This article came out in mid-July and I meant to bring it up then but events beyond my control pushed it off the table until I thought it just recently (plus the information is good so I’m sharing it anyway). SmartMoney took a look at the best times to buy what and did a really great job explaining why they think it is. I’ll share a few of the ones I found useful and could add to and invite you to check out the rest at their article.

Cars: They recommend going on a Monday because it’s right after the weekend rush and salesmen are just waiting for the weekend, eager to sneak a few sales onto the books. I could also recommend pairing up a Monday with other typically high stress times like the end of a month, quarter, or year – when their numbers are calculated and bonuses are determined.

Dining Out: Some restaurants don’t get food deliveries on the weekend so the best day to get the freshest stuff is on a Tuesday, according to Kate Krader, senior editor at Food & Wine magazine. Good tip for those who dine out…

Gas: Thursday before 10am is their suggestion and I’m inclined to agree. There’s a gas station near my fiancee’s office and she passes by it every single weekday. By the time the weekend rolls around, the price has easily increased ten cents and that price drops back down to “normal” by Sunday night. The only place where this won’t matter is on the New Jersey Turnpike where they’re only allowed to change the price of gas once per week (everything’s strangely and tightly controlled when it comes to gas in that state).

Groceries: This is something I wrote about in the past and basically it’s the second to last day (or last day) of the week for whatever supermarket you frequent. On that day, the next week’s sales are printed but the previous week’s sales are in effect… so if you see it on sale next week, wait a day. If it’s on sale this week, snatch it up.

I think bottled water is absolutely f’ing ridiculous. There, I said it. Let us ignore the fact that what you’re paying for essentially filtered tap water at a multiple of perhaps hundreds or thousands of times normal, let us instead focus on the environmental impact of all the plastic required to store what is essentially a free resource. Plastic takes oil and basically never biodegrades. I don’t know how many bottles end up in landfills or how many bottles Americans consume in a year but I know the number is huge and there is a tremendous amount of waste. I don’t think you need more than common sense to know that a plastic bottle in a landfill is worse than not having another plastic bottle in a landfill.

If you don’t believe in global warming, let’s take a look at the local impact of what happens when a company comes in and starts pumping water out of natural springs and wells. What a company basically does is go in and pump all the water out and into high capacity wells for their own use, basically drying up the water supply for the local residents. What usually happens is that the water takes hundreds of years before it will start taking in a lot of the minerals in the ground and so when companies come and pump the water out faster than nature can replenish it, you’re talking about impacting the lives of the local residents. While the beverage companies do provide money and jobs to the local residents, it comes at a cost much higher than they have been willing to bear and in many cases have been fighting back.

Let’s say you don’t care about the environmental impacts and you don’t care about the local residents, what would you say if I told you bottled water isn’t necessarily better than tap? Well, consider this: there is no real regulatory agency that regulates bottled water, but the Environmental Protection Agency does regulate public water supplies. The only thing the FDA can do is regulate that the water is bottled in sanitary conditions with food grade equipment. That’s it. If you’d like to learn more, here’s a great article on the subject worth checking out. Oh yeah, here’s an article about a study where they found the bottled water was no worse than New York City tap water.

The only part of the bottled water craze I can understand is the convenience factor, but having a Nalgene (or some other indestructible hardened plastic bottle will suffice) bottle is good enough. It’s also better on the environment and your wallet, plus it’s starting to be trendy again to have a Nalgene.

What’s your take on bottled water? Love it? Hate it? You know my stance, I’d love to hear yours.

I don’t know how JD comes up with the topics he does but practically every single one resonates with me and this one about pursuing paperless personal finance hit spot on. I only started truly dealing with personal finance issues such as bills, credit cards, and banking within the last four years and I’m pretty much as minimalist in terms of paper as you can probably. I’m so trusting of going paperless because many of the all-electronic processes had proven themselves in the last four years (in terms of earning user trust on their safety and reliability) so I just rolled into it. I think going paperless as much as possible is the way to go.

There are two reasons why you should go paperless: it’s good for the environment and it will save you money. Since most people are interested primarily with saving money and I like it when people try to save the environment, I’ll try to trick you into going paperless for your reasons even though I want you to do it for my reasons (shhh! this tactic is a scecret, don’t tell anyone!). If you want ideas on how to go as paperless as possible, read JD’s post for ideas.

