free money

Best Money Tips: How to Get Free Money on Your Next Flight

Amy Lu — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:30:26 +0000

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found articles on how to get free money on your next flight, ways to watch sports without cable, and costumes you can DIY on the cheap.

Stop! Don't Make These 6 Dumb Mistakes With Your Financial Windfall

Kentin Waits — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:00:08 +0000

Maybe your lottery numbers finally came in. Maybe a favorite aunt remembered you in her will. Heck, maybe one day while you were shootin' at some food, up through the ground came bubblin' crude — oil that is! Texas tea! (See also: 50 Smart Things to Do With Your Tax Refund)

Whatever the source, you're the lucky beneficiary of a financial windfall. Revel in it and protect your new-found wealth by avoiding these six dumb moves.

1. Act Impulsively

Receiving money unexpectedly is exciting, and it can send even normally down-to-earth folks straight into the stratosphere. In those dizzying weeks and months following a financial windfall, we're really not ourselves, so making big decisions during that time is usually a terrible idea. Instead of spending or investing immediately, take a time out. Collect yourself. Adjust to your new wealth for six months or a year and just let the cash sit in a money market account or CD. Remember, high emotion and sound decision-making usually don't mix.

2. Buy a New Car

Even if you're paying cash, there are many reasons to avoid buying a new car. Not only is it the most cliché thing you can do with a windfall, but it's also one of the quickest ways to lose roughly 25% on every dollar you spend. The minute you sign the paperwork and drive off the lot, that new car becomes used. Depreciation takes a quick and silent bite out of your new ride. Let someone else absorb that financial hit; buy a pre-owned late-model car that's still under warranty.

3. Loan Money to Friends and Family

Making loans to friends and family is a sure way to take the wind out of your financial windfall. Loans have a curious way of never getting repaid, and once your bank balance dwindles, hard feelings can set in and slowly erode relationships. If a loan is unavoidable, find out how to increase your chances of repayment without sacrificing the relationship. Better yet, if someone dear to you truly needs a hand up, simply make a one time cash gift with no repayment expectations.

4. Sink It All in Stocks

Certain stocks can be great investments — as part of a balanced and well-diversified portfolio. But for newly-minted investors flush from a financial windfall, a measured and balanced investing strategy just doesn't sound sexy. And while investing in the performance of individual companies might sometimes pay off over the long-term, it sets new investors up for a wild ride and turns what should be a well-considered and tactical process into a simple roll of the dice.

5. Pay Off Your Mortgage

Paying off our biggest expense can be immensely satisfying, but in an era of low interest rates, it may not be the most strategic decision. Think of it this way: If you have a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 3.85%, but could realistically average 8.5% in a good mutual fund, wouldn't every extra dollar devoted to paying off your mortgage lose 4.65%? Of course, everyone's circumstance is different; factors like your age, the number of years remaining on your mortgage, the interest rate, and how long you plan on being in your home are important considerations. The point is this: Don't automatically assume that paying off your mortgage is the way to go.

6. Handle Everything Yourself

As wonderful as it is, money has a way of complicating things. Large financial windfalls often result in more complex tax issues, require much clearer estate planning, and demand a more active and engaged investment strategy in order to protect and grow wealth. It's important to be honest about the limits of your personal expertise and seek counsel from a professional. Explore hiring a CFP (Certified Financial Planner) for help and advice.

There you have it — six of the dumbest things you can do when life hands you a pile of cash tied with satin ribbon. If you run headlong into each one, chances are you'll outlive your windfall and resort to buying scratch-off lottery tickets to recapture the magic. If you avoid all or most of these mistakes, you can put that windfall to work and turn one good fortune into a lifetime of security and wealth.

Have you ever been the lucky recipient of a financial windfall? Do you have any regrets about how you managed the money?

This article is from Kentin Waits of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

U.S. Government Offers "Free" $50,000 to Troubled Homeowners

Xin Lu — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:36:16 +0000

A new program called the Emergency Homeowner Loan Program is offering a small group of struggling homeowners up to $50,000, and the money does not have to be repaid if the homeowners meet certain requirements.

