Money Hackers Network

Money Hacks Carnival #71 at The Canadian Finance Blog

Pinyo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:05:39 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #71 was hosted at The Canadian Finance Blog. In celebration of the Canada Day, Tom gives us a nice tour of Canada along with article submissions. Here are his editor’s picks:

Free From Broke presents AAA Is Good For More Than Automotive Assistance posted at Free From Broke.
Ray @ Financial Highway presents Honeymoon Planning Tips posted at Financial Highway.
Paul Van Lierop presents Manage Your Passwords and Protect Your Identity posted at FiscalGeek.
FMF presents Buy High, Sell Low: The Basic Instinct Driven Error of Investing posted at Free Money Finance.
ABC presents Should I Invest In Dividend Stocks (and what are they?) posted at ABCs of Investing.

Thank you Tom for hosting the carnival and everyone for participating. Next week carnival will be hosted at The Personal Finance Playbook.

Money Hacks Carnival #70 at Blogging Banks

Pinyo — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:13:18 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #70 was hosted at Blogging Banks. The Carnival theme is Banking, which is appropriate for site that is dedicated to identifying the best CD rates, checking and savings accounts. Here are his picks:

If You Could Pick Your Benefits At Work, What Would You Pick? posted at My Two Dollars.
Multiple Ways to Skin Zero Balance Transfer Credit Cards posted at Personal Finance Blog by Money Ning.
Time for Personal Responsibility posted at The Balanced Life.
Save Money on Groceries posted at Lazy Man and Money.
30 Healthy Reasons to Create Passive Income posted at Passive Family Income.
Best Online Brokers posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.
WHAT HAPPENS IN AN IRA STAYS IN THE IRA posted at THE WANDERING TAX PRO.

Thank you Mr. Banks for hosting and everyone for their participation. Next week carnival will be hosted at The Canadian Finance Blog.

Money Hacks Carnival #69 at Own The Dollar

Pinyo — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:47:37 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #69 was hosted at Own The Dollar. The carnival shows some dollar notes from the old days (I wish I own a few of those!). The editor’s picks include:

FMF presents Three Steps to Getting the Most from Your Credit Cards posted at Free Money Finance.
Jim presents Average Net Worth of an American Family posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.
J. Money presents Save More Money by Concentrating on The BIG Stuff. posted at Budgets are Sexy.
nickel presents Planning a Family Vacation Without Breaking the Bank posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Thank you Hank for hosting and everyone for their participation!

Money Hacks Carnival #68 at Financial Highways

Pinyo — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:38:04 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #68 was hosted at Financial Highways. This week carnival was dubbed, Stanley Cup Final Edition. If you like hockey, you’ll enjoy all the little factoids sprinkled through out the carnival.

Here are the editor’s picks:

6 Fun & Free Summer Activities for Children (or Adults?) posted at Budgets are Sexy
ls Recession-Induced Frugality Sustainable? posted at Watson Inc
Essential Money Tips for New Parents posted at Cash Money Life
Personal Finance For Dummies: It’s as Easy as A-B-C posted at Len Penzo
Is Budgeting Keeping You Poor? posted at The Dough Roller

Thank you everyone for your participation, and thank you Ray for hosting the carnival. Next week carnival will be hosted at Own The Dollar.

Use Reward Credit Cards To Your Advantage

Pinyo — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:20:45 +0000

If your are a responsible credit card user, you should take advantage of a good cash reward credit card (or a non-cash reward card if you prefer). For example, Discover More card is currently offering 5% cash back reward on restaurants until the end of June, and in July through September you can sign up for 5% cash back reward on gas, hotels, theme parks, zoos, and bookstores.

Definitely and easy way to get a discount if you are planning to spend money on these things anyway.

Money Hacks Carnival #67 at Man vs. Debt

Pinyo — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:52:04 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #67 was hosted at Man vs. Debt. Baker gave us the The Land Down Under Edition with great photos and information about Australia. This week editor’s picks include:

10 Economic and Business Pro Tips from World of Warcraft at College and Finance.
If You Were Strapped For Cash, How Far Would You Go To Make Money? at Bible Money Matters.
11 Tips to Get Ready for Your Road Trip at My Life ROI.
How to Compare Mortgage Refinance Offers at Bargaineering.
How To Improve Your FICO Credit Score at Moolanomy Personal Finance.

Great job Baker, thank you for your help! And thank you everyone for participating. Next week carnival will be hosted at Financial Highway.

