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Written by Catey Hill
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Friday, 30 July 2010 |
 You hear about cash-back cards all the time—but which ones deliver the goods? These four cards deliver the most buck for your bang. But remember: As with most rewards cards, you MUST pay your balance in full and on time each month or get hit with steep late fees and interest rates.
- Chase Freedom
You earn an unlimited 1% cash back on all purchases, and 5% cash back on rotating categories of purchases like gas, groceries, travel, and more (a quarterly maximum applies). No annual fee.
- Discover More
This is a great cash back card—but it requires patience. You can earn 5% cash back (up to a maximum), but it does so in rotating categories (hence the need for patience). It also gives you up to 1% cash back on many other purchases—unlimited! Read the fine print. No annual fee.
- Blue Cash from American Express
Hey, big spenders—this is the card for you! Charge less than $6,500 per year and Blue Cash offers 1% cash back on purchases at supermarkets, drug stores and gas stations and 0.5% cash back on all other items. Spend more than $6,500 in a year and earn 5% cash back on those three categories—and 1.25% on other items. Rewards are unlimited. No annual fee.
- Capitol One No Hassle Cash Rewards
No hassle indeed: You get 2% cash back on gas and grocery purchases and 1% on all other purchases—and the rewards are unlimited. The card has an annual fee that varies according to your credit score.
Remember to choose a card that complements your spending habits (e.g. big grocery buyers should go for a card with a nice kick-back on groceries); has no or a low annual fee and doesn’t severely restrict the cash rewards. Comparison shop at creditcards.com.
Talk back. What's your favorite rewards card?
Catey Hill is the money editor for the New York Daily News online and the author of "Shoo, Jimmy Choo! The Modern Girl's Guide to Spending Less and Saving More." |
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Written by MP Dunleavey
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 |
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 Q: How can a lower- or middle-income couple invest? We don't have much money.
A: Investing doesn't have to be a big bucks endeavor, and you don't need a Ph.D. in Wall Street.
Let's take one step today. In some ways, it's wiser to get moving and establish even a super basic investment or retirement account—than to wait until you Know Everything.
None of this is set in stone. You can—and should!—change your mind as you learn more.
First, decide how much you can invest each month. How about $50? Making a monthly commitment enables you to open accounts that might otherwise have high minimum investment requirements.
Feeling confident? T. Rowe Price and TIAA-CREF allow you to open an IRA or investment account by setting up an automatic contribution of just $50 per month.
If you open a High Yield Investor checking account with Charles Schwab, you automatically get a brokerage account that allows you to start investing, and waives the minimums on most investments.
A tad nervous? Consider a "savings account IRA" with Sharebuilder, now a part of ING Direct. This hybrid account follows IRA rules (i.e. contributions are tax-deferred, and it's hard to withdraw them before age 59 1/2 without a penalty)—BUT your account would be FDIC insured, like a regular savings account.
Investment IRAs (i.e. not FDIC insured) are available through ING's investment arm, Sharebuilder.
Best of all, Sharebuilder and ING have no minimums to open an account. You're not even required to make regular contributions.
For now, as you get to know the world of investing, park your money virtually risk-free in a money market mutual fund. And revisit DailyWorth's more detailed Investing 101: Why, What and How by personal finance expert Manisha Thakor.
How did you get started investing? What would you do differently, if you could do it over again?
Note: The companies referred to are based on our editorial research. They are not sponsored, i.e. paid, references, nor are we endorsing these companies or products. |
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Written by MP Dunleavey
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 |
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| Heidi Hackemer in one of her Six. |
From the Little Brown Dress project to the Great American Apparel Diet, Americans have had a long, conflicted love affair with the strip-down-to-basics movement.
Here we are, a consumption-crazy, credit-obsessed society—yet with serious cravings to simplify and spend less.
In some ways, "Six Items or Less"—a transatlantic challenge to wear only six pieces of clothing for a month—could be just another installment of this ongoing fad.
Shopping is a drug
But Heidi Hackemer and Tamsin Davies, who launched the project on June 21, say it's surprising what can emerge after wearing only six items for 30 days.
Although their m.o. was never to be anti-consumer or finger-wagging ("Bad shopper! Bad!"), just putting a limit on wardrobe choices led many Sixers to realize that "they are caught in an ugly shopping cycle and they wanted to break out of it," Hackemer says.
"Whenever you acquire something new, your brain gives you a little shot of dopamine," Hackemer notes, and looking for that chemical kick, in part, is what leads to a closet full of clothes, most of which you never wear. Like most Sixers, she realized she didn't need as many clothes.
But that was just a start. An unexpected fallout from the project was a wellspring of energy for other things, Hackemer says.
What's on your list?
