The stock market has rebounded nicely from the lows a year ago that had people talking the “D” word - Depression.  While I haven’t recouped everything we lost, I can’t complain.  However, experts are predicting that returns this year won’t be near where they’d hoped, and market watchers are wondering where the next best place to invest is.

My family is still putting money in the market, but this holiday season, I’m betting my money on gift cards!  That’s right.  Gift cards.  Not the most sexy financial instrument out there, but here’s why gift cards excite me.

I treat couponing, deal hunting, and shopping just like I do buying stocks.  I do research to find the good deal, I try to buy low on everything I purchase, I pay cash, and I expect maximum returns.  The holiday season is the best time to buy stock in gift cards.  Nearly every major retailer has bonus deals. If you look at buying into those deals as you would look at making an investment, the percentage value of the bonus deals is like earning money in the market.

Let me explain.

I recently went to Claim Jumper restaurant.  They have a holiday gift card deal where if you spend $100.00 in giftcards, you’re given $20.00 in bonus gift cards.  Plus, they threw in a free mug of candy, but we won’t count that.  We were going to eat at Claim Jumper anyway.  So, I bought the $100.00 in gift cards while we were waiting to be seated.  Then we spent $60 of the gift card on dinner.  But, I pocketed a 20% gain.  Not bad for a night out with the kids.  For no real effort, I made $20 doing something I was going to do anyway.

At Safeway, they are promoting $20.00 off on your next grocery trip when you buy $200.00 in gift cards.  Safeway is a veritable gift card mecca.  They have cards for nearly every major store and restaurant you can imagine.  The offer is good for two days starting Black Friday.  So, if I were to go to Safeway first before Black Friday shopping started, bought $200.00 in gift cards for stores I want to shop on Black Friday anyway, then I’d make 10% for the minuscule effort of running in to get gift cards, and running back out to freeze my butt off in line at Target.

It’s not just grocery and restaurants that offer deals like this at the holidays. Major retailers do too.  And, with tax season right around the corner, all those “cash your tax returns for bonus gift card deals” can help save you even more.  In fact, gift card deals that start in October and end in the early spring can really add up.  Last year, I pocketed close to $1000.00 in “free” money just by converting my cash to gift cards.

Now, a few things to think about.  Gift cards are great, but if the store you’re buying them has any chance of folding, then being stuck with gift card balances you can’t use will eat into your profits.  Be sure to stick to big name retailers and restaurant chains when you’re investing in gift cards.

Second, the bonus gift cards usually have restrictions like dates and redemption limits.  So, be sure to use the bonus cards up first if they have specific-use guidelines.  Then, use the actual gift cards if you haven’t already used them at the time you purchased them. Bonus gift cards can also sometime have restrictions about using them with other offers, so watch to be sure you can use them with coupons and other deals.

Lastly, giftcards as an investment isn’t just limited to buying a full-value gift card and getting a bonus card.  Buying giftcards at a discounted rate for the full value is also an investment.  Costco sells $100.00 worth of McCormick and Schmick’s (M&S) gift cards for $79.99.  So in effect, just walking into Costco and buying up $100.00 of gift cards for $79.99 gives me a 20% return on investment the moment I swipe my debit card.  And unlike bonus cards, the discounted gift cards like the ones at Costco come with no restrictions. I can use my M&S rewards card, coupons, and other offers to make this deal even sweeter.

Another investment strategy with gift cards is getting them to buy actual items you would have bought already.  At Blockbuster video, they were giving a $5.00 gift card to buy an Entertainment Book.  Buying the book, then using the Blockbuster coupons in the book in conjunction with the $5.00 gift card to pay for that visit’s movie rentals could effectively save you up to half the purchase price of the book.

When you think about utilizing gift cards in this manner, it’s easy to see how the returns you get from being a smart gift card buyer can add up faster than dividends from money invested in the stock market.

And, in most states, there are gift card laws that protect consumers.  Many states have done away with fees for non-use, expiration dates, and other legalities that made gift cards not near as user friendly.

So, this year, I am once again investing my cash in gift cards.  Year after year, I make more as a percentage on investing in gift cards than I do giving my money to the guys on Wall Street.  And that’s money you can bank on!

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Tags: entertainment books, gift cards, Investing, stock market
Posted in Articles, Finance, Finance & Budget, Frugal Living, Holiday's & Gifts | No Comments »

Also Known as “I KNOW I don’t spend that much money!!”

So we’re all about to get into the thick of tax season, right? If that’s not tough enough on a body by itself, it normally also gets us thinking about ways we can be trimming the excess in our budgets, especially if you’re like my family and actually have to pay the government AGAIN.

