Money Rules by Jean Chatzky

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a rulebook you could check for every money decision you were struggling with?

Well Jean Chatzky wants to help you with that. She recently came out with a new book called “Money Rules” that’s different than your average personal finance book. 

It’s a collection of the money rules she follows and has spent the last 20 years developing on the personal finance beat.  There are 94 rules organized into sections: Make Money, Save Money, Avoid (Most) Debt, Spend Wisely, Invest for Tomorrow, Cover Your Assets, Do’s and Don’ts.

The Money Rules

The rules are short, each just a sentence or two.  She follows most of the rules with a paragraph or two that goes into more detail.  None of the rules and the accompanying description are more than a page long. I like how she kept each one short and concise, this actually allowed her to do something a little different with the layout of the book.

The actual dimensions of the book are pretty small. I was able to slip the whole thing into the pocket of my shorts when I took my kids to the park and browse the rules as they were running around the playground.

I like the idea that not only are the rules short and easy to remember, but you can also take the book along with you and refer to it when you need it.

The rules Jean lists out are good ones to follow. Some are common sense and seem rather obvious. Other are kind of neat, that you might not think of off the top of your head, and so they’re kind of neat little useful nuggets.

There are a few that I might change a little bit and there are some that I agree with 110%. Here’s a list of my 25 favorite rules:

• Know your worth on the open market.
• More money won’t always make you “more happy”.
• There’s no such thing as chump change.
• Financial plans don’t fail, people fail.
• Aim for progress, not perfection.
• Saving is more important than investing.
• Doing nothing can be very expensive.
• Just because someone will lend you money doesn’t mean you should borrow it.
• Just because you have a coupon doesn’t mean you should go shopping.
• Don’t shop angry / Don’t shop sad / Don’t shop hungry
• The salesperson is not your friend.
• In any transaction, ask “what’s in it for them”?
• Bottom line is only line that matters. (don’t ignore investment fees)
• Nobody cares about your money as much as you do.
• If you can’t figure out what an investment (or advisor) is costing you you’re overpaying.
• If there’s a bandwagon you’re too late.
• Date your stocks, don’t marry them.
• The market doesn’t make mistakes, people do.
• Hope is not an investment strategy.
• The harder the sell, the faster you should run.
• Quit Smoking / Lose Weight
• Spend more time building a legacy than an inheritance.
• Don’t lend money to friends and relatives.

Easy to Read

This book is a short read because it’s pretty small. It’s one of those books that you can actually read a little bit at a time, each page is a lesson in itself. You can stuff it in your pocket or purse, and just pull it out when you are standing in line or sitting in the waiting room.

If you sit down and read it all at once you can get through it pretty quickly. One cool way to do it would be to read a rule a day.  So over a 94-day period you could absorb one rule each day – you could read the rule multiple times to have it stick with you.

Summary

I really like Jean’s approach to this book – it kind of reminds me of the book “Eat This, Not That” that helps you decide what you should or shouldn’t eat when you’re out at a restaurant. Money Rules does something similar for your money. If you’re out shopping you can quick flip to the spending section if you’re debating something and read the rules to help decide whether you should buy it or not.

Being able to take a complicated and lengthy subject and simplify them into small concise explanations and rules is a talent. I think what Jean has done, taking her years of experience in the personal finance world and consolidating it into this valuable set of rules, is a very useful thing for readers and I would recommend that you check out the book.

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Why You Hate Doing Your Taxes

As part of my TurboTax giveaway I asked you to comment on what part of doing your taxes was the most confusing or frustrating.

I was expecting to hear a lot of similar frustrations but you actually had a wide range of things that bugged you about doing your tax return. It does make sense, everyone’s personal finance situation is different so I can see why there’s such a range of frustrations.

Here’s the list of things that people struggle with when filing their tax returns:

• Investing & deductions
• Worry about missing tax deductions
• Kiddie Tax
• Itemizing for the first time
• Handling income from a side business
• Paying international taxes
• Missing out on tax credits
• Claiming income without a W-2
• Filing taxes for a married couple
• Staying organized
• Hiring a tax preparer

Thanks to everyone that participated, congrats to the winners Joe and Dawn! This is Dawn’s second year in a row winning the TurboTax giveaway so odds of winning are pretty good if you participate. Keep that in mind next giveaway!

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How to Setup Your Dream IRA in Under 10 Minutes a Day

Why would it take more than one day to setup an IRA? Shouldn’t it just take 20 minutes to open an IRA online?

It sounds pretty simple to just start an IRA but when you look at the number of eligible people who don’t have an Individual Retirement Account it makes you wonder – what’s holding them back?