Improve Your Credit Score: Credit Utilization Rate

Pinyo — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:02:32 +0000

Credit utilization rate (or debt to credit ratio) is how much you owe as a percentage of your total credit line. For example, if you credit card’s credit limit is $10,000 and you owe $2,500 — your credit utilization rate is 25%.

A good way to improve your credit score is to pay down your credit card debt. This will improve your credit utilization rate. Since your credit utilization rate accounts for 30% of you credit score, it will slowly rise as a result.

Besides, paying down your debt is great for your finances too!

Get Your Free Credit Score Today

Pinyo — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:11:39 +0000

Your FICO credit score is an important aspect of your finances. There are many ways to get your credit score online — however, most of them have some kind of strings attached. Fortunately, there is a web site call Credit Karma that will let you get your FICO credit score for free*.

* Credit Karma score is based on TransUnion score.

Source: How To Get Your Free FICO Credit Score Online

Money Hacks Carnival #66 at Passive Family Income

Pinyo — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:14:40 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #66 was hosted at Passive Family Income. The carnival was called “The Family Summer Vacation Edition”. The host said this is his first carnival and I have to say that I am impressed by the quality of this week’s carnival. The editor’s picks of the week include:

Identity Theft: Protect Yourself From Being the Next Victim posted at My Life ROI.
More Excuses Used For Not Saving Money posted at Studenomics.
How is your Lending Club Account Doing? posted at My Dollar Plan.
Why I Use an Envelope Budget (and Free e-Book Giveaway) posted at Fiscal Fizzle.
Don’t Automate your Personal Finances and Forget About Them posted at Simplified Financial Lifestyle.

Thank you PFI for hosting the carnival and thank you to all participants. Next week carnival will be at Man vs. Debt.

Biweekly Mortgage Payments Money Saving Tip

Pinyo — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:45:33 +0000

If you decide that paying off your mortgage early is right for you, you may want to consider biweekly mortgage payments. Biweekly mortgage payments let you pay half of your mortgage every two weeks. When you do this, you are effectively making 13 months worth of payments each year, allowing you to pay down your principal balance faster and save you money on interest charge.

The advantages include: (1) you can pay off your 30-year mortgage six to eight years earlier, and (2) the payments coincide nicely with your paycheck schedule. However, if your bank or mortgage servicing company charges you a high fee to do this, you may want to consider another stragtegy. For instance, you might consider prepaying an additional 1/12th of your normal payment toward the principal. For example, if your payment is $1,200 per month, pay 1/12th or $100 more.

The Emergency Fund Rule of Thumb

Pinyo — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:32:02 +0000

Most financial experts advise that you should have 3-6 months worth of living expenses saved for emergencies. This emergency fund is meant to help you avoid financial distress — i.e., liquidating your investments in an untimely manner or going into debt in order to meet emergency needs.

Since preservation of principal and liquidity are the two most important aspects, one of the best places to park your emergency fund is inside a high yield savings account (e.g., online savings bank). You can still find good banks that offer interest rates in the 2% or higher range even in this economy.

A good trick is to adjust your emergency fund according to the economic condition. You can do this by adjusting the number of months equal to the current unemployment rate. For example, the current unemployment rate for the U.S. is 8.6%. Using this trick, you should have at least 8.6 months worth of living expenses in your emergency fund.

Is Your Money Working As Hard As You?

Pinyo — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:45:16 +0000

When was the last time you check the interest rate on your savings or checking account? If you haven’t look in a while, chance are you’re getting sub par interest rate. If you have a sizable amount of money in your savings, you may want to consider moving it to a different back to get the most for your money.

Here’s a good list of online savings (e.g., high yield savings) and their interest rates, and here’s another one for CD rates. Moreover, you can check out some of the alternative ideas at the end of these articles to find even better rates.

Money Hacks Carnival #65 at Stretchy Dollar

Pinyo — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:13:34 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #65 was hosted at Stretchy Dollar. This week’s Carnival is the Otter Pop Edition! Apparently, our host loves those “sweet and simple frugal treats of summer, those long and delicious iced delights, those colorful harbingers of lazy summer days spent running through the sprinklers” — yum…

This week’s editor’s choice include:

If You Want To Feel Rich, Count the Things You Have That Money Can’t Buy posted at MoneyEnergy.
How To Save Money – The 1,001 List Of Money Saving Tips And Ideas posted at Moolanomy Personal Finance.
What Fantasy Baseball Has Taught Me About Finances and Investing posted at Own The Dollar.
Learn How To Invest: Develop An Investment Plan posted at The Smarter Wallet.
Are You Obsessed with Money? posted at Prime Time Money.

