LivingSocial has a new promo code MYFEB which will get you 20% off almost any deal for $100 or less, local or nationwide. Look for “Redeem promo code” during checkout. Valid for first 10,000 uses. Must be used by February 22, 2013, 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time). Fine print below:
Links: How to Make Money in the New Share Economy
Posted on February 19, 2013 // 13 Comments
Forbes has an article about how the share economy is taking off. The primary focus is on AirBNB, which lets you rent out a room in your home with ease and last year booked around 15 million nights of stays. I’ve written about some of these sites before, and while I mostly forgot about them, some people are going quite well with them. “Almost anything you can buy new, you can also rent from a stranger.”
One person lives off of income generated by renting his house out whenever he can (while he cordons himself off to an unattached area). One person makes more money dog-sitting from home than working at Starbucks. One person rented his car out part-time for more than the monthly payments, so now he has three cars being rented out. Yet another drives his car around ridesharing every night and is basically a taxi service. These people may be the exception rather than the rule, but is it proof that the next generation of millennials really don’t care about ownership anymore? Is it better to just have access to whatever you need when you want it? Peer-to-peer everything!
Here’s an infographic from the print version of the article that lists sharing websites of all types from around the world, with the data source being Rachel Botsman of CollaborativeConsumption.com.
Here are links specifically dealing with sites that allow you to make money from your own stuff (US-focused only) – be it a room, a car, or your power tools:
- Rent out rooms in your house (or your entire place): AirBNB, Roomorama
- Rent out your parking space: ParkingPanda, JustPark, ParkCirca
- Rent out your car: RelayRides, Turo
- Drive around others in your car (rideshare, pseudo-taxi): Lyft, Sidecar, Uber
- Pet sit / doggy daycare in your spare time: DogVacay, Rover
Motif Investing Adds New Passive, Index Fund Portfolios
Posted on February 13, 2013 // 9 Comments
Motif Investing is a new brokerage firm that is unique in that it lets you buy an entire basket of up to 30 stocks for only $9.95 per trade. I previously thought that this would be useful to creating your own “custom ETF” of whatever you want, for example dividend stocks.
This week, they rolled out a new set of “motif” baskets which are focused on passive, index fund strategies. I’m happy to see this, although in my opinion some are hits and others are misses. You can find them under the “Investing Classics” category:
- Permanent Portfolio. Based on the Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio of 25% stocks, 25% long-term bonds, 25% cash (short-term bonds), and 25% gold. Their implementation seems a bit needlessly complex, however, as they use over 15 ETFs to replicate international stocks when they could have just used something like Vanguard Total International ETF (VXUS). But again, you can edit and customize the motifs to simplify down to 4-6 ETFs. Still, buying 5 ETFs of your choice in one go for $9.95 isn’t bad, and they will even rebalance for you as well.*
- Target Date Motifs. Based on target-date retirement funds, you can choose for example “Retiring 2050” or “Retiring 2030”. I’m not a big fan of this one, if you want to go this route I’d just stick with the Vanguard Target funds bought directly from Vanguard for no commission fees at all and the highest level of simplicity.
- Ivy League. Based on the Yale Endowment manager David Swensen portfolio. Nice and simple, just the 6 ETFs matching each of the asset classes as described in his book Unconventional Success. I’m biased of course, as my own portfolio is very similar to this.
- Index Fans. Supposedly based on the Boglehead philosophies of Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard. I don’t know why they chose to use a combination of the Total World Stock ETF (VT) and Total US (VTI), when VT is already 50% US stocks and hold a lot less companies (and thus less diversification) as compared to holding US and non-US separately with VTI and VXUS. Or why they didn’t just use a single Total Bond ETF (BND) for bonds. I’m thinking they didn’t actually get official Bogle approval, nor did they read the Bogleheads book.
*Excerpted from a previous interview with Tariq Hilaly, Motif Investing’s Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer:
MMB: Does the motif ever “rebalance” in the future back to the original weightings to prevent drift?
A: Yes, we rebalance most motifs on a quarterly basis. On rare occasions, with longer-term investing strategies that take longer to play out, we rebalance once a year.
$150 Sign-up Bonus.