Reason 1: Save On Envelopes & Stamps

Each bill you don’t have to send is one in which you don’t have to stick into an envelope, which usually is provided, and stick a 41 cent stamp on. If you mail off two credit card payments, a mortgage payment, a car payment, a cable payment, and a utility bill each month, that’s $29.52 saved each year in stamps alone. Don’t scoff at the thought that going paperless only saves you thirty bucks in stamps, would you pick up a thirty dollar bill if it were sitting on the ground? I would.

Reason 2: Avoid Fees Because Payment Systems Remember

One of the benefits of getting email notification of a statement is that when you get the email you’re generally at your computer, which means you can log on and schedule a payment. If you get a paper bill, you have to go get your checkbook, write out a check, put it in the envelope with the stub, put a stamp on it, and walk out to your mailbox. There are plenty of opportunities in that process chain to just put the bill down and take care of it later. If you’re online, just log into your account, schedule a payment, and have a nice day until the next notification.

Reason 3: Schedule To Pay At The Last Minute

Keep those hard earned dollars in your bank account until the last moment and have the bank remember when to pay for you. When you log on and schedule the payment, most places will let you pick the day you want to send it. Simply wait until the last day (I generally schedule it three or four days before the last day, just in case… though the just in case has never happened and I’m not really sure what could happen) so your dollars keep earning interest. While I can’t quantify how much money you’ll earn each year, it won’t be much but it’s better you than some company.

Reason 4: Electronic Payments Are Rarely Lost

The USPS processes gazillions of pieces of mail each year and a percentage of those are lost or mangled in processing and O’Doyle’s Law states that all bad stuff happens to you when it will hurt you the most (it doesn’t because I just made up that law but if there is a law for that I don’t know it), so put two and two together and realize that a physical payment is far inferior to an electronic one. With electronic payments, you get confirmation of a successful scheduling or payment almost immediately. If it’s “lost,” you generally know because the next page doesn’t load. When regular mail is lost, you generally know because you get a missed payment fee.

Reason 5: Electronic Theft Is Harder

It takes very little effort to steal your information when you mail a check payment. If you have a traditional mailbox, it just takes someone with enough stones to open up a stranger’s mailbox and snatch the envelope. Once they open it up, they have your name, address, bank name and your checking account number – all off your check. If someone wants to steal your information when you make an electronic payment, it’s impossible because you aren’t sending your bank information with your request every single time. You only register the bank once, it’s never displayed back to you for security reasons (in case you unwittingly give out your credentials to a thief), so they’ll have to somehow catch you when you enter that in and spend eons of time to crack the SSL 128-bit encryption (good luck, read this for more on SSL 128-bit encryption). The Law of Least Resistance says that a thief, given the skills to two both, would rather open your mailbox.

There are probably plenty of other ways that going paperless will save you money either right this moment or in the long run but those are probably the biggest. So even if saving the environment isn’t on the forefront of your mind (though it should be!), save yourself some of the other kind of green by going paperless and everyone wins.

At least that’s according to the statistics, discussed on CNNMoney today, which show that the average CEO is paid $10.8 million versus the average employee being paid $29,544. In 2005, that multiple was 411x and in 2000 it was a staggering 525x. There are caveats to those numbers because the groups that did the studies did some strange math, strange as in I wouldn’t have done it this way, such as include in the average employee salary both part time and full time employees (uhhh… clearly doesn’t make sense to me). CNN Money estimated that if you took out part timers and considered non-managers, you’re talking about $40,000 a year and a multiple of only 270x – which isn’t that ridiculous I suppose.

My current company is privately held so I have no way of figuring out what the multiple is personally but at my last company, the CEO’s total compensation about 307x more than what mine (according to Reuters) was that same year… what was your multiple?

WTDirect is the latest online savings account to hit the streets and if you have more than $10,000 sitting around burning a hole in your pocket then they’re willing to give you a fatty 5.26% interest rate on it. So, before you plow any money into an “online savings account,” the first step is to make sure that these guys are legitimate.

Is WT Direct Legitimate?

The WT in WT Direct stands for Wilmington Trust and the brick and mortar bank that stands behind WT Direct is Wilmington Trust FSB, a bank headquartered in Baltimore, MD (111 South Calvert Street, Suite 2620). Wilmington Trust FSB is legitimate, it’s in the FDIC Bank Search database (FDIC Cert 33911 if you want to look for yourself) and it points to their website according to the FDIC’s records. If you want to peek into their closet, the FDIC keeps all sorts of statistics on the bank’s operations (and every other bank’s operations), so the FDIC logo on their site is legitimate.