"I didn't re-examine my entire life," Hackemer says. "It was more like, there were things I'd been meaning to do—and maybe it wouldn't be so hard to do them."
Hackemer started walking to work more often, eating out less and meditating. She found herself willing to tackle oddball tasks—like changing the filter on her air conditioner and, yes, composting.
Forgive yourself for failure and try again
Will the "Six Items" effect keep its hold? Or will the Sixers fall back into old habits?
Hackemer had two responses that apply directly to how and why change is hard to sustain on a financial front as well.
"Americans have this weird fascination with perfection," she says. If you miss the mark, there's a tendency to give up on yourself.
"I think we need to forgive ourselves more, or we're not going to be able to stick to the changes we're trying to make."
And, she points out, it's only human to fall off the various band wagons we build for ourselves. Maybe what's required, Hackemer suggests, is to accept a certain failure ratio, and make time—whether that's once a month or once a year—to get re-centered.
Take Buddhism, she says. Inner peace was never a "set it and forget it" option. "For centuries, monks would fast or go on retreats to rebalance themselves," she notes.
Maybe a month-long clothing cleanse can do the same for you, if your consumption habits start to feel out of control. |
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Written by MP Dunleavey
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Tuesday, 27 July 2010 |
 Lines around the block! A new tell-all TV series! Is Snooki dumping her poof? Did Lindsay make parole?
No, but Georgetown Cupcakes—the hot bake shop started by two sisters in Washington—just hit the big time with "DC Cupcakes", a six-part series on TLC this month.
DailyWorth asked entrepreneurs Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis to share their thoughts on making sure your business has the right ingredients.
Flex your plans.
"Don't start with some 30-page business plan—it'll be extinct in the first year," says Sophie. "Map out the critical stuff, like your financial model. But let accidents happen. We opened on Valentine's Day 2008, with pink boxes. When we tried to switch to white boxes—which were a lot cheaper—our customers wanted the pink boxes back. So it became part of our signature."
Start small, think big.
"We had a dream of opening a bake shop, but we started out with what we could afford, not this huge space," says Katherine. "But we were also prepared to grow quickly, if we had to. I think you have to be conservative in your forecasting, but be able to scale up quickly and take advantage of momentum."
Prepare to fail.
"We knew that half of all restaurants and food businesses fail in the first year. You have to ask yourself, Would you be OK starting over? You have to feel emotionally and financially secure with the level of risk you're taking."
Work it.
"Running your own business is 24-7, it's nothing like the amount the work you do in a job. It's always on your mind. Be prepared to work hard."
Bottom line
"It's worth it," both sisters say. "If you have a dream of starting your own business, we say, Do it! You don't want to spend your life wondering, What if...?"
Check out "DC Cupcakes" on TLC this Friday, July 30. |
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Written by MP Dunleavey
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Monday, 26 July 2010 |
 So much to track
The top concern that emerged from our latest reader survey wasn't starting a budget, but sticking to one (45% of you said so). Why?
One of the biggest budget busters is—surprise!—not how you spend, but how tough it is to track the hundreds of transactions you conduct each month: debits and transfers and charges and checks galore.
All that mess gets cleared up in five minutes flat, when you use a budget program like Mint. It downloads AND categorizes your transactions, and it’s less cumbersome to maintain than Excel or Quicken.
Signals to guide you
Both Amanda and MP like Mint because a) it's free and b) it's secure and c) it lets you set a monthly spending target in each category (groceries, car, savings, health, etc.).
Then, it channels those transactions into a color-coded bar chart (see a fullscreen example here) so you can see what your current financial picture is in real-time.
The best way to use Mint is in tandem with the save-to-spend budget that helps you set your own spending and saving goals. Then, use the power of Mint's transaction-tracker to help you automate most of the tracking process (there will always be new transactions Mint doesn’t know how to categorize).
Bottom line
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Try Mint. |
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Rant or rave about Mint on DailyWorth.com. |
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Written by MP Dunleavey
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Friday, 23 July 2010 |
If only I had a...
You need a 20-foot ladder to paint your gutter, a jogging stroller while you work off baby weight, or a projector for outdoor-movie-night.
Why drop a $100 on something you'll only use briefly, when you can borrow or rent it instead?
Try NeighborGoods.
Unlike FreeCycle, the great giveaway site, NeighborGoods is all about the share:
- Sign up with your zip or connect with Facebook Connect
- List stuff you're willing to lend, rent or sell on the cheap (a cordless drill, baby shoes, lawnmower, etc.).
- NeighborGoods connects you with folks nearby who have what you need
It just makes sense
While there are many cases where it does make sense to buy, when it doesn't, we vote to borrow.
(Note that they just launched a month ago, so there might not be a lot in your area—yet. Luckily, it's easy to invite friends to join.)
Check out NeighborGoods. |
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