Money Earning

I vividly remember the first time I learned about the power of compound interest. My 9th grade social studies teacher taught us a lesson on it, showing what would happen if one student started saving for retirement at age 23 and then stopped putting money away at 35, and another student waited until he was 35 to even start his savings. Because of compound interest, the first student ended up with more money, and had had to put away a lot less.

Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to have that lesson early. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 43% of workers had less than $10,000 put away for retirement in 2010.

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Chase continues to be hard at working in trying to obtain new credit card customers and they’ve now launched a 25,000 bonus point offer on their Chase Sapphire℠ Preferred Card.  If you turn the 50,000 bonus points in for cash, you can get a $500 statement credit but if you use them to redeem a flight through Ultimate Rewards, you can get a ticket worth up to $625.  Not to worry if your flight is more expensive … you can simply pay the difference.  The catch, if you want to call it that, is that the new cardholder must spend at least $3,000 within the first three months.

The Chase Sapphire℠ Preferred Card’s $95 annual fee is waived for the first year and the coolest feature of this card is the 24/7 live operator support you’ll receive.  No pushing buttons to connect to a human being, the number you are provided on the back of your Chase Sapphire(SM) Preferred Card leads straight to a customer service representative.

So if you’re looking to make a big purchase in the next few months or find yourself putting most of your daily purchases on one credit card AND have the excellent credit required to obtain this card and limited time bonus offer, consider the Chase Sapphire℠ Preferred Card.

For nearly a year, a battle has been raging between banks and retailers. It appears that banks have lost, and on July 21, 2011, a 12-cent cap on debit swipe fees will be implemented. Last year, Congress passed a law that included, among other things, a cap to debit card swipe fees. These are the fees, averaging 44 cents a swipe, that retailers pay when you use your debit card. Retailers, of course, would like to save the money (whether or not theyll pass the savings to you the customer is a completely different question). Banks, on the other hand, stand to lose billions in revenue.

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Don’t force me to use Lego Darth to get you to save more!

I see this question a lot:

“How can I convince my spouse/kids/parents/friends to save more money?”

Here are my thoughts on this subject…

When it comes to your kids, do all the convincing you want. In fact, you should be making your kids handle their money properly. Be heavy-handed and knowledgeable about where every dollar goes. They are your responsibility until they are 18, so stay on top of things there.

At the same time, you want your kids to learn to make decisions and face the consequences of those decisions. There

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Raise your hand if youve ever been late with a credit card payment. I have. Now think back to what happened when you were late with your payment. If you were lucky, you were able to talk your credit card company into waiving the late fees or interest rate hike they may have assessed. If you werent lucky you had insult added to injury and you were hit with both a late fee and an increased interest rate.

Wouldnt it be great if there were a credit card company that gave you a little leeway? Citi thought so, which is why they brought back one of their most popular credit cards after a several year hiatus the Citi Simplicity® Card.

The Citi Simplicity® Card is just what the name says a simple credit card for credit card users with simple needs. Y

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