I just received an email today from eBay informing me they will no longer accept American Express cards as a payment method as of August 17. It’s okay because
Year: 2024
The Wednesday Morning Weekly.
This is my first post of dozens on how we save money, sharing various frugality tips I’ve learned over the years. The frugality hacks add up to thousands upon thousands of dollars saved each year when implementing them all.
I’ll never share any uncomfortable, unsafe or unreasonable hacks. For example, a comfortable air conditioned home is very important to us and I will simply work an extra bank account bonus in a given year to recoup the $200 per year we would of otherwise saved by making the home uncomfortable year round by keeping the temperatures very high in the summer and low in the winter. Not only is this frugality idea uncomfortable, it is also dangerous as well since I am older and heat intolerant with some medical conditions. It’s easy to just spend two extra hours per year to work the single extra bank account needed for year round comfort and safety. Again I try and be reasonable here and not too obsessed with saving every penny.
The Wednesday Morning Weekly.
Until now, when transferring money from another bank to Fidelity, I typically logged into the Fidelity portal and initiated an ACH Pull. This always resulted in a 7 to 10 day hold on the cash before I could transfer it out again.
I just learned about this today — the news is a couple months old. This is amazing, you click the three dots and a menu pops up with an option to view the transcript. This way you can later search the podcast if you forget where something is. The following is a link to the March 2024 news article:
Note: In addition to details about this bank account in this article, I also share a lot of organizational details how I manage bank account bonus hunting.
I very recently applied for a U.S. Bank Smartly Checking personal checking account for a $500 sign up bonus. I was approved with no problems.
Previously the only core position available for Fidelity Cash Management accounts was the FDIC Insured Deposit Sweep — currently at around 2.72% APY at this time of writing. Now you can change your Core Position to SPAXX — currently at around 4.95% APY at this time of writing.
Well I just logged into the Chase portal and found out the Chase Freedom 2024 Q3 rotating categories will be Gas Stations & EV Charging, Select Live Entertainment & Movie Theaters. A couple weeks back we found out that the Discover It 2024 Q3 categories will be Grocery Stores & Walmart. So now knowing all this, it allowed me to formulate my 5%+ Custom Cashback Strategy for next quarter, which is as follows:
I just read on DoC that Chase Ink Referrals will drop from 40k Ultimate Rewards Points ($400) down to 20k ($200). This will happen in September. There will still be the same yearly 200k limit, but you just refer ten people instead of five.
I just read from DoC that the minimum Amazon gift card reloads have increased from $1 to $5. Less than one year ago the minimum was only 50 cents. This is annoying.
I was just approved recently for the Citi Strata Premier with a credit limit well over $7000.
I was concerned that I wouldn’t get the card as the Citi Premier card has been notoriously hard to acquire even with those with superb credit histories. But I took a chance since I figured they might be more lenient with the applications since this is a brand new product