotten email from three different people asking me which site I’d consider to be the ‘43 Folders’ of money management. By this, I think they mean they’re looking for some kind of framework and tips for understanding the role money plays in their life, and then trying to find the best and most practical ways to implement and maintain healthy financial change. As against fancy “wealth management,” I’m thinking more along the lines of “what tricks will help me get smarter about the day-to-day dollar leakage?” Money Hacks, if you prefer.

I’ve believed for some time that the world needed a site devoted to money hacks. Mann’s post was the catalyst to finally create one.

This is not a personal finance weblog — I already have one of those called Get Rich Slowly — but a site devoted to finding tips and tricks to save you money in every area of your life. There will certainly be some content overlap with Get Rich Slowly, but while the former features longer entries about personal finance, I envision Money Hacks as a place to post a short entry every day about a new money hack. A lot of neat things that don’t have room for over there will be posted here.

You can help. If you know find a great money hack, send it to me at: tips [-at-] moneyhacks [-dot-] org. If you’d like credit (and a link), be sure to include the appropriate information.

Be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss a single hack.