Ok, nope, this is NOT a rant about the IRS, though you can probably find one of those on HotCouponWorld.com’s Hot Under The Collar section. THIS article is about keeping track of where you spend your hard earned dollars so that you don’t end up at the end of month wondering where in the world all your dollars went. Before you can cut your expenses, you need to know exactly how you spend your money.

Whether you are tech-savvy or not, here are a couple of methods for keeping track of your daily expenditures.

First, there is the time-tested method of keeping your receipts. Easy enough to do, but at the end of the month, it requires that you add everything up to see where everything went. If you go with this method, then you need to have a place to put your receipts that will keep them out of the way in your home and you need a filing system to organize your receipts.

If you are using this method, you need to pick up an envelope-type coupon organizer at the dollar store. You can carry that around with you and immediately file your receipt away as soon as you get it. Then once a week or more often if you are so inclined, enter your receipts into your books at home. Programs like Quicken will help you out a bunch. Once a month or so, go through the organizer and make sure you have all receipts entered, then empty the organizer. Find yourself a shoebox and file them away-just make sure you do keep them somewhere for tax (and REBATE!) purposes. Your task will look much less daunting if you only have a few days or a couple of weeks’ worth of receipts than if you have 3 months’ worth.

The Neat Company has a really cool tool called NeatReceipts. Check it out at www.neatreceipts.com. NeatReceipts is a mobile scanner that inputs your receipts. It categorizes your expenses. It keeps digital copies of your receipts for tax time too. This program has a tool that will extract information directly into Quicken, TurboTax, Excel, or QuickBooks. Talk about doing all the work for you! You can save 50% on a Neat Receipt scanner at Amazon for just $124.99 - a savings of $75 over the regular price of $199.

If you don’t have the money to spend on Quicken or something similar, search for free budgeting tools. There are plenty of offline downloads to help you keep track of your expenditures. The downside to some of these programs is that they require you to have the discipline to sit down periodically and enter your receipts or transactions and categorize them yourself, which I am not able to do. I get tired of all the receipts around my house and throw them all in a box, lock, stock and barrel. However, if you can keep up with all of that, these programs can and will work for you.

If you don’t want to deal with each individual receipt and you just need an overview of your budget and how you spend your money, check out www.mint.com. Mint is a neat little program that hooks to your bank account and automatically categorizes your spending from the moment the money leaves your bank account. You can find discussion about mint.com on the Hot Finance Discussion section of HotCouponWorld.

Mint takes a comprehensive look at all of your bank accounts and if you wish, credit card accounts. Year to date info is available at the click of a mouse, and the program shows you your spending trends as well. Using my custom budget that I created on Mint, I can tell at any time how much of my grocery/clothing/fuel/entertainment money I’ve spent. Oh, and if you have a dangerously low balance, Mint emails you to let you know.

All you need to get started is one of your checks, a credit card statement, and statements from any other accounts that you might want to incorporate.

You don’t have to worry about hacking on this website either, or selling your information to other companies. The information you give them is encrypted, and they specifically state that they do not share your information with outside companies. I’ve been a member of Mint for months, and I haven’t gotten any junk mail or spam from them at all.

And, I can tell you that I spend WAY too much on joe.

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Tags: Budget, Budgeting, Excel, Finance, Mint.com, NeatReceipts, Organization, QuickBooks, Quicken, Rebate, Receipt, Tax, taxes, TurboTax
Posted in Articles, Finance | 3 Comments »

Tax season is upon us, and really, it’s one of my favorite times of year, even if I owe money to the IRS.  I know, that sounds strange, but it gives me a chance to clean through a ton of paper, file, and organize my house a bit.  Plus, in the years I get refunds, I like tearing through it to get my refund quickly and put it to good use.

One thing I don’t do no matter how badly I want/need my refund is to use a tax service that advances me my refund.  Here’s why….

The “rapid refund” type services are in the business of making money by taking a percentage of your refund as a loan fee for service.  It goes without saying then that there are some services out there that are going to find ways to get you the largest refund out there they can, and some have been known to use unscrupulous tactics to do it, leaving you open to an IRS audit.  The more they “find” you, the higher their cut of your tax refund.

If you can file in a quick enough manner using a reputable service like Turbo Tax, and you have it set up to electronically deposit your funds into a checking account, you can receive your tax return from the feds in as little as 9 business days.  When all’s said and done, even if you’re facing a tough time with money, waiting that few extra days can save you as much as 10-20% in loan fees, keeping all the money in your pocket.  Turbo Tax is free to e-file your Federal taxes if you have a very basic tax return, and if you wind up having to upgrade to a paid version, the money you’ll spend will still be cheaper than the refund loan.

