Walk With Money » Reminder

Attention whiny complainers: Why you STILL aren’t saving money

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:20:07 +0000

Attention whiny complainers: Why you STILL aren’t saving money

54 comments — written on January 5th, 2010

Reminder: Tonight (Wednesday January 6th), I’m holding live video Office Hours covering psychological barriers to earn more money. Join the live video Office Hours at 7pm Pacific.

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Earlier this week, I announced that 2010 is the year where I want to help you earn more money. This is the “E” part of my CEO Model: Cutting costs, Earning more, and Optimizing spending.

I was really surprised with how much this struck a chord. You’ll notice 150+ comments asking for specific areas you want me to cover. Read closely: It’s not just tactics you want. Lots of you asked for help crushing your own psychological barriers.

I know you want me to jump right into the tactics of earning more money — how to turn your idea into income, negotiate higher rates, and scale your earnings — but I’m not going to yet. That’s because it’s critically important to understand your implicit barriers before you start tackling action steps.

And that’s what I want to cover today: Whiny people who don’t think they can save (and earn more money).

Let’s start by examining what happened about 1 year ago.

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In late 2008, when the market was crashing, people stopped caring about investing and negotiation and just wanted to hunker down and save money. As a result, I launched something called the “Save $1,000 in 30 Days Challenge,” where I showed people tactical ways to save money using fresh psychological techniques. Thousands of people joined in and worked to save thousands and thousands of dollars.

Except a few people.

While most people were supportive, I was surprised by how many people were actually offended by the very concept of a “Save $1,000 in 30 days challenge” because they didn’t even earn that much each month, or they found my recommendations to be “too obvious” — even though I defined “saving” as cutting costs, earning more, and optimizing spending.

Here are some examples of their complaints, which I’ve categorized for easy reading:

Whiny complaint #1: “I don’t make enough money”:

Whiny complaint #2: “This is so obvious”

Whiny complaint #3: “You’re just doing this to make money”

These whiners miss the point.

Saving $1,000 in a month was eminently reasonable, but it was also an aspirational goal. If you couldn’t save $1,000, what about $500? $200?
More likely, the whiners expected personalized information to be spoon-fed to them.
The people who complained a year ago are probably still complaining about money, while many of the people who took the challenge saved hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

No more excuses, please. We all know friends who complain …

Cancel Your Sprint Contract Without Penalty – Success Stories [January 2010]

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:20:06 +0000

This is just a reminder that as of 1/1/10, Sprint is changing their contracts to add a “Regulatory Charge” of 20 cents per month. Despite the name, this is nothing but an increase in your monthly plan cost, as it is not a consumer tax nor is it required by law. Because of this voluntary fee hike, you can now cancel your Sprint contract without an early termination fee (ETF). You must do this within 30 days of notification (check your billing statement).

After some early pushback, it appears that most Sprint reps are now aware of this legitimate out. Commenter Stephan also shared a handy script that has been used successfully by several readers:

“Hello. I’m calling about my current contract with Sprint and the new 40 cents per line regulatory charge that Sprint will be introducing this January. The latest Terms & Conditions contract I signed with Sprint was in [year], and under that contract, it specifically states that as a Sprint customer, I have the right to terminate my contract without paying an early termination fee in the event …

The 10-Second Credit Limit Increase

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:20:45 +0000

I logged into my Citi credit card account online today to make some changes to my profile when I decided to try to get an automatic credit line increase. I figured I was already logged in doing other things, a few button clicks to see if I could increase the limit certainly wasn’t going to cost me much time. I swung up to Tools & Services and click on Request a Credit Line Increase. If you recently did this, the option won’t be there.

I clicked on it and this is what appeared:

So, Citi card holders, this is your semi-annual reminder to try increasing the credit limit on your credit cards. Citi’s great about this because they let you do it all online and oftentimes without a credit check (as they explicitly tell you that a credit bureau report was not pulled).

Benefits of a Credit Increase

Credit utilization is one of the more significant factors in your credit score. Take your credit card balances at the end of the month, divide by your total credit limit – that’s your utilization. By increasing your total amount of credit, you decrease your utilization and increase your attractiveness to lenders.

You also give yourself a larger line of unsecured credit …

What’s Your Motivation?

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:20:23 +0000

As I sit in my office and look out the window, I can see a number of people and a few pieces of construction equipment busy at work about a quarter of a mile away. It just happens to perfectly line up that I can see the workers if I turn my head to the left from my natural position at work.

At first, the construction somewhat annoyed me. I can hear the construction noises throughout the day as I’m working and they, at times, can be a mild distraction. The workers are also building something that is going to sit right in my view out of my office window.

What are they building, you ask? A house. A very nice house, in fact.

A few days ago, while I was working on an article, I turned my head and watched the construction work for a bit when I suddenly realized something. The house they were building is not too dis-similar from the house I would love to build someday. It’s fairly isolated with plenty of yard space but also with access to the forest. If I understand the floor plan correctly, it has nice, large bedrooms and a nice kitchen, which are the two features I most like in homes.

Since then, whenever I hear that noise, it actually pushes me a little bit. That noise, instead of being an annoyance, is a reminder of my big goals in life. That noise tells me to keep doing what I’m doing, to push forward to big things.

