Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.
Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else’s layaway.
Anonymous donors pay off Kmart layaway accounts (AP)
An overall heartwarming piece, but does it make me a jerk that this quote makes me mad? Someone offered this family a break—why didn’t she use the money she’d saved to have savings and maybe help her grandkids with a college fund or pay down the credit card debt she probably has?
Urban Chickens: Frugal Fad or Pricey Pastime? (Mint Life)
The conclusion is that they don’t present a significant cost savings, though I don’t think that most people are doing it to be frugal, anyway.
Luckily, my insane bird phobia has prevented me from ever considering such things.
(link via infinitezest)
Big Changes to American Express’s Blue Cash Card (NYT)
Somehow I missed this memo at the end of April, about my top choice Amex card. I’ll have to look into this further and see if it makes sense for me to switch to the new rewards.
Like the Religion: Chase Actually Gave Me a Deal
A few weeks ago I got junkmail from Chase. The offer was $125 for opening a checking account. I read the fine print, and realized that they were actually offering me a 6 month CD at a 17% interest rate. I wasn’t sure that it’d actually work—because Chase is always trying to screw me—but I now…
(My husband is a badass.)
Foursquare has teamed up with American Express to offer deals (as of March, actually, so I’m late to the party), and I just took the bait and signed my credit card up. After actually reading through the terms and conditions, it seems like I don’t have much to lose, and might actually gain some rewards which are specifically targeted to me. Here goes nothing!
One sentence in the terms was surprising to me, however:
“Note that transactions made using the ‘expresspay’ capability are not considered Eligible Transactions.”
For some reason, expresspay purchases (when you just tap the card instead of swiping) are not considered the same as traditional swipes. What’s that about?
Young People See Debt As Empowering (Jezebel)
“We thought educational debt might be seen as a positive because it is an investment in their future, while credit card debt could be viewed more negatively … Surprisingly, though, we found that both kinds of debt had positive effects for young people. It didn’t matter the type of debt, it increased their self-esteem and sense of mastery.
…By age 28, they may be realizing that they overestimated how much money they were going to earn in their jobs. When they took out the loans, they may have thought they would pay off their debts easily, and it is turning out that it is not as easy as they had hoped.”
Eh, carrying a balance month after month that can’t be paid off tells me that the person is living beyond their means. Unforeseen expenses do come up and it’s good to have a credit card if there is a real emergency, but I know too many people who can’t seem to get out of credit card debt yet buy Starbucks every day and always have brand new clothes (not to mention the guy who is still trying to pay off the Sea-Doo that he bought right after college just because he had a large enough credit line for it).
Shit like this is right up there with those ‘Bridge Ices Before Road’ signs. If you don’t know this, you shouldn’t be anywhere near the driver’s seat or a credit card.
Since only 54% of people pay their credit card balances in full every month, I think that it’s fantastic to have the costs of carrying a balance spelled out like this on credit card bills. Everyone knows this in theory, but this forces people to think about their specific future consequences, and feels like a surprisingly nice gesture on the part of the credit card company (perhaps they are legally required to do this now?).
BillGuard Scans Your Credit Card for Unwanted Charges and Fraud
I like the idea of this, and it seems like it could be a very valuable resource. I’m not jumping right in, however, because I feel uncomfortable letting them into my financial records (which surprises me). I’ve had many conversations with people about how they should chill out and trust Mint.com with their financial data, yet I feel differently about this because it is based on sharing data between users. Maybe I’m just getting crotchety now that I’m almost 27.
Debit-Card Scam Targets Michaels Shoppers (WSJ)
In SEO news, the headline in the paper edition is “Thieves Swipe Debit Card Data”.
This is why I dont ever use my debit card for anything except ATM (though I know that even that isn’t foolproof). With a debit card, your actual money from your actual bank account is being stolen, and often won’t be replace by the bank for more than a month. With a credit card, it’s the bank’s money that is stolen, and after a chargeback, life goes on.
How to: Track Cash Spending and Checks in Mint
Fantastic! I didn’t know that this was an available feature.
How Much Money Should You Save? (Get Rich Slowly)
I like this. I’ve been reformulating my personal finances more than usual lately since I switched from a job that paid once a month to a job that pays weekly and is now changing to biweekly. Now I’m prepared for anything!
I just noticed that the forms from my HR department allow me to put my paycheck into multiple locations, so I am setting it up to put my 19.5% savings directly into my savings account. I’m excited to save the extra step of setting up a transfer from my checking account.
