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Speeding through checkout with Walmart discounted gift cards
We’ve been buying discounted gift cards from Cardpool and here’s how we’re making checkout a bit faster …
I’m a regular customer of discounted gift card sites. We do our best to buy and use them safely, and it takes a decent chunk out of our Walmart trips. (Nothing to retire on, but a decent chunk nonetheless.)
Cardpool sells what it calls “printable electronic gift cards” for Walmart and a number of other businesses. These are good deals for a number of reasons:
Ten power tips for buying and selling at yard sales
With summer starting up, yard sales are all over the place. Here are some ways to increase your purchasing power, as well as sell more for whatever good cause.
Last weekend was a big one in our area for yard sales. Our county’s YMCA had a yard sale event with about 25 different tables. And not one, but two churches had yard sales to raise money for mission trips to Peru. (This was two completely independent mission trips.)
Truth be told, we don’t hit yard sales as much as we used to. For me, seeing a yard sale used to be like a bell to one of Pavlov’s dogs, and if we had other places to go I would get noticeably irritated if we didn’t stop. That, and we just were accumulating too much stuff; we’re a bit pickier now.
Thirty money tips from a decade of Mighty Bargain Hunter
Ten years ago today, I started the blog Mighty Bargain Hunter. (Here’s a link to the first post, which was remarkably content-free.)
Since then, I’ve written well over a thousand articles on lots of topics, some common, some not so common. But below I’ve compiled thirty money tips (each with a linked article, which cover most of the past ten years) that will help you to save money, recognize good deals, and spend your money wisely.
Banking
Five tips for hitting the jackpot at your bank
People make mistakes all the time when they sell things. Having knowledge about what you’re buying gives you an advantage over a seller who really doesn’t know what they have.
The more knowledge you have, the larger your advantage.
Take collectible coins, for example. Knowing the key years and mint marks — that is, the hard-to-find ones — can mean an instant profit if the seller doesn’t realize he or she has one. They might sell a 1921 Peace dollar for a fraction of what it’s worth.
The less you know …
As silly as a pawnbroker not knowing the key mint marks to common coins might be, some people know far less than that.
They don’t even know that they should sell the coins they have. They just spend them or deposit them in their bank accounts.
Reward sites and math (don’t be scared)
A lot of reward sites have their own system of rewards. But what are these really worth?
I’ve used both MyPoints and Swagbucks to get gift cards for doing such things as reading emails, doing web searches, and other low-stress, quick-turnaround activities.
Both MyPoints and Swagbucks have been flawless with delivering the gift cards I’ve earned. No issues, ever, and I’ve earned hundreds of dollars of gift cards through them.
Rewards for doing easy stuff
MyPoints is one of the older reward sites. A friend introduced the site to me around that time and I wish I had used it more back then.
This is how your bank feels about your loan payoff
As I posted about recently, we paid off our van loan, something we’re very happy about.
The financial institution that held our loan recently sent us the title to the van. They also sent a separate letter notifying us of such.
Here’s the text of the letter:
RE: Loan: *******123-4567
Collateral Description: [Our Van]
Payoff Date: 03/27/2015
Dear John Wedding,
The above referenced load has been paid in full. If this loan was secured by a vehicle, the lien will be released and the paper title mailed to you within 30 days unless you have a delinquent obligation to the [financial institution]. If you have an outstanding delinquent obligation, the lien may not be released and the title may be held in accordance with the terms of your loan documents.
I forgot about the #1 source for tax information
This week (and probably part of this weekend) I’ll be wrapping up my Tax Year 2014 activities. As always, there will be much celebration afterwards.
Since 2009 I’ve used H&R Block® Online Tax Software every year I’ve been able. In tax years 2012 and 2013, I had an investment vehicle unusual enough that the interview software wasn’t able to navigate through it, so some of the streamlining that I might have achieved had I used it every year was lost.
Appreciation for depreciation
Now that the complicated investment vehicle was out of my hands, I went back to using the software.
Slain debt dragon? 7 worthy uses for that payment
We slayed a debt dragon last week. The carcass rots in our front yard as I write this. The greenish-blue smoke from its nostrils abated only this morning.
This past Friday marked the last of eighty-four biweekly loan payments on our Toyota Sienna.
We paid off the five-year loan nearly two years ahead of schedule by rounding the payment up to the next $100 and making biweekly payments much the same way you can on a mortgage.
From fire-breathing to breathing room
This debt was consuming $100/week. It no longer is. I rather like the feeling!
Six costs of free – and how to avoid having them eat your lunch
There’s not a thing wrong with free. In fact, free is one of my favorite four-letter words.
But, it always pays to remember that “free” is not the same thing as “without cost.” Something that’s free may be without monetary cost, but there’s almost always some other cost.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody pays for it. That somebody may be you.
Here are six types of costs of free things:
1. Time Costs
Time is not money. It’s far more valuable than money for a couple of reasons:
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