This program has a funding of $1 billion and is being offered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the nonprofit housing advocacy group NeighborWorks America. Applicants apply for an interest-free loan from these groups, and the money goes directly to the lenders for a part of the borrower's mortgage and fees. This assistance runs up to two years or $50,000, whichever occurs first. After the two year period, 20% of the loan will be forgiven for each year that the borrower is current on his or her mortgage. Basically, the loan would be completely forgiven after five years.

The U.S. government is doing this because the Home Affordable Modification Program is winding down and that program has not helped as many people as it hoped to. The purpose is to keep people who have temporarily lost their jobs from losing their homes, and then hopefully these folks can find another job and start paying their mortgages again. However, this program isn't expected to make any significant impact on home prices since it will only help a small group of homeowners.

This is an amazing deal for those who qualify for the program since it is essentially "free" money if you comply with the terms of the program. To qualify, applicants must have lost income due to involuntary hardship and at risk of foreclosure. There is also an income limit to receiving this assistance and you can find the income limits of your county here at the EHLP Area Median Income Limits site. You also have to use the home in danger of foreclosure as a primary residence. This program is currently available in the following states and territories:

Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.

To apply, you need to go to the NeighborWorks website and fill out a Pre-Applicant Screening Document. They are accepting pre-applications until July 22, 2011, and the final applicants will actually be selected by lottery since there are only about 30,000 applicants that will receive the assistance.

If you don't live in one of the states or territories participating in this program, then there are actually similar programs in all the other states. Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Maryland, and Pennsylvania have their own EHLP equivalent programs and you can apply for them in the links below:

Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Maryland, Pennsylvania

Here in California there is a program that gives struggling homeowners up to $3,000 a month in mortgage payments under the Hardest Hit Housing Market Program. You can find the program links for states in the Hardest Hit Housing Market Program below:

Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington DC

Essentially the government is handing out free money, but you have to apply quickly and hope you get lucky. Personally I think that this will help people who have a home they can afford and just need a little time to get their income back up again, but for those who have a mortgage that they could not afford in any circumstance then this assistance is just kicking the can down the road.

What do you think? Would this program help you out?

This article is from Xin Lu of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

I turn down free money

Philip Brewer — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:08:06 +0000

There's a certain class of ways to get free money or free stuff simply by paying attention, keeping track, and being careful. I don't do these things. It's not because they don't work; it's not even because the risk-adjusted earnings don't pay for the time spent. It's because time--and especially time spent paying attention--is very precious.

The clearest example of the sort of thing I'm taking about is getting a cash advance from a new credit card with a zero-percent teaser rate. Slap that money in your high-interest savings account, pay off the loan when it's due, and you can pocket the interest. Borrow $100,000 and you could pick up close to $2000 of free money in six months.

The thing that makes these schemes tempting is that they seem so easy. After all, you already pay your other bills on-time. For paying one more bill on time for six months you get paid $2000? What's not to like?

Well, one thing not to like is that there's a dozen ways to screw up. Accidentally use the card for an ordinary purchase, and suddenly the interest rate is no longer zero. Make a payment late and suddenly the rate jumps up high enough that you owe more for one month than you were earning in six. In some cases, making the final payment late can allow them to retroactively change the zero percent teaser rate to their regular rate, and suddenly instead of coming out $2000 ahead, you find yourself $10,000 behind.

So, I don't do that sort of thing. I'm organized enough to be successful at them, but I know from experience that things go awry. If you're 99% successful at paying your bills on time, but you've got a dozen bills that need to be paid every month, you can expect an average of 1.4 late payments per year. The list of things that can lead to such a mistake is endless--busy at work, busy at home, illness, injury, family emergency--and that's not counting the possibility that someone else might screw up in a way that costs you money.

Even if you automate your bill paying, things can go wrong. Maybe your bank merges with another bank and you have to move all your automated bill-paying to the new bank's system. If you make a mistake with your power bill, it's no big deal--just fix it. If you make a mistake with the $100,000 zero-rate card it could cost you a lot. Maybe your bank makes a mistake and bounces one of your checks. They'll admit that it's a mistake and refund the bounced-check fee, but good luck on convincing them that they need to reimburse you for several month's interest on $100,000.

The strict way to analyze this is to do a probability-weighted payoff analysis. If 99% of the time you make $2,000 and 1% of the time you lose $10,000, then your expected return would be $1880. (.99 times $2000 minus .01 times $10,000). Now calculate that as an hourly wage. If you spend, let's say, one hour setting the whole thing up and then ten minutes a month making sure everything's on track, then over six months you've spent a total of two hours, giving you an equivalent wage of $940 an hour.