IRA Questions

I’ve been asking this question a lot lately, not just about retirement accounts but about commonly procrastinated financial decisions in general.  Here’s some of what I’ve found, tell me if you’ve ever felt this way.

You have a lot of questions around a specific topic, such as retirement investing. You block off some time for research but don’t get all your questions answered and your busy life moves you onto something else.

In the back of your mind you know you should open a retirement account and you feel guilty not having one, but you don’t feel informed enough to be comfortable making that decision.

Here are some of the questions you might be asking about opening an IRA:

• Should I invest my money at all?
• Should it be a Roth IRA or Traditional IRA?
• Where should I open my IRA?
• How much money should I put into my IRA?
• Should I automatically deposit money, if so, how much?
• Which investments should I put my money into?
• What % of allocation should I put my money in?
• Who should I ask for help with my IRA?

Trying to get all these things figured out at once can be overwhelming. Not having answers to these questions makes you nervous and can keep you from starting your retirement savings. 

Retirement Planning On Your Schedule

Rather than trying to tackle all your uncertainties about your IRA at once, it makes sense to me to take them one at a time.  Instead of pressuring yourself to get all your questions answered right away, spend a small block of time every day or every few days and work on your questions one at a time.

Suddenly you lose the expectation of getting it all figured out right away.  You’re less likely to rush into a premature decision in order to get it taken care of.  You also don’t feel frustrated and behind after the first day when you only have the first task completed.

I call it your “Dream IRA” because going at your own pace allows you time to craft your retirement account according to your needs.

Under 10 Minutes a Day

Over the next two weeks I’ll walk you through the steps of getting your IRA Questions answered, so this is just the first of a series of posts on how to create your Dream IRA in Under 10 Minutes a day.

Rather than dump it all into one big post and overwhelm you with IRA facts and tasks, I’m going to break it out into a step at a time.  This follows the approach of working on it a little bit at a time but will still get your retirement setup before the IRA deadline.

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Social Media Savings You Can Take to the Bank

If you ever feel like you’re just wasting time on social media sites, here’s some good news, it could end up saving you money.

Thanks to programs like American Express Sync and Klout Perks now some of the time you’ve spent online might start to pay off with savings in the real world.

I’ve been taking advantage of some of this social currency for a while and thought I’d share some examples with you. The savings through Klout Perks require you to have an established social network but the ones from American Express can work for card members who have a brand new profile on Twitter or Facebook so I’ll start there.

American Express Social Deals

Last year American Express started rolling out couponless offers from merchants that you can load onto your card from social media sites like Facebook and Foursquare.  I didn’t take advantage of them but just a few weeks ago they added Twitter so I went ahead and registered my Blue Cash card to try it out.

Whether you’re using Facebook or Twitter, the process of syncing your card with your social media account is similar. You register your card on a page on the American Express site with your name, email address, and credit card number.  You can sign the same card up for deals on both Facebook and Twitter. As I’ll show you in a second, there are deals on Facebook that I haven’t seen on Twitter so it may be worth signing up for both. 

Facebook Offers

The Facebook deals come through a Facebook app called “Link Like Love”. The list of offers you see on Facebook are supposed to be based on your likes and interests on the site. 

Here’s an example of one I found and signed up for, “Get $5 Back When You Spend $5 Or More”.  I’ve written about Redbox online movie rental before and probably shared it on Facebook so it makes sense why the offer would show up.  It’s hard to argue with an offer that gives you $5 back when you spend $5. 

Now that the deal has been added to my card, the way it’s supposed to work is that I get the statement credit a few days after I spend the money.  That’s how all of the American Express couponless offers through social media are setup to work – you start by opting in to a deal.  It’s added to your card and if you meet the criteria before the deal expires then your savings show up as a credit on your statement.

Twitter Offers

The offers on Twitter are available via the favorites on the American Express Twitter page.  They seem to be more universal than Facebook, looks like the same ones show up for everybody.

Instead of adding them from the list like you do on Facebook, the Twitter offers each have their own unique hashtag that you have to include in order to register for the deal. 

For example, I signed up for an offer “Get $5 back on next $5 in store purchase at McDonalds” by tweeting and including the hashtag #AmexMcDonalds .  Here’s the response I got back to confirm that I was registered for the offer.

I don’t typically eat at McDonalds but will probably end up in one at some point during my upcoming travels.  I didn’t see any harm in adding an offer to my card that I potentially  might not use. It doesn’t cost anything and if I don’t use the offer then it simply expires.