Now, are they going to be around for a while? For that we turn to the Bankrate ratings and unfortunately BankRate gave them only one star and a Safe & Sound CAEL Rating of 5G, which isn’t very good. Here is their analysis, which appears to focus on “assessments of profitability, asset quality, capital adequacy and liquidity.” This isn’t really an analysis on the security measures of the business, just business operations and whether they’re sustainable. If you’re planning on putting more than the FDIC insured $100,000, then I would be concerned, otherwise this is just good information to have.

What exactly is their offer?

For the first sixty days, all accounts will earn the 5.26% APY regardless of the balance. After sixty days, those balances of $10,000 or more will earn the prevailing rate of 5.26% while those under will earn 0.60% APY. Based on my interpretation of the language, your entire balance earns either 5.26% APY or 0.60% APY, it’s not two levels of interest where the dollars under $10k get 0.60% and the dollars over $10k get 5.26% (if you read it differently, please let me know) Also, there are no minimum balances and thus no account fees.

If anyone has experience with these guys, either brick and mortar or with this online product, please let me know. I think I’m going to open an account there unless I hear back that these guys are no good (which means you have to tell me!).

I had the following question on my post about 50 Fun Facts About Credit Cards that I wanted to float by you all and see if my answer was on point or off base.

Jim,

Is it illegal to charge business and personal charges on the same credit card, if we pay each item separately from appropriate accounts? I have been doing this for years, and my accountant just informed me that it is not legal, which I think is wrong information, but cannot locate a place to find the answer — can you lend me some correct facts?? thanks — Lauren

I’m not a lawyer and so I can’t be certain of the legality but I don’t see why it would be illegal for you to charge business expenses on your credit card. Consider the situation where you’re an employee and you buy something for your employer. When you do that, you probably submit an expense report and your employer pays you back some time later. If the mixing of business and personal charges on the same credit card were illegal, then this wouldn’t ever happen.

Now, one reason why you wouldn’t want to mix the two is when you have a limited liability corporation (or some other entity) and you are trying to shield your personal assets from your business liability. In that case, you have to clearly delineate between your business and personal finances – mixing the two will blur that line and expose you to personal liability if something happens in your business. So, while charging business and personal to the same card is not illegal, it’s generally considered a bad idea because it takes away the only benefit an LLC provides – personal liability separation.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

I was reading an article in Cards & Payments, a credit card industry magazine, that discusses the rising popularity of personalized cards, those that have your picture, or a picture of your alma mater or company, or some other distinguishing characteristic that makes you feel more emotionally attached to the card. The most interesting part of the article were the following statistics on photo cards from a Datacard Group research study for 2005-2006:

- 62% of photo card customer’s outstanding balances are higher than the U.S. national average.

- 50% fewer customers are likely to switch to other cards or destroy their cards when renewal time comes.

- 34% of photo cardholders’ monthly volumes are higher than the U.S. national average.

- 15%-20% more transactions occurs with a personalized card than with one that is not personalized.

- 2%-5% of photos submitted are attached to card applications, suggesting photo cards draw new customers.

Cards & Payments is an industry magazine so they’re portraying the state of the industry so that credit card insiders can make decisions, they’re not trying to sell a particular product or pimp out some service and they certainly aren’t on the end consumer side. That’s the perspective I have when I see those statistics and they show that these personalized cards work because they tap into vanity. The basic idea behind the article is that if you feel attached to a card, say because it has a football logo on it or an American flag (Discover card popularized these), then you’re more likely to use it even if the financial reasons aren’t as strong.

Do not get emotionally attached to your financial transactions, they should not be about emotions, they should be about numbers and what makes financial sense.

For example, Vanguard is great because they have low fees, reliable service, and I’ve never had a problem with them. If Vanguard sent me a handwritten letter each quarter telling me how much they valued my patronage, I’d certainly be impressed. However, if they sent me a handwritten letter saying they were going to quadruple their fees then I wouldn’t stick around because Fidelity makes better sense financially and they have a similar reputation. When it comes to business, and personal finance is business, keep emotions out of it and don’t get attached. You might get along with the local teller at your bank but if the rates aren’t favorable or they aren’t willing to nix a fee, go to another bank. Other banks have really nice tellers too.

It’s been over a month since the last Devil’s Advocate post and people have been asking whether the series was dead, well it’s not! This time I take on an issue that’s particularly poignant with my group of friends since many of us have left our original employer, where we all met, and gone on to greener pastures. I know in the past I’ve written about how you should date other jobs but this time I want to take it from the other side, how you should stick with the same job for the rest of your life because there are benefits to being loyal.

