Money Hacks

Ever wished you could find some way to play with the numbers that go into your paycheck? I have. Sometimes I want to know what would happen if I changed my withholding rate, or how my taxes would be affected if I got a raise.

Paycheckcity (a site for which I cannot vouch) has a handy paycheck calculator that lets you play with the numbers. You can select your state, the tax year for which you want to experiment, and then enter a variety of parameters to see what happens to your net pay.

[Paycheckcity.com: Paycheck calculator]

Do you have a roommate? A partner? A friend to whom you’ve loaned money? Buxfer is a fantastic web-based tool for anyone in a situation with shared expenses. The site’s programmers write:

As graduate students, having food almost always meant eating out with a bunch of fellow sufferers somewhere on Craig Street. With such a high rate of accumulating bills, our memories and scraps of paper were just not enough. So we wrote a small simple script to keep track of our debts. And boy, did we love it! Well, we thought maybe the others would find this useful too.

You can learn more about Buxfer by:

• Taking a tour of the site
• Reading the blog with updates on developments
• Viewing the FAQ to get into the nitty-gritty

Where was this when I was in college? (Oh, right — the whole internet thing hadn’t come of age yet.)

Lifehacker points to Coupon Chief, a source for online coupons and coupon codes. The site also highlights discounts and specials around the web.

Here at Coupon Chief, we strive to provide a one stop coupon deal and discount resource for our Web site visitors. Our focus on customer support and providing up to date coupon codes and promotional deals and discounts is unparalleled in the online shopping e-commerce industry. You can be assured we are always on the lookout for the latest deals and offers from our extensive list of web merchants. We are constantly adding new merchants and coupon codes, promotion codes, and offers, so come back and visit us again and again for all your online shopping purchases!

Links from Coupon Chief are embedded with affiliate codes, but that seems like a worthwhile way to support them. If you’re opposed to affiliate programs, simply research the coupon codes and then enter the appropriate link manually.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!