I forgot to mention in my first post on the new Bank of America Keep the Change program, that you need three things in order to get started:
1. A checking account with BOA
2. A savings account with BOA
3. A check card (not an ATM or straight credit card)
If you have all three of these, I could see no reason to delay. If you don't already bank with BOA, then this could be enough of a reason to switch over.
If you run 40 transactions a month and average $ .50 in change each transaction, then at the end of the year, you will have added $309.00 to your savings account for doing absolutely nothing differently.
2008/09/02
Looking for a place to save money - check your insurance policies
You've seen the commercial that goes something like..."I don't know about that, but I did save a ton of money on my car insurance." I've taken that to heart and started shopping around for new auto and home owner's insurance.
My dear Mom, who has more cars than handbags - well not really, but you get the point - took the initiative to pull away from the insurance agency we've used for decades and said she is now saving around $1000 bucks a year with her new company!
Naturally I thought - why am I with these guys? My rates never go down, we don't drive hardly anywhere, and my allegiance should be to the policy and my rate, not to the insurance company.
As of today, I'm shopping for new insurance and I'll get back to you on how much we save each year. Every penny saved is more money that I can use to tackle my debt and add to the revenue side of my cash flow equation.
My dear Mom, who has more cars than handbags - well not really, but you get the point - took the initiative to pull away from the insurance agency we've used for decades and said she is now saving around $1000 bucks a year with her new company!
Naturally I thought - why am I with these guys? My rates never go down, we don't drive hardly anywhere, and my allegiance should be to the policy and my rate, not to the insurance company.
As of today, I'm shopping for new insurance and I'll get back to you on how much we save each year. Every penny saved is more money that I can use to tackle my debt and add to the revenue side of my cash flow equation.
New way to save with Bank of America
Bank of America has a new savings promotional deal called "Keep the Change®".
The deal goes something like this, whenever we use our BOA Checkcard to make a purchase - which by the way we use way too often - BOA will round up the the cents difference to the nearest dollar and deposit that amount in to your BOA savings account.
According to the BOA terms of service agreement, the bank will match 100% of your Keep the Change transfers for the first three months after you enroll. After that, they will match 5% with a maximum total match of $250 per year.
I looked all over for a catch but couldn't find anything...all signs point to this as being free money...I like to think of it as a customer appreciation gift. Needless to say, I've just signed up and am curious to see how quickly our change adds up.
The deal goes something like this, whenever we use our BOA Checkcard to make a purchase - which by the way we use way too often - BOA will round up the the cents difference to the nearest dollar and deposit that amount in to your BOA savings account.
According to the BOA terms of service agreement, the bank will match 100% of your Keep the Change transfers for the first three months after you enroll. After that, they will match 5% with a maximum total match of $250 per year.
I looked all over for a catch but couldn't find anything...all signs point to this as being free money...I like to think of it as a customer appreciation gift. Needless to say, I've just signed up and am curious to see how quickly our change adds up.
2008/09/01
Tough Time to Start a Debt Reduction Plan
I'm recovering from the weekend's activities and thinking that this is a tough time to start a debt reduction plan.
It's labor day and after a long weekend of entertaining - I'm afraid I've made quite a sizable dent in my spending budget for September. To be fair, I think entertaining is actually a good investment for the future. Mixing guests and inviting friends with different backgrounds is a great way to open up your social network and gets other like minded people connected.
In my view, a social network is just one move away from a professional network and many times those two overlap.
The only problem is while the dollars spent are easy to quantify, the return on investment may be much more difficult to calculate. Nonetheless it's done, we had a blast, and now I'll simply figure out what I can cut in September to make it up. I'm thinking "restaurants" are an easy target.
The bottom line is, there is always a holiday, a birthday, an anniversary, or some big event which can easily overshadow your debt reduction goals. Discipline is key and getting in to the habit of looking for inexpensive alternatives can still keep you plugged in to important networks without becoming a social pariah. More on those inexpensive alternatives in a later post.
Happy Labor Day! (I'm off to clean out the garage to make room for the new mower;-)
It's labor day and after a long weekend of entertaining - I'm afraid I've made quite a sizable dent in my spending budget for September. To be fair, I think entertaining is actually a good investment for the future. Mixing guests and inviting friends with different backgrounds is a great way to open up your social network and gets other like minded people connected.
In my view, a social network is just one move away from a professional network and many times those two overlap.
The only problem is while the dollars spent are easy to quantify, the return on investment may be much more difficult to calculate. Nonetheless it's done, we had a blast, and now I'll simply figure out what I can cut in September to make it up. I'm thinking "restaurants" are an easy target.
The bottom line is, there is always a holiday, a birthday, an anniversary, or some big event which can easily overshadow your debt reduction goals. Discipline is key and getting in to the habit of looking for inexpensive alternatives can still keep you plugged in to important networks without becoming a social pariah. More on those inexpensive alternatives in a later post.
Happy Labor Day! (I'm off to clean out the garage to make room for the new mower;-)
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