Security and Privacy

Of course, anytime you have to enter your credit card number online one of the first things you think about is security. If you’re an American Express card member and decide to try out these offers, I’d go directly to the americanexpress.com website and sign up.

You’ll probably be getting emails inviting you to sync your card with Facebook or Twitter but I would be careful about clicking on a link in an email and entering your credit card number on the webpage you land on. It seems to me there’s a potential for someone stealing your credit card number via a fake email through a phishing scam. So just to be safe, sign up directly on the AmEx site and not through any email in your inbox.

I was curious about how much information American Express was giving the social networks and merchants, on the signup screen there was a note that said “Your account information will remain private and will not be shared with Twitter” but I wanted more so I dug through their terms and conditions and found this:

Sounds reasonable to me, they don’t pass my personal info onto the social networks which is what I was looking to confirm.

Klout Perks

The next category of social currency is based on how much and what type of influence you have online. A company named Klout came up with a way to calculate how influential you are.

They call the result of the calculation your Klout score and it “measures influence based on your ability to drive action”. The Klout Score uses data from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to measure how many people you influence, how much you influence them, and the influence of your network.

So why would you care about your Klout score? They’ve also introduced a feature called Klout Perks that offer a variety of promotions if your Klout score is high enough.  The criteria are different for each offer, sometimes it will also be restricted by your location and the topics you’re influential about.  As you can see from some of the people in my network Klout tracks which topics you have the most influence on.

Offers are sometimes restricted by your area of expertise but not always.  It’s kind of hit or miss.  There have been some perks I’ve been ineligible for that I wanted to take part in.  There have also been perks I qualified for that I wasn’t interested in.  Mostly, I’ve been interested in offers that saved me money – and most of those weren’t related to my main topics of personal finance, money, and finance.

Klout Offers

The very first offer I took part in was a really cool set of free business cards from Moo cards.  I was going to the Financial Blogger Conference last Fall and needed business cards but didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on them.  That’s something else I should point out about social currency and deals, I only take advantage of them when it’s something I would be spending money on regardless of the offer.

 

Another good example is the Klout perk I took advantage of from ScoreBig (the Priceline of event tickets). We were going to a baseball game with a group right when the perk showed up.  As you can see from the Tweet above, they gave me a $25 credit to use towards the tickets and helped me buy them for half face value.

Social Currency Evolution

Over the last year companies like American Express and Klout have rolled out tools that let the average person save some money using their social media profiles.  There were certainly ways to do it before but not using methods so simple you could explain them to your grandma.

You’re certainly not going to get rich off of social currency but it’s definitely possible to save some money.  The examples I shared here are just the ones I’m familiar with and have used myself.  I’m sure there are other ways to save or make money using social media, please share them below.

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7 Tips for Cutting Cable Costs

Thanks to Andrea Woroch for sharing some tips on cutting cable costs in this guest post.

When I was a kid, cable television was a luxury. It was a rare treat only found at hotels and friends’ houses. My parents didn’t want to take on the extra expense and they worried all of the extra channels would turn my brain to mush.

Though it seemed like a grave injustice at the time, I now understand where mom and dad were coming from. When the monthly cable bill shows up I have to seriously question how much HBO means to me. If you feel like you’re spending way too much to watch your favorite shows, try a few of these tips for cutting the cost of cable.

1. Cancel Quickly
Cable companies use special promotions like free trials of movie channels to lure you in. Their hope is you’ll forget it’s only a preview and they covertly start charging you full price when the promotion is over. Your provider isn’t required to send out a notice when the trial is nearing its end, so the responsibility for cancelling on time falls on you. Otherwise you’ll find an unpleasant, expensive surprise in the mail the following month. Set a reminder on your phone or jot the promotion’s end date in a calendar.

2. Don’t Forget the Box
Surprisingly, the cable box is a prime culprit when it comes to running up your electricity bill. This article from The Consumerist notes that your cable box can use more electricity than your refrigerator or air conditioner. Instead of leaving it idle while you’re at work, power the whole thing down. Otherwise, use a lamp timer to program your cable box to turn on when you generally return from work and power down around bed time. This won’t do anything for your cable bill, but this will cut $40 a year per box off your electricity bill.

3. Switch to Streaming
There are lots of options for watching shows and movies online. Devices like Apple TV or Roku allow you to stream movies from the Internet directly to your TV. While streaming service from Netflix only runs $7.99 per month, the shows you want to watch aren’t always available. If you find yourself in this predicament, you can always order digital versions with a discount Amazon gift card from sites like GiftCardGranny.com to reduce costs further.

