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Coin deals: 6+ tricks to finding them
Collecting coins or dealing in coins is a fun hobby. Here are some tricks to snagging coin deals to feed that hobby …
(This post was originally published on January 3rd, 2011.)
Some time ago, another blogger was talking up entrepreneurship to his oldest son and has found a stash of coins that could be ripe for reselling on eBay.
He asked his Twitter followers about starter investment books for kids because they were starting to get fairly sizable savings accounts. (I never addressed that question but I recall Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street specifically mentioned that he had elementary school kids pick out stocks, and some did quite well!)
I was guessing his sons were getting to the point where they can learn a bit about risk and reward.
How strong is your piggy bank?
Some savings accounts are easy to get into. Others take more work — a lot more work. How easy is it for you to dip into your piggy bank?
(This article was originally written on February 8th, 2008.)
Did you have a piggy bank when you were younger? For many of us, a piggy bank was our first introduction to saving.
Don’t guess on your taxes. Get tax help
Taxes getting close? Does filing your taxes fill you with dread? It can, especially if you don't know what you're doing. Get some help!
(This post was originally published on March 31, 2009.)
The first three and a half months of the year can have a lot of good memories.
It's safe to say that preparing taxes isn't part of that.
Regardless of how much, or how little, you enjoy preparing your taxes, it should be taken seriously. Taxes aren't a laughing matter.
Get tax help
The IRS is kinder than it used to be, but it still can make its presence known if you try to get away with something, intentionally or otherwise.
Budget, so that you don’t have to
A budget is a great tool. But like all great tools, it's possible to do without it. To do that, you go beyond budgeting …
A little over two years ago, we took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church.
In taking the course, our lack of budgeting convicted us. Since then, we've drafted a budget every month, using a very low-tech but very effective pen-and-paper budgeting system.
The purpose of budgeting is to give every dollar some purpose, whether it's essential spending like housing and food, discretionary spending like streaming services or eating out, or saving, investing, and giving.
What should you do with unused gift cards?
Gift cards work as gifts. But what if you receive gift cards that you know you won't use, or stick one in a drawer and find it months or years later?
Do you have unused or unwanted gift cards? Here's what you do with them …
I happen to think that gift cards are a decent choice for Christmastime giving. They're convenient and flexible. A well-chosen gift card can show that you know what the person really likes.
Once in a while, though, a gift card goes unused for a while. This can happen for a number of reasons:
Getting a side hustle doing what you love
Getting a side hustle doing what you love sometimes means persevering through people flat-out telling you that you can't …
Many people have something they're passionate about that's outside of their main job. A natural outflowing of that passion is a fire in the belly. With time, this translates to proficiency or even expertise because there's the desire to get better.
For lots of people — including myself — this passion is music. I've been a musician for over four decades. I started playing piano first, then trumpet and voice. Later, I took up drums.
I'm trained as a scientist, but if you were to back me up against a wall and ask me what I was above all else, I would tell you I'm a musician.
The (depressing) definition of a musician
I've seen this definition of musician a number of times on the Internet:
How to get started hunting coins and currency
You may be a treasure-hunter at heart, constantly on the lookout for the extraordinary amongst the ordinary.
If you are, then you needn't look any farther than your local bank or credit union.
They are caretakers for various kinds of coin and currency goodness — all hidden in plain sight, ready to be found by anyone looking.
The great things about coin and currency hunting
Some hobbies require startup costs. I've had friends that were into metal detecting. The better metal detectors aren't cheap.
With currency hunting, though, there don't have to be any extra startup costs. All you need is money in the bank to withdraw.
Also, even if you withdraw some bills or some coins, and end up finding nothing special, you still have all of your money.
A cent is worth at least a cent, and a dollar is worth at least a dollar. There's no downside, only upside!
Pay with Ibotta: My experience and lessons learned
I haven't gone full-bore into paying with my phone, but I did use Pay with Ibotta on a recent trip to Olive Garden. I'll share what I did wrong so you're not stressed out the same way I was …
Apps that allow you to pay with your smartphone have matured. Think Venmo, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and more.
I'm a bit behind the curve when it comes to mobile phone payments. (I understand that checks are fuddy-duddy now and that cash has its limits, too, but … credit cards? Are those on the way out, too?)
I do use some apps to save money. Ibotta is one of them.
Ibotta recently introduced a feature called Pay with Ibotta. It allows you to … pay with the Ibotta app, and get cashback for doing it.
How Pay with Ibotta works
Setting up Pay with Ibotta was straightforward.
How I dodged a $180 hotel fee
I missed the deadline to change my booking date by less than a day. Here's what I did — mostly by accident! — to leave a day earlier without the extra hotel fee …
Mistakes happen. If the only consequence of making a mistake is that things cost a bit more than they should have, that's a pretty good outcome in the grand scheme. But it's still annoying.
Which is why finding a way to unpaint yourself from a corner is such a rush.
In this post, I'll describe how I dodged a $180 change fee that was staring me in the face. And what I did to set it up was completely by accident.
Procrastination costs
I was already late when I got around to booking my hotel for FinCon19 in DC — a conference for “money nerds.”
Grocery receipts for money: Stacking apps
Saving money and getting money for grocery receipts is pretty easy with receipt-scanning smartphone apps. To save more, use more apps …
With all of the news about companies finally being brought to light for making a mint off of your personal information without reasonable disclosure, it's a good thing when other companies pay you for it. It may not be much, but it is something.
Over 300 billion receipts are printed each year! Environmental impact aside, companies will pay for your information because marketers want it dearly.
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