Woo hoo! Not many people get paid that much.

Even so, I never do this. The reason--the real, fundamental reason--is that it would take my attention. I'd end up spending way more than than ten minutes a month with this on my mind. I'd be lucky to keep it down to ten minutes a day--at which point my hourly wage drops down to about $60, which although nothing to sneeze at, is a wage I can probably match by doing work that's a lot more rewarding--work that helps other people or that produces something of value or that furthers my career or that teaches me a new skill.

Because of that, I avoid all schemes of this sort. I don't take "free" magazine subscriptions or "free" credit monitoring services that you have to remember to cancel after a month or else pay for a full year. If I want a copy of a magazine, I'll pay a few dollars and buy one (or, if I just want to look at it, I'll go to the library and look at their copy).

My time and attention are very precious to me. If I'm going to spend them, it's going to be on something that earns more than just money. Whenever I can possibly manage it, it's going to be on something that's really worth doing.

This article is from Philip Brewer of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

The State Sales Tax Holiday is coming...

Paul Michael — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 22:45:58 +0000

...if you're lucky enough to live in Tennessee. Yep, April 27th to Aprii 29th is State Sales Tax day for the fortunate folks of Tennessee, introduced as a way to help families save money on essential supplies for back-to-school shopping.

You can find out all of the details at www.tntaxholiday.com , a website dedicated to the special tax-free holiday.

But if you live in Tennessee (or happen to be passing through) don't rush out and buy a 60" LCD TV hoping to save yourself a few-hundred bucks in taxes. As the back-to-school title suggests, this only really covers supplies that will help out the kids.

BUT, if you've been planning to pick up a new PC for the family, now may be a great time to open your wallet and run down to Circuit City or Best Buy. With a $1500 ceiling on the price of a new PC, you can pick up a very nice machine and pocket the state taxes for much-needed software.

What is covered?

Clothing with a price of $100 or less per item
School supplies with a price of $100 or less per item
Computers with a price of $1,500 or less per item

As long as you stay within these guidelines, you can save yourself a tidy sum over the tax holiday weekend. No exemption certificate is required, so go nuts. But please, not too nuts. We don't need any more people running up nasty credit card bills (see my report on that here) .

Other states

There are 13 other states, plus the District Of Columbia, that have enacted sales tax holidays. Among them are Iowa and Texas, and this year they hold their sales tax holiday at the beginning of August. Your local state website should have information for you on whether on not you're one of the lucky states that have this holiday, and when it actually takes place. Keep your fingers crossed.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Get $25 FREE for opening a savings account with 5.05% interest. - UPDATED

Paul Michael — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 03:53:32 +0000

PLEASE NOTE: Since writing this article, I've been less than overwhelmed by the support from E*Trade. After initially being told by a customer service rep that my $25 would indeed be given to me (and the good folks of Wisebread), I was recently sent en email saying I would only get it if I provide evidence of the postmark on the date of the offer I was sent. Who keeps old envelopes? Not me. So, although the account itself is a good deal, you won;t get the $25 at all. I apologise to all. Read o, but ignore the $25 deal (unless it resurfaces). What a shame E*Trade. I've been a customer only a few days and I already plan on moving over to HSBC savings, with a 6% interest rate.

[Original article follows]

5.05%. That's 6 times more than what you're most likley getting from your regular savings account, which averages around 0.84%. ~~And they're paying you $25 to make you more money!~~ I love America.

I saw a financial advisor recently and he told me about the E*trade savings account. In fact, he told me I'd be a fool not to get one. So, I looked it up. He was totally on the money (sorry, bad pun). The E*trade Financial savings account is legitimate and seriously cool. I've just opened my Complete Savings Account , and here's what did it for me:

~~A free $25 bonus for opening my account before April 30th 3007~~
NO minimum balance (my Compass account has a minimum of $500)
NO account fees. That's zero. Zip. Nada.
FREE quick transfer - withdraw or deposit funds quickly from any institution, anytime.
FDI-insurance to at least $100,000

I can't think of a quicker, easier way to make a little extra cash right now and over the next 12 months. Sure, you can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds. But if you're into the no risk game and just want to make one small step toward earning a lot more for your money, this is a sure thing.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Get your money for nothing, your checks for free.