4. Eliminate HD
Getting high-definition channels can come with an extra charge as well as an extra equipment rental. If you casually watch a couple hours of TV each week, consider sticking with the standard definition package. Your friends might not want to watch March Madness at your place, but they’re not chipping in on the bill anyway. If you don’t even own an HDTV, check your bill closely to make sure you’re not paying for channels you can’t watch.

5. Ask for a Better Rate
There’s nothing to lose from calling up your cable company and asking for a better rate. They’re not going to start charging you more, and with a little hassle they’ll usually put you on one of their current promotions supposedly reserved for new customers. For a few negotiation tips, see this prime example of cable-bill haggling done right from Get Rich Slowly.

6. Swap Service
Sometimes a relationship has run its course and there’s nothing left to do to save it. When your cable provider is unwilling to budge on better price, it’s time for a break-up. Switching service is a hassle, but worth the savings in the long run. If you’re fed up with your current cable company, BillShrink.com has a helpful comparison tool that lets you view standard rates from top providers in your area.

7. Back to Broadcast
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and the same can be said for TV today. Though there are still broadcast channels that don’t require a paid subscription, they do require a digital converter box or HD antenna. Picking these accessories up is a one-time expense of around $30, but provides unlimited access to major networks like NBC and FOX. Shop online at sites like Amazon.com to find the cheapest options and read product reviews to ensure quality.

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5 Expensive Decisions That Can Haunt You for Life

Some of your decisions about money are forgotten weeks or even days after you’ve made them.  Other decisions will stick with you for far longer and will impact your finances for years to come.

Here’s a list of 5 things you should give some serious thought to before taking the plunge.  As you read through them you’ll notice that they’re really “life decisions” but each has a big financial impact that you should keep in mind.  Not that the money aspect will stop you from doing any of them, but it might change the timing or direction of your decision.

When I say haunt, I don’t necessarily mean the “disturb or distress” definition, more the “remain persistently; loiter; linger” meaning. However, if you don’t think them through, some of them could become your own personal money-sucking ghosts.

1) Having kids. We just had our third. The event of having a baby is expensive, but nowhere near as the cummulative cost of paying to raise them from screaming infant to (hopefully) responsible and self-sufficient adult.  In my opinion it’s totally worth the money to have a family but you don’t really know what you’re in for until it’s “too late”.  Kids are amazing but a lot of work and expensive.

2) Buying a home.  Taking out a loan to buy a home will probably be the largest amount of money you’ll borrow at once in your life.  Committing to payments for the next 30-40 years will certainly change your life, particularly if the amount you borrow pushes the limit of what you can afford.  Of course, now that interest rates are so low, it’s more realistic to take out a 15 year loan.  Your payments will be higher but the total amount of interest you’ll pay will be significantly lower. Regardless if it’s a 15 or 30 year mortgage, the amount you’re borrowing can make it a life altering decision.

3) Paying for a college degree with student loans. There are actually two decisions rolled into this one, choosing a degree and going into debt to pay for it. You may be working in the field that you earn your degree in for a long time, whether you end up liking it or not.  So choose carefully (research, job shadowing, internships).  Every job sucks at least a little, just find out where the soft spots are and if your personality and plan for the future can handle them.

Going into debt to earn a degree only complicates things.  After you’ve invested years of your life and many thousands of dollars into a degree, it’s hard to walk away and do something different if you end up hating it.  Even if you like your job, you might spend 10 years paying back your student loans.

4) Getting married. It’s true there are financial benefits to getting married, such as consolidating expenses like rent or a mortgage.  However, you’re also giving up the control of your finances that you’re used to.

If the person you marry has much different spending habits than you, it could feel like a very “expensive” decision. If your spouse spends money on something you think is unneccessary or a total waste of money then it seems REALLY expensive.  How the #@!!% could a curling iron cost over $100?  Or, why on earth do you need to spend $499 on this new iGadget?

Talk seriously about money before you get married. Don’t assume that things will automatically change after you tie the knot, the reality is both of you will probably have to make some changes so be prepared to deal with it.

5) Getting divorced. Lawyers are not cheap, so the costs of getting divorced probably won’t be cheap.  You can also lose money splitting up your shared propery. My co-worker bought his house from a couple who was getting divorced and splitting the equity in the house. Problem was, they were selling in an awful real estate market and lost $40K in equity.  Good for my friend but bad for the unhappy couple.

If you have kids, having two sets of parents adds another dimension to the cost of raising them. Even if you don’t have kids, all the cost consolidation you benefited from in marriage goes right out the window.