Even worse are the refund loans that front loads the balance on a pre-paid Mastercard.  HR Block, whose Tax Cut software is similar and comparable to Turbo Tax, offers the pre-paid Masercard as an option for getting their Refund Anticipation Loan product.  The fine print is that there may be additional fees on top of the loan fees.  So if you feel you have no choice but to go down the refund loan path to get your tax return this year, don’t let anyone talk you into the pre-paid Mastercard option - it will only eat even more of your hard-earned money.

Ultimately, you need to do what’s best for your family.  But the technology and software available to do your own taxes and get a rapid return on your own has cut the tax return process down to less than two weeks for most federal filers (your state return could take longer).  If you need to do the refund loan option, stick with a reputable firm and not a fly-by-night outfit.  HR Block might be your better choice.  But if you can hang tight for the money, you’ll do better in the long run by filing on your own and waiting the few days for the IRS to direct deposit your funds. You’ll save several hundred much needed dollars that can go a long way towards paying bills or buying much-needed household purchases.

Our top three choices for do-it-yourself tax software:

Turbo Tax

HR Block’s Tax Cut

Free Tax Usa

For more information about tax filing for 2008, go to www.irs.gov.

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Tags: 2008 tax season, free tax USA, IRS, rapid refund, refund anticipation loans, refund loans, Tax, taxes, TurboTax
Posted in Articles, Finance | 1 Comment »

Shopping online can be a great way to snag a bargain, get free shipping, and save you a trip to the mall. But along with the convenience of shopping at home in your pajamas and slippers comes some risk. Review the following safe online shopping tips below.

• Know the merchant: If you recognize the merchant you are shopping with from a brick & mortar store chances are that their name is recognizable for a reason and your online shopping experience with them is safe. If you have never heard of the site be extra cautious and check them out thoroughly.

Check the websites privacy policy: Just about every website collects private information from you. From your IP address, email address, to your credit card information depending on what information they collect. Before you give them any of your personal information check out the websites privacy policy. This can usually be found in the footer (the bottom) of most sites pages, but you may need to search around for it if it is not located there. If you find a privacy policy, read it and make sure you understand and agree with what the company says that they will or can do with your information before you give them your personal info. If you cannot find a privacy policy, skip this merchant, plain and simple. No reputable online merchant would be caught dead without a privacy policy.

Search the website name in a any popular search engine: Open up a new window or tab in your browser and go to your favorite search engine (like Google or Yahoo) and search for the companies name. See what comes up in the search results. Look a few pages deep to see what comes up. I once “Googled” a company and found scads of horrible consumer reviews which prevented me from being scammed like hundreds of others had been. If everything checks out in your search proceed to the next step.

Check the URL: Are you about to give this online merchant your credit card number to make a purchase. Check out the URL in the address bar to make sure that it is secure.

What you are looking for:

A URL that looks like this: https://site-name.com  (the ’s’ after the http means secure)

Example:

Avoid giving financial information to any site with out the ’s’ after the http in the URL.

Look for contact information: All legitimate online merchants will have a working phone number where you can speak to a live operator (you may need to wait a while to get one but eventually you can get one). Find the companies phone number and give it a call. That bad merchant I mentioned above that I got bad search result hits, well turns out that company had a phone number listed on their website but when you called it you got a recording that all “customer service” was done online only. Big red flag right there!

Check out shipping and return policies: You are just about there and ready to buy. But stop and take a moment to review the merchants shipping and return policies so that you are aware of the policy before you order. Again this information can usually be found in the footer of the site.

Don’t share: We are all taught from a young age that we must share. “Share your toys with your brother.” When it comes to online shopping though, sharing is not a good thing. Public computers (such as at the library), computers on a network (like at work), or using a shared wireless connection (like at Starbucks) can all be instances where your personal information can be shared with those that you don’t want to share it with. So wait to do your online shopping when you are at home, using your own computer, on a connection that you are sure is secure.

Pay with a credit card: OK so you have checked out the site fully using all the above tips and so far so good, everything checks out. So now you are ready to make that purchase (after all you must get in on that 50% offer with free shipping!) So how do you pay? Financial experts all agree that a credit card is the way to go. Why a credit card and not your bank card? Because most credit cards have protection on them in case your get scammed or ripped off. On the other hand your bank card takes the money right from your bank account and it can take months to settle a dispute, if you can settle it at all. This is a lengthy process, something I have gone through myself and the outcome was not pretty. No credit card? Some card companies such as Discover Card, Bank of America and Citi offer a secure online account number service, a virtual credit card or virtual account number.

Online shopping can be a lot of fun and a great way to save money and time, but please be safe!

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Tags: Credit Cards, Finance, Online Shopping, Safe Internet Practices, Security
Posted in Articles, Finance, Online Shopping | No Comments »