Paul Michael — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:12:34 +0000

There, that dates me. Big Dire Straits fan here. But in the case of this article, and my subject of choice, it's completely true. You'll see and hear an awful lot about online surveys. You'll find outrageous claims, too. Let me assure you, right now, that taking a survey here and there is not going to let you quit your day job — or any other job. This is not a way to make a fortune. This is not a path to riches paved with gold. Let's face it, if everyone could sit at home doing surveys all day, everyone would be doing it.

But as a way to make a little extra spending money, checking a few boxes when you're already online is not a bad way to do it. And it doesn't take a whole bunch of your time. In the past month I've earned over $100 in cash and rewards, all for a simple opinion here and there. So, let me give you my recommendations and also some advice on what to avoid.

1. Never Pay to Take a Survey

That also means never join a website that asks for a sign-up fee in order to take surveys. Legitimate survey companies pay you for your time, not the other way around. So if anyone is asking for cash upfront, either as a one-off or a monthly fee, run away.

2. Is It Worth Your Time?

Simple question but one worth figuring out. Some surveys offer some pretty nice incentives. I've had as much as $60 for just 40 minutes of my time. Not so bad. Other surveys take as little as five to 10 minutes, but only offer $1 in either cash or reward points as payment. Not so good. Then again, if you're just buzzing around the net looking for something to do, $1 here and there soon adds up over time. Surveys are generally a take-them-or-leave-them affair, so pick and choose based on your personal situation.

3. Don't Expect Cold, Hard Cash

It's a rare occasion when companies dish out the green willy-nilly. These days, a lot of survey sites offer online points to exchange for magazine subscriptions, money-off vouchers and other goods. It's not quite cash but it often works out well for your wallet. One site I enjoy offers free movie rental vouchers. It's been a long time since I've paid for a movie rental.

4. Fill Out the Extended Profiles

The more the survey sites know about you and your hobbies, the more surveys you'll get to take. Simple as that.

5. An Invitation to a Survey May Not Lead to Payment

After signing up to a survey site, you may get many offers in a week. But a set of pre-screening questions can rule you out of the paid section of the survey. You may find ways to get around this, basically by fibbing in order to move on (it's often easy to see where the survey is leading and play along in order to get the payment). I'd avoid this for several reasons. First, it's dishonest. But if that doesn't bother you, the endless boredom that ensues by filling out surveys on hi-tech computer servers or company insurance policies will soon put you off for life. Be honest, surveys should be a fun way to spend your time.

6. Your Spare Time Means Just That

It's fine to do surveys on your lunch hour or at home. But if you start taking surveys while you're at work, you're not only stealing time from your employer, but also jeopardizing your paying job. And if you lose that, no amount of surveys will make up for that lost income.

7. The Big Question — Where Do You Start?

I can heartily recommend THREE sites to start the ball rolling for you. They are:

Toluna — Great site, pays you back in cash and the surveys are a nice mixed bag.
Survey Savvy — Again, a great site that pays you in cash for your opinions.
e-Rewards — This one pays you back in reward points which can be exchanged for goods and vouchers. I love it.

So, there you go. A surveys 101 for you all. I hope it gets you on the path to money for nothing, and that's something we could all use.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

free money

Best Money Tips: How to Get Free Money on Your Next Flight

Top 5 Articles

Other Essential Reading

Stop! Don't Make These 6 Dumb Mistakes With Your Financial Windfall

1. Act Impulsively

2. Buy a New Car

3. Loan Money to Friends and Family

4. Sink It All in Stocks

5. Pay Off Your Mortgage

6. Handle Everything Yourself

U.S. Government Offers "Free" $50,000 to Troubled Homeowners

I turn down free money

The State Sales Tax Holiday is coming...

Get $25 FREE for opening a savings account with 5.05% interest. - UPDATED

Get your money for nothing, your checks for free.

1. Never Pay to Take a Survey

2. Is It Worth Your Time?

3. Don't Expect Cold, Hard Cash

4. Fill Out the Extended Profiles

5. An Invitation to a Survey May Not Lead to Payment

6. Your Spare Time Means Just That

7. The Big Question — Where Do You Start?