Extra Credit Decision – Breaking the Law
So far, everything I’ve talked about are big life decisions but there’s another type of decision that can haunt you for years – deciding to break the law.  Things like tax evasion or drinking & driving could end up with you owing a lot of money and/or spending time in jail.

Like I said, we make tons of decisions everyday that don’t have long-term consequences, but there are some that deserve careful consideration. No pressure : )

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TurboTax “Under the Hood” Giveaway

TurboTax hides a lot of details “under the hood” about tax forms that many of us don’t care to know about.

If you’ve used TurboTax to file your taxes for a number of years you might remember that the desktop version of the software had two different modes you could choose between Step-by-Step or Forms mode (you can’t do this in TurboTax online).

Step by Step vs Tax Form Mode

Step-by-Step mode was the interview approach that asked you a series of questions about your finances and then filled out the actual form for you based on your answers.

If you wanted to you could switch over to Forms mode that showed you the tax forms that TurboTax was filling out on your behalf and you could manually edit those forms.

For many people, peeking under the hood at your tax forms probably did you as much good as peeking under the hood of my car does for me.  Sadly, I don’t know much about cars. I don’t know everthing that goes into designing and building a car, I don’t even know how to work on a car. All I know is that when I turn the key, I want it to start so I can drive where I need to go.

If you don’t know much about filing your tax return then TurboTax can do something similar for your state and federal tax returns.

Tax Planning & Maintenance

Just because you use tax software like TurboTax doesn’t mean you can’t do tax planning and necessary maintenance throughout the year.  Keeping with my car example, even though I don’t know how to work on the car myself, I do know that I need to take it in for an oil change every 3,000 miles.  I’ve also learned to plan my trips so I put less milage on the car and how to drive our Honda so it lasts longer.

Same with your taxes, even though you use software to prepare them, you should still learn about the available tax credits and tax deductions.  That way next year when you’re answering questions in the tax prep software, you can answer yes to the questions that will bring you more tax breaks and save you money.

You may also have to do regular maintenance like making quarterly payments based on your withholdings and how much you owed in taxes the previous year.

TurboTax Kit Giveaway

Now onto the giveaway. Intuit has given me two TurboTax coupon codes, one for the TurboTax Deluxe version and one for the Premier version. I really liked the idea of a “tax kit” from my H&R Block at Home giveaway a few weeks ago so I’m going to throw in an Amazon gift card to make this a tax kit as well.

The gift card will cover the cost of the book “Taxes Made Simple” by Mike Piper and a Smead Tax Organizer – so you can get an overview of income tax and a tool to organize your tax reciepts (order them together and shipping is free).

So, I’m giving away two tax kits that include:

• TurboTax free federal + state preparation and e-file

• Amazon Gift card for “Taxes Made Simple” and a Smead tax organizer

One kit will have a TurboTax promo code for Turbo Tax Deluxe, the other kit will have a promo code for the Premier version.

In my last tax return giveaway the most popular tax tip was to pick a single place to keep your tax reciepts and file them away as they come in throughout the year so I think this organizer could come in handy.

Enter the Giveaway

To enter this giveaway share what part of doing your taxes is the most confusing or frustrating to you.  Maybe it’s already handled “under the hood” by tax prep software or maybe it’s something you’d like to see handled in the future.

Either way, leave a comment below about what frustrates or confuses you when filing your taxes. You can get an extra entry by entering your email address below to subscribe to my newsletter:

This tax kit giveaway will end on March 12, 2012, when two winners will be randomly selected.  The winners will be notified via email and I’ll send you the information about using your TurboTax promo code and the Amazon gift card. Good luck!

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File Taxes Online with TurboTax

TurboTax is one of the most popular tax preparation programs these days. One of the best features of the tax software is it’s easy-to-use interface and the way it walks you through filling out your tax forms.

If you haven’t used TurboTax before, it starts by asking questions about your situation and helping you begin filling in your forms and pinpointing hundreds of deductions and credits. TurboTax used to be software you had to install on your computer but now with TurboTax online you can do it all over the web, and file your taxes using e-File. If you have used TurboTax in the past, your information from last year can be transferred easily to the forms for the current year.

New Features for TurboTax 2011

You can read our TurboTax review for more information on how the process works and some pros/cons. The software has added some new features for 2011, providing more help to those preparing their tax returns, that we’ll talk about here.

Tax Prep Help
You’ve probably seen it on a recent TV commercial but TurboTax is offering free one-on-one help to those preparing their taxes. As you prepare your taxes online, you can connect to a tax expert by clicking on the “Get Expert Help” button. You are then connected, free of charge, to someone who can answer your questions. You can be connected via live chat or over the phone. The hours for this service are seven days a week, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific.