Thank you everyone for participating and especially to the host for putting together the carnival. Next week carnival will be hosted at: Passive Family Income.

The Savings and Investing Rule of Thumb

Pinyo — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:35:49 +0000

If you’re not sure how much to save and invest for your retirement, the general rule of thumb is to save 10% of your income. Note that this assumes you have at least 30 years to save and invest the money. In other words, if you start saving late and only have a few years to retirement, you’ll have to save a lot more than 10%. Check out this article to see why time matters when it comes to retirement saving.

The easiest way to save 10% for retirement is to make it automatic — for example, via 401(k) contribution. If you don’t have this option, you can set up a transfer between your main account and your “10% saving” account.

Shop Online With Ebates Money Saving Tip

Pinyo — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:48:58 +0000

Do you shop online a lot? If you do, you have to check out Ebates. Ebates is an online rebate shopping web site that works with over 1,000 online stores. When you visit these online stores via Ebates, you’ll be eligible for automatic rebates and discounts that could be as high as 20% the value of your purchase. Ebates will send you the rebate check once per quarter (if you accumulated more than $5.01 in the account).

Source: How To Save Money – The 1,001 List Of Money Saving Tips And Ideas

Lower Your Insurance Premiums Money Saving Tip

Pinyo — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:32:19 +0000

If you haven’t review your insurance policies for a while, you should set some time to go over them to make sure they still meet your needs.

If you haven’t comparison shop for the best price, take a few minutes to visit NetQuote.com. NetQuote.com will work with you on all types of insurance including: auto, motorcycle, home, renters, health, group health, business, and life.

Just follow the instruction on the web site and enter your information. Once submitted, your information the system will match you up with the best matched agents from various insurance companies. Within a few days, these agents will call you for further detail and quote you their prices. It might seems like a hassle, but I recently did this and saved over $100 a month! Not bad for a few phone calls.

Source: How To Save Money – The 1,001 List Of Money Saving Tips And Ideas

Money Hacks Carnival #64 at My Life ROI

Pinyo — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:29:11 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #64 was hosted at My Life ROI. Apparently, May 13th is the National Apple Pie Day — I never knew that…interesting. Anyway, there were 88 submissions this week and here are the editor’s picks:

Don’t Wait Until You’re 50 To Start Preserving Your Wealth posted at MoneyEnergy
just keep swimming, just keep swimming posted at the ¢entsible life
6 Reasons Why College Students Think You Should Invest posted at Good Financial Cents
Budgeting and strategies for saving posted at Funny about Money
Start Investing Today: An Amazing Comparison of 25 vs 35 Year Old Starters posted at Darwin’s Finance
Credit Cards Don’t Suck, You Suck! posted at Free From Broke

Thank you MLR for hosting the carnival this week, and thank you to all the participants. Next week, the carnival will be hosted at Stretchy Dollar.

Money Hacks Carnival #63 at I Pick Up Pennies

Pinyo — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:57:44 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #63 was hosted at I Pick Up Pennies. This carnival was named the Swine Flu edition with cute photos of little piggies. This week editor’s picks include:

Thank you Abby for hosting the carnival and everyone for participating. Next week carnival will be hosted at My Life ROI.

Money Hacks Carnival #62 at Financial Highway

Pinyo — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:05:56 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #62 was hosted at Financial Highway. Looks like the host is e NHL and NBA fan because we have a Playoff Edition this week. Articles that made the playoff this week includes:

Thank you everyone for your participation, especially to the host who took the time to review and publish our articles. Next week carnival will be hosted at I Pick Up Pennies.

Money Hacks Carnival #61 at The Personal Finance Playbook

Pinyo — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:41:49 +0000

Money Hacks Carnival #61 was hosted at The Personal Finance Playbook. This edition is dedicated to Earth Day. Here are some of the top picks from the carnival:

How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft and E-mail Scams posted at fivecentnickel.com.
Best Small Companies Fair Value Estimates posted at Old School Value.
Advantages Of Renting and Borrowing Over Buying posted at Frugal Dad.
9 Ways To Save On Baby Costs posted at Free From Broke.
25 Debt Reduction Tips For Your Immediate Action Plan posted at Money Ning.

Thank you Todd for hosting the carnival and thank you everyone for participating. Next week carnival will be hosted at Financial Highway.