It has been extremely useful to have such a constant motivator around me. It keeps my nose to the grindstone all day long. Whenever I look out the window, I see the work. Whenever I pause for a minute, the noise from the work comes in loud and clear.

In fact, I’m going …

Follow-Up: Google VoiceMail Now Works With Sprint

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:20:08 +0000

Just a quick note that Sprint conditional call forwarding is now free of charge. This means that Sprint customers can now forward all busy and unanswered phone calls to Google Voice without incurring the previous $.20/minute for conditional call forwarding – normal minutes usage still applies. Thanks to reader Matt G for the reminder.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see last month’s post on Using Google Voice To Enhance Your Cell Phone Voicemail.

I’ve been using it for the last few days, and I must say that I like it a lot. I can have unanswered phone calls to my cell phone number (not GV number) forwarded first to my home phone or office phone. Then, if still nobody picks up the Google Voicemail …

529 Plan Promotion: Couples Get $150 Jumpstart to College Savings

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:20:08 +0000

This is a reminder that the Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan is offering some excellent incentives for those looking to start putting some money aside for college. Open to residents of any state, the best part is that this is one of the nation’s best 529 plans for those looking for low-cost investment options and a good customer experience. Here’s an example of how a couple can earn a free $150 jumpstart on their college fund. While I use the term “parent”, this would work for any two people – grandparents, aunts, brothers, friends, etc.

Parent #1 opens a new Ohio 529 account using a referral from an existing user (details below). They list the child’s name as beneficiary. Parent #1 earns $25 incentive.
Parent #2 open a new Ohio 529 account as well, using a referral from Person #1. This account can also list the child’s name as beneficiary. Parent #1 earns $50, and Parent …

Free Experian PLUS Credit Score From American Express

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:20:26 +0000

Just a reminder that American Express cardholders can get a free look at their Experian PLUS credit score and credit report once every 12 months. This is Experian’s own proprietary (”FAKO”) credit score, but is the best you can get from Experian since consumers can no longer get their FICO Score based on Experian data. (Only Equifax and Transunion via myFICO.) PLUS has a range of 330-830 as opposed to the FICO range of 300-850, but like all FAKO they don’t necessarily map directly to FICO.

To access your score, visit americanexpress.com/creditreport and log in as usual. It is free, and you do not need to enroll in any trials to get your free score. They will however try to upsell you their CreditSecure monitoring service after 30 days. Just checked for DW:

From their site:

<blockquote …

Tax Return Filing Deadline

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:20:24 +0000

It’s September 15th, do you know where your tax return is? (please laugh or it’ll be uncomfortably quiet in here)

If you filed your taxes on April 15th, you can ignore this post. If you requested a tax filing extension, let this be a reminder that your tax return will be due in exactly one month. October 15th is the tax return filing deadline for people who requested and were approved for a tax filing extension.

Since I can see the future, I know that in some point in the future someone will read this article and be wondering when all the various tax return related deadlines are. Being the nice guy that I am, I’ll list them for your reference. Your tax return filing deadline will depend entirely on your tax situation because the extension gives you extra time to file, not extra time …

2010 Roth IRA Conversion Rules, What Is The Big Deal?

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:20:16 +0000

Converting to a Roth IRA is not new, so what with all the buzz about about this Roth IRA Conversion event in 2010? What makes it such a big deal is that up until then, most people couldn’t convert to a Roth IRA because their income was too high. For example, in 2009 if an individual or married couple have an AGI of over $100,000 the conversion is not an option. But in 2010, all that changes and that’s what makes it that exciting. Many people who have been salivating on the tax free benefit of the Roth IRA will finally get to sink their teeth into it.

Roth IRA Is Tax Free Money

Before I get into the rules on the Roth IRA Conversion, I want to give a quick reminder of why you need to open a Roth IRA account today: Tax Free Money. Is there anything else I need to say? Don’t just take my word for it, though. J.D. from Get Rich Slowly has a great post on his blog, “WhyI Love the Roth IRA“. I couldn’t agree more. There are plenty of reasons to love the Roth IRA.

One stat that startles me is that the Roth IRA only accounts for 5% of all the retirement plans being used. How could something some great be so heavily under utilized? One factor is the income phaseout limits and the other is that consumers don’t fully comprehend how great the Roth IRA really is.

If you are one of the ones that doesn’t understand it, here’s a post I wrote that discusses the Roth IRA Rules that should help break down some of the basic concepts. After you’ve read that, here are some articles that can help you open a Roth IRA for the first time and the best place to open a Roth IRA account. Both good and helpful reads to get a beginner started. Now you don’t have any excuses for not having a Roth IRA.

The 2010 Roth IRA Conversion Event

If you couldn’t open a Roth IRA because you earned too much, you now have a chance to convert all traditional IRA’s, old SEP and SIMPLE IRA’s, and old 401k’s, 403b’s and 457 accounts in 2010. This creates an exciting opportunity for those that have been on the outside looking in on the benefits of the Roth IRA.

Consider 2010 as everyone getting their VIP access to the tax free party of the year….scratch that…..decade. Now that you are on board, let’s look at some of the tax ramifications of converting.

Tax Ramifications of Converting To A Roth IRA

The one thing to be knowledgeable about is that we will …