Audit Support
Another new addition for tax year 2011 is Audit Support. If you are audited by the IRS, the experts at TurboTax’s center can help you figure out why you were audited, and answer your questions about being audited. This service is available year-round. You can visit TurboTax’s Audit Support Center, and see your risk of audit with the help of the Audit Risk Meter. If you want a defense in an audit, there is a for-fee service that will help you represent yourself to the IRS.

TurboTax has also updated its various applications related to SnapTax. SnapTax allows you to prepare and file your taxes from your iPhone, iPad or Android phone. Realize, though, that more complicated tax returns are not going to be practical for SnapTax. This application is mostly for those with simple tax returns.

TurboTax Products

There are different versions of TurboTax products that you can use to prepare your taxes. The Basic version is the cheapest, and provides you with the ability to quickly complete your taxes. However, as your taxes become more complex, it is worth it to consider more advanced options. The Deluxe version adds helpful tools that can provide you with information on donation values, and alerts you to possible audit red flags.

TurboTax Premier is designed for those who invest, and who have rental property. This version is specifically designed to help you calculate gains and losses, to help you with rental property deductions. You can use the Home & Business version to help you boost your deductions, and even calculate depreciation. There is also a Business version of TurboTax designed  for those with a corporation, partnership or multiple-owner LLC.

Lastly there is a Free Edition for those with a really simple tax return, one of the ways that you can get a free eFile.

Comparing TurboTax Versions

If you’re trying to decide between two versions, like TurboTax Deluxe vs TurboTax Premier, you might want to go with the cheaper version because it’s pretty easy to upgrade into a higher version if you find you need features you don’t have access to. In the past, when you had to download and install TurboTax software on your desktop it was harder to upgrade, but now with Turbo Tax online it’s easier to upgrade.

If you’d like to try the tax software out but you’re not sure if you want to pay for it, you have some options. They don’t offer an official TurboTax free trial but that’s because you don’t actually pay anything until you go to file. So you can start your tax return online and see how you like it. If you decide it’s worth the money you can finish your return and pay when you file. There are also various ways to find TurboTax discounts that you can check out.

With the latest addition of free help for TurboTax customers filling out their tax forms, even those with more complex taxes can do it themselves. If you’re not sure if it’s a good fit, check out this post on using tax software vs filing a manual tax return. When you get stuck, it’s possible to connect with a knowledgeable expert who can help you through. Then, when your tax forms are complete, you can submit your return online.

For more information on the choosing the right version of TurboTax for you, click here.

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Angies List Costco Discounts

Usually when I write about Angies List it’s to talk about the latest home project we’ve used the service to find contractors for but there’s another benefit of Angies List that doesn’t come up that often. 

Angies List Discounts

I touched on it before when I wrote about the discount movie tickets we found on Angies List, it’s what they call their “Member Benefits”.  Basically the service has enough members that they’re able to offer special group discounts for a variety of travel, shopping, dining, and entertainment merchants.

This is different than their Big Deal service (which is basically weekly deals on local contractor services), the Member Benefits are standing discounts for signing up for or using one of the merchants in the program.

So far the only discount we’ve actually taken advantage of are the movie tickets but yesterday I got an email that caught my attention about deals for 2 other services that we already use – Costco and ScoreBig.

Costco Promotion

We’ve belonged to Costco for several years now and I’ve written about a variety of Costco membership discounts you can use so I had to investigate when I saw Angies List members could get $50 worth of Costco coupons.

Unfortunately I don’t qualify because it’s for new Costco members only, which is too bad because we would definitely take advantage of it.

Promotion Details

The way it works is you get a special link to Costo once you’re logged into the Angies List website.  You’re taken to a page where you fill out your new member application online.  When you go into the store and become a member you’re given Costco coupons for $50 worth of free merchandise – right now the offer includes free coffee, bottled water, and rotisserie chicken.

Obviously it would be better if you got free Costo membership or even a discounted rate but the coupons are still a good deal.  We already buy all three of those things from Costco (a lot more coffee recently now that we have a newborn) so it would definitely save us money.

On a side note, I did find a promotion for existing Costo customers while poking around that’s not related to Angies List.  If you’re a Costo member and you open a True Earnings card or auto charge your membership to any AmEx card you get two months of membership for free.

ScoreBig Promotion

The second promotion that caught my eye was for a service called ScoreBig, where you can find good deals on tickets for performances or sporting events.

Unfortunately I’m also ineligible for this promotion since it’s only for new members and I signed up for ScoreBig last summer through a Klout promotion.