Motif Investing is also offering a $150 cash bonus when you open a new brokerage account with $2,000+ and make 5 trades at $9.95 each. If you make 1 trade, you’ll get $50. 3 trades will get $75. The new funds must be posted to the account within 10 calendar days of account opening, and must remain in the account for 45 calendar days.
Whole Foods Promo: $10 Free with $100 Reload
Posted on February 12, 2013 // 5 Comments
Whole Foods Market is offering a $10 bonus if you auto-reload a Whole Foods Market gift card with a $100+ using any American Express card. You can buy a gift card online or in-store. You can also get a $5 bonus for every third reload of $100 or more after that. Offer runs through March 31, 2013.
A new Whole Foods recently opened up near us, and we’ve been shopping there occasionally. Despite being nicknamed “Whole Paycheck”, I have to admit that it’s a nice change to talk to knowledgeable employees about meat and other products. Being able to buy things by the pound (meat, bulk foods) as opposed to by the package has also been less wasteful for us. Their 365 basic items are also pretty good, although I’m certainly not saying that I could do all my shopping there.
Selected fine print:
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Best Buy $50 off $100 Coupon, In-Store with Mastercard
Posted on January 21, 2013 // 10 Comments
(Short version: Best Buy makes attempt to alienate the last few customers that they have left, and succeeds.)
Free Pizza: Super Bowl Giveaway at Papa John’s
Posted on January 21, 2013 // 5 Comments
Visit PapaJohnsCoinToss.com and if you guess the Super Bowl coin toss correctly, you’ll get a unique coupon code for a free large 1-topping pizza redeemable at papajohns.com. The thing is, the terms and conditions clearly allow up to 4 four members (age 13+) in a single household to vote. I voted heads + Mrs. MMB voted tails = guaranteed free pizza dinner, retail value $11. If you have 4 people, that’s 2 free pizzas guaranteed.
You must vote by February 2nd; code will be e-mailed out February 4th and will be valid until March 10th. No account needed, no credit card needed, no newsletter sign-up needed. This offer actually worked last year even though I was skeptical… That’s a lot of pizzas to give away, even though it’s good advertising!
PlasticJungle Promotion: Sell $200 in Gift Cards, Get $20 in Credit
Posted on January 16, 2013 // 8 Comments
Have some unused or unwanted gift cards left over? Gift card exchange site PlasticJungle.com is having a promotion where if you sell them $200 in gift cards by midnight Friday, you’ll get $20 credit towards a future gift card purchase. When you go to the Sell gift card section, you should see this message:
The offer text:
Sell us $200 and get $20 off your next Purchase!
Sell us $200 or more worth of Gift Cards in a single transaction this week and we will give you a $20 credit off of your next Gift Card Purchase from Plastic Jungle! This promotion will run from now until 12:00am PST Saturday morning (1/19/13).
Remember, you can sell multiple different cards, but it has to be in one single transaction. A 10% rebate may get you back close to face value, given that you generally lose about 5-20% when selling your gift cards to these types of places. You can get paid via Amazon.com gift card, check, or deposit into a PayPal account. Many cards can be sold electronically with their unique numbers, while some of them you have to mail in.
You shouldn’t have too much of a problem finding a gift card to buy with your $20 credit, assuming you shop at any chain store (Wal-mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, CVS, Walgreens). I’ve mentioned before that I often buy Home Depot gift cards from PlasticJungle, at times via smartphone while still standing in the store. I just buy the “eCode” electronic gift card, have the cashier type it in, and I save another 7% on top of my other coupons or discounts.
GradSave.com: Contribute to 529 Plan with Credit Card
Posted on January 14, 2013 // 35 Comments
LivingSocial is currently offering a $50 Gradsave gift card for $24 (expired). The GradSave College Savings Gift Card can be redeemed for a $50 deposit into any national 529 college savings plan. So if you’re already meaning to contribute some money towards a 529 plan, it’s basically $26 in free money. I bought one and requested it to be transferred it to my daughter’s existing Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 plan. Limit 1 voucher per customer, beneficiary, account, savings plan, or 529 plan.
(Reminder, you can save a little extra on your LivingSocial deals with cashback shopping portals like eBates ($10 new customer bonus), Mr. Rebates ($5 bonus), and BigCrumbs.)
