Country Time Bailout: Kid’s Lemonade Stand $100 Stimulus Check

The summer lemonade stand remains the iconic entrepreneurial opportunity for kids. Well, maybe not this summer. Country Time Lemonade is starting the Littlest Bailout Relief Fund, which is a $100,000 fund to send $100 stimulus checks to 1,000 … [Read the rest]

Pizza Hut Camp Book It! Kids Summer Reading Program

Some of you may remember the Pizza Hut "Book It!" program during your elementary school years that encouraged reading using free pizza as a reward. Well, it still exists in the form of Camp Book It!: Parents, join us for our first ever Camp BOOK … [Read the rest]

Protecting Your Portfolio From Hyperinflation, Deflation, Confiscation, and Devastation

The third book in the "Investing for Adults" series by William Bernstein is Deep Risk: How History Informs Portfolio Design. As before, I'm just trying to pull out a few practical takeaways rather than summarize the entire book. In Book 1: The … [Read the rest]

Free Social Security Tool for Optimal Benefit Claiming Strategy

Update: The free Open Social Security tool has been updated to include a new "heat map" visualization that illustrates the relative values of claiming Social Security at different ages. Details here. Here is a sample graph for a couple with … [Read the rest]

3 Months of SiriusXM Streaming + Echo Dot For $1

Here is a SiriusXM promotion link where you can sign up for a free 3-month trial of either their Essential or Premium streaming tiers (includes Howard Stern) and also get an Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) smart speaker for only $1. After signing up, … [Read the rest]

Bask Bank Review: Earn American Airlines Miles As Interest (5,000 Mile Referral Bonus)

Updated with my own experience and new referral bonus. Bask Bank is a FDIC-insured savings account that pays you American Airlines (AA) miles instead of cash interest. Every $1 earns 1 mile a year. For example, $1,000 kept for a year would earn … [Read the rest]

Best Interest Rates on Cash – July 2020

The Fed rate is still at zero, which has bought us back to the time when anything above 2% APY is newsworthy (and there ain't much news). The only reason to pay attention is that being willing to switch bank accounts can still beat out Treasury … [Read the rest]

The Money Hamster Wheel, Part 2: Multiple Solutions, Not Just More Money

In Part 1: Identifying the Problem, I shared Lawrence Yeo's unique take on money and the hamster wheel metaphor, where we just keep spinning and can't get off. Since then, I have thought more about how best to slow things down by instead attacking … [Read the rest]

The Money Hamster Wheel, Part 1: Identifying The Problem

I started looking into financial independence because I simply couldn't imagine doing what I was doing every weekday at that time for another 30 or 40 years. Some people know exactly what they want to spend their life doing, and it also pays the … [Read the rest]

AmEx Shop Small Offer: $5 off $10+ At Small Businesses (Up to $50 Savings Total)

If you have any American Express credit cards, check your "Amex Offers" in either your online account or smartphone app. Most people are seeing the offer "Spend $10+, get $5 back, up to 10 times when you Shop Small by 9/20/20". Get a $5 … [Read the rest]

Economics of Shared Living: How Much Money Do You Save With Roommates?

For most households, the biggest expense is housing. A time-tested way to reduce your housing costs is to share a place with others, but usually we think of a bigger house as the result of a bigger nuclear family. However, even young professional … [Read the rest]

Amazon: $20 Promo Credit after $50+ Purchase Using American Express

Here is a new Amazon/AmEx promotion that promises "$20 off at Amazon after you make a single purchase of $50 or more using your American Express card". However, the promotion has a lot of fine print to note: You must purchase products "sold … [Read the rest]