ScoreBig Rocks!

ScoreBig is basically like Priceline for event tickets, like concerts and sporting events.  It’s actually a great service for two reasons.

The first cool thing is that you can buy tickets for less than face value.  For example, last summer we went to a Major League Baseball game and I offered 50% of the face value for decent seats through ScoreBig and got them at that price.

The second thing that made me smile was that you don’t have to use Ticketmaster to buy your tickets.  We all know how many fees that Ticketmaster piles on when you buy through them, ScoreBig doesn’t charge any of those fees. 

Promotion Details

The way the ScoreBig promotion works for Angies List members is that you get a special link to the ScoreBig site from the “Member Benefits” section of the Angies List site.  You’re also given an Angies List only promo code that you enter when signing up for ScoreBig, that gives you $25 towards your first purchase of tickets.

Like I said, I had a similar promotion through Klout last summer, the combination of discounted tickets and the $25 credit meant I got my tickets almost free!

Angies List Membership

The main reason we use Angies List is to help us find quality contractors for house projects so these “Member Benefits” are just an added bonus.  It seems like they’re adding more of these discounts, which is cool, gives us more value for our money.

If you’d like to try it out but aren’t sure, you can always check out the latest Angies List promotions to get a discount on membership.

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Sell a Car on Craigslist Without Losing Sleep

If you’re wondering whether it’s worth the trouble to sell a car on Craigslist, last month we sold our car on Craigslist for $3000 more than the dealer offered us on a trade-in. 

I’d never put up a car for sale by owner and didn’t really know much about the detail of how to sell a car on our own. I was pretty apprehensive about the whole process and wouldn’t have gone through with it if the dealer’s offer hadn’t been so ridiculously low.

The whole thing went pretty smoothly so I thought I’d share my experience selling a used car and what worked for us. 

The first question was actually, where to sell the car?  I knew sites like eBay Motors, AutoTrader, and CarSoup would help us sell a car online for a fee or a cut of the sale price.  However, I’d spent enough money buying a new car that I wanted to get the most out of our used car as possible.

I had a co-worker who sold his car on Craigslist and was pretty optimistic that we’d be able to sell ours for a reasonable price so I decided to give it a try.

Listing on Craigslist

The whole process started with listing our car on Craigslist – this is the step that that took up the majority of the time.  I started out with research – filling out the car appraisal on Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds.com to see what our car was really worth.  I used both to see how much the appraisal varied and it came out pretty close so using just one of them would probably be fine.

Then I looked up what similar cars in our area were selling for and also found examples of ads that caught my attention and seemed to present the car well.  Finally I created our Craiglist posting, the whole process of research and ad creation probably took about 2.5 hours.

Craigslist Help

My buddy at work who sells a lot of things on Craiglist told me to put a lot of information in your listing so you’re not bombarded with questions about your car.  Unfortunately I took this to the extreme and put all the specs for our CR-V from the Honda site into our Craigslist listing.

About fifteen minutes after I listed the car for sale I got a notification that my listing was flagged as spam. 

I didn’t know where to turn for help until I discovered that you can register for the Craigslist forum and ask other users for help. After asking around the forum I discovered it was probably flagged as spam because I’d basically dumped all the car specs into the listing. 

Based on the feedback from the forum I consolidated it to the most important fifteen bullets points about the car and re-listed it.

Some of the other listing best practices to follow are:

• Include pictures
• Include the reason you’re selling the car
• List a contact phone number

Filtering Craigslist Spam

One of the things I was apprehensive about was putting my phone number on Craigslist and getting bombarded by the crazies but I found a way around it.  Rather than listing my cell phone or my home phone I ended up using a Google voice number.

Google Voice has the option of screening calls from unknown numbers, the caller says their name and you can choose to accept the call or not.  What I found is that you get a lot of calls from people that aren’t actually individuals looking to buy your car for themselves.  Some are car brokers and some are just people looking to buy your car cheap and then turn around and resell it for a profit.

The screening through Google Voice got rid of the majority of these callers, when asked for their name they would just hang up.  I was worried that it would turn away actual buyers so at first I called the numbers back but almost every time I got the corporate voicemail of some car broker so eventually I just stopped returning the calls.

This screening process might have turned away some real buyers but what it did for me was to limit the people I talked to to actual interested prospects. The people that did say their name and connect with me were all very interested and legitimate buyers.  I wasn’t in any rush to sell so I was willing to risk turning some people away to filter out the opportunity seekers.

Craigslist Meetings

Another big concern was having strangers come to our house, an objection I hear from many people who are wary of selling on Craigslist.  So I decided that I would meet interested buyers in some public place so they could check out the car and test drive it.