Loyalty is a Virtue

Let’s be honest, if you were an employer, would you rather hire someone who you know will stick around for a while or someone who jump at the next opportunity somewhere else? Naturally you prefer the loyal employee because you can depend on them sticking around and because it’s hard to make future plans if you have to depend on someone who might be easily enticed to leave with more money.

Earning Respect

As you move from job to job, you might find yourself making a promotional move, one where your new job is higher in the hierarchal chain, and in charge of a group of other employees. It’s much harder to earn people’s respect if you come in from the outside than if you move up from within and that’s something that a lot of people have difficulty grasping. Granted, you’ll get some respect along with your newly minted title and there are always political issues if you are promoted before someone else, but in general earning respect is easier if you’ve been there for a while and fighting in the trenches.

Learning the System

One of the hardest parts about taking a new job is learning how things work at the new company, do you really want to have to learn how to navigate human resources or how salaries are determined? Do you really want to deal with a new set of office politics and who hates who? Probably not and by sticking around with one company, you avoid having to relearn all those mundane issues at a new company. When I left my last company, one of the biggest pains was trying to decipher my benefits all over again and learn new terminology.

It’s Not Always About Money

If you had the skills, you probably could be an investment banker on Wall Street making six figure bonuses instead of doing whatever it is you’re doing right now… except you would be working 12-18 hour days and killing yourself. For some people, that’s what they want to be doing; for others, the quality of life aspect comes into play and they value things other than money. If you have skills that in demand, you could probably go to another company and earn more money but you sacrifice a lot of the things you’ve built up at your current company. Your network of friends and associates, your reputation, your understanding of how the company works, and your general level of comfort.

Ultimately whether or not you want to move from company to company depends a lot on the specific factors but a lot of folks seem to push forth the idea that moving to another company is almost always a winning proposition. Certainly it’s likely always a winning proposition financially, otherwise you wouldn’t even consider it, but as you get older there are other non-financial factors that may dominate the decision. I just wanted to throw a few of those out there so that they get the juices flowing and it’s not seen as just a strict money decision.

Trent responded to a reader the other day about the real scoop on credit cards and, while the premise was correct in that if you carry a balance then the rewards on a card don’t matter, his logic was flawed. While he doesn’t come out and say that credit cards offer you rewards because they expect you to carry a balance (he sort of just says that Americans are badly in debt and those in debt are more likely to be in more debt and credit card companies want to leverage that) but that’s actually not why they offer you rewards, it’s merely a benefit that comes with a positive expected value.

The real reason why credit cards offer rewards is because they’re paying you less than what the merchant is paying them in order to process the credit card transaction. Everytime you charge something, several companies take a piece of the action and the merchant getes somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% off the top. In order to entice you to put their card in your wallet, they offer to kick back some of it to you as 1% cashback. Many consumers don’t know this and now all those “no charging to credit cards unless the purchase is over $10″ signs and the lack of Discover/American Express acceptance probably makes more sense now (Discover and AMEX have the highest fees).

Here’s another sneaky tactic since we’re on the subject. Some card issuers offer reward points such as 1 point for every $100 spent. If you can convert that point into a penny dollar, then you have basically 1% cashback but that’s often not the case because anytime they can shave a little off the conversion then the credit card company’s profits increase. They will generally offer products or giveaways or some other tangible non-cash item that, if you were to convert the points to cash, you wouldn’t buy at the stated price. So what about 5% cashback on gas? Aren’t the credit cards losing money on that transaction? Yes, but they figure to get into your wallet and so you might use the same card for something else and thus they expect to make money off the whole arrangement.

So, credit cards aren’t depending on you getting in debt but they certainly don’t mind it one bit.

If you’re a member of Upromise (it’s free to sign up), you get a free 1 year Good Start level membership to Identity Guard (details). Good Start is the first level of credit monitoring and it includes monitoring of your Equifax report, email alerts of any changes, and toll-free customer support. It’s not really all that great but it is free (you can get a six month trial by going to the site normally, so Upromise members get an additional six months). You have to cancel after the year or they automatically bill you. By comparison, their Level 4 Total Protection offers significantly more services (including the monitoring of illegal posting and trading of your credit card numbers because they monitor the black market, something I thought was pretty cool) but also costs $159/year.

Even though this particular perk isn’t that great, I think Upromise is a great “set it and forget it” service. I attached my grocery store’s loyalty card, some of my credit cards, and occasionally get free money for buying stuff I didn’t know I’d get free money for (thus it’s truly free!). I don’t look at the balance often but I’ve got a few dollars stored away in there.