Additionally, GradSave.com is currently waiving all credit card processing fees on their gift cards as another start-up promotion. So, if you wanted to contribute say $1,000 towards your 529 plan, now you could earn cashback, points, or miles on your credit card for that amount (with no fees) instead of via check or bank account transfer. Also potentially handy towards spending hurdles on $500+ credit card bonuses.
A day later, credit card fees are no longer waived. The fees are rather high as well, even for bank transfers.
529 contributions can be taken out without penalty. If you withdraw any earnings for unqualified expenses, then you will be subject to income taxes as well as a 10% penalty. Still, it may be a lot of paperwork and/or headache unless you keep your records very clean and simple.
Free Credit for Amazon MP3 Downloads
Posted on January 3, 2013 // 27 Comments
Updated. Here’s another $2 in free Amazon MP3 credit up for grabs. Visit this link for the details – you’ll need a Facebook account for this one (real or spam account, you decide).
It should increase your gift card balance for music purchases only. Limit one promotional credit per customer, so my wife and I both jump on these to fill up the iPod. We download the files manually and combine them onto a shared iTunes library. Must be redeemed by 11:59 p.m. PST on January 10, 2013.
Backup Your Music Library For Free Into Google’s Cloud Service
Posted on December 20, 2012 // 5 Comments
Google has just announced on their Google Play page that you can now upload your music library to Google Play, and they will scan them and keep a copy in the cloud for free and let you stream to your devices as needed. This “digital music locker” is currently limited to 20,000 songs and US users. Microsoft and Apple offer similar services, but charge $25 every year. Tech site AllThingsD suggests that the other companies charge money as this effectively “launders” pirated music into officially paid-for music, and Google probably just paid a big flat fee to make this happen for everyone.
Our new music matching feature gets your songs into your online music library on Google Play much faster. We’ll scan your collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud – all for free. And we’ll stream your music back to you at up to 320 kbps.
I simply interpret this as a free way to back up all my music files online and not have to worry about a hard drive crash. I was able to upload all my songs overnight – sucked straight from iTUnes – and I can now see and stream them to my phone or computer (or download them). Pretty neat.
Free ShopRunner Membership
Posted on December 20, 2012 // 10 Comments
It may not work in time for Christmas anymore, but here’s another offer for a free 1-year Shoprunner membership. Enter offer code RUNNER. No credit card required, it is optional, just asks for an e-mail address. Shoprunner is similar to Amazon Prime in that it offers unlimited free 2-day shipping with no minimum order amount from a variety of online merchants. Via staff of FW.
After you get your free year, you can also get another free 90-day extension by going back to the home page and signing up for Shoprunner Central. This service scrapes your Gmail or Yahoo e-mail account to help keep track of receipts. You need to allow them access your personal information, which I was not cool with, so I just used my seldom-used @yahoo.com e-mail.
Free Experian Credit Monitoring from Credit Sesame
Posted on December 17, 2012 // 12 Comments
You may be familiar with Credit Sesame from my popular free credit scores with no trials post, as they offer you a free credit score based on your Experian credit report, updated once a month. They make money by presenting you with credit-related offers like mortgage refinances or auto loans. I’ve been happily getting my updates for years now… I don’t worry about the absolute number as much as the relative change each month to see if anything new has either hurt or boosted my creditworthiness significantly.
Per this press release, Credit Sesame is now offering free daily credit monitoring as well. No tricks, no trials, no credit card required. If you’re already a member, just log in and opt into the new feature. You can also get push alerts via their Android and iPhone apps. Here’s a screenshot with nothing exciting since it’s only been 5 minutes:
As opposed to the free monthly score, monitoring checks your Experian credit report daily and sends you an email alert if any activities have occurred – for example, if there was a credit pull by a lender or a new address added. This can provide early warning of attempted identity theft, reporting errors, or simply am overzealous lender checking your credit without permission. Many providers charge $10-$20 a month for similar monitoring, and while it’s potentially useful I’ve never recommended paying a hundred bucks a year for it. But hey, Credit Sesame already has my info, so I’ll definitely sign up for free.
(Note: You can get also free credit scores and similar monitoring alerts based on your TransUnion credit data at CreditKarma.com.)
From their FAQ, here’s a sample of events on your Experian credit report that may trigger an alert:
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