It sounded like a hassle but ended up not being that big a deal because the first person to look at the car ended up buying it from us.  I drove the car to his house and he test drove it with me along for the ride.  Our buyer knew a lot about cars and thoroughly examined it himself.

We did get lucky because my co-worker who sold his truck on Craigslist spent some time meeting people to let them test drive and had several people who took his truck off to their own mechanic for an hour or two.  He only did that with people he had vetted and had them leave their car behind as collateral.

Pricing on Craigslist

We started off intentionally overpricing the car by two hundred more than the $9000 we thought it was worth based on Kelley Blue Book. This was both to leave some haggle room and to price out people who were just looking to buy cheap and flip it.

This meant that we weren’t flooded with calls about the car but that was fine with us.  We weren’t in any hurry to sell and didn’t want to weed through dozens of emails and phone calls from people bargain hunting.

You can always come down on price, so I think it’s best to start off a little bit higher and see what kind of response you get.  If you list your car on Craigslist and your phone starts ringing off the hook then you’ve probably under-priced your car.

If you dont get any interest after a week or two you can post it again with a lower price.  If someone’s really interested in the car but think it’s over priced they may contact you and ask if you’re willing to accept less – which is what happened to us.

Consider Repairs

When I researched our car I overlooked the fact we hadn’t done our 100K maintenance (timing belt, water pump, spark plugs).  Most people that called were asking about the 100K mile service so I called the dealer to get a cost estimate of what the work would cost.  The work, plus the price of new rear brakes it needed, came to just under $1000.  So when a buyer offered us $8000 in cash I knew that based on the needed maintenance it was a fair offer.

Maintenance Records

One other maintenance consideration was that our model and year of car had known air conditioner issues that we’d had corrected.

I noted on the Craigslist post that I had the service records available and assured the buyer that the AC compressor had been replaced.  The day we were supposed to meet for the sale, he called to confirm I had the receipts for the work and the sale almost fell threw.

I had the paperwork for the compressor replacement but not the receipts and he insisted that he would only accept receipts.  Luckily I was able to dig through old files and find the receipts.  So just be sure that you’re clear about what kind of maintenance records you have available, otherwise you could waste time going all the way through the process and have the deal fail at the end.

Getting Paid

I would only accept a cashier’s check or cash when selling your car on Craigslist.  Taking a personal check is risky, you’re likely to find yourself without a car and without the cash. 

Our buyer offered cash but who has $8K in bills just sitting around their house? I made the mistake of not accepting his offer until Saturday afternoon when the bank was already closed.  Which left him the rest of the weekend to shop around for other deals.  Luckily it didn’t come back to bite me because by Monday night he had the money and was ready to make the deal.

Used Car Paperwork

For the closing I drove to his house and brought along the needed documentation:

• Car title
• Maintenance records
• Release of lien letter for old car loan

He had the money all counted out and in stacks of hundred dollar bills on the counter. 

We filled out the back of the title to transfer to a new owner and we both signed a bill of sale with our driver’s license information, address, and sale price. 

Then I gave him the keys, he gave me the money, and I went through the car one last time to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind. Be sure to check the glove compartment and all the little nooks and crannies – and don’t forget to take off your license plates!

Craisglist Safety

After the sale I chatted with the buyer about buying and selling on Craiglist and it turned out he’d been doing it for years. He emphasized being cautious, in general, and suggested all your meetings be in a public place with lots of people around. He said one thing to be wary of is the scenario where you’re meeting a person to buy something and they know you’re bringing a lot of cash to pay for it. Obviously you have to bring the money but make sure the transfer happens in a location you feel safe.

He told me a story about a guy who met a buyer at an out of the way spot to sell a motorcycle. It turned out to be a setup, no one else was around and the buyer stole his bike at gunpoint.

So as far as safety goes, don’t put yourself in dangerous situations, if it doesn’t feel right then definitely don’t go. One good initial screen is just to ask a lot of questions up front. You can often get a feel for how serious and legitimate a prospective buyer is by asking lots of probing questions on the phone.

Would I Sell a Car On Craigslist Again?

Yes. I had my concerns in the beginning but for $3000 more than the dealer offered it was definitely worth my time. My approach was just to try it out and see what happened, you could do the same. If things didn’t work out I would have explored other options but I’m glad I gave it a chance. Of course, I was lucky and sold it to the first person to look it over but there were definitely other legitimate buyers out there.

What’s been your experience selling big ticket items on Craigslist? What are some other tips for people thinking about selling their car on Craigslist?

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