March 2017

What Should You Do with Your Income Tax Refund?

According to a recent Nasdaq survey, 41% of Americans who received a tax refund in 2016 put that money into savings. While 38% used the money to pay off debts. Just 5% of Americans splurged on a big purchase. But, what should you do with your income tax refund? Should you pay off debt or invest? Just like how receiving a big tax refund isn’t always a big deal, putting that money towards something that’s more “entertaining” than “responsible” isn’t always a bad option either. What you should do with your income tax refund depends on your current financial situation and your ability to manage the debts currently in your name. Should you pay off debt or invest or something … Read more

Focusing on Large Expenses to Save a Ton of Money

by Guest Contributor

12 Things You Should Know Before Buying A House

The following is a guest post by Jon who blogs at Money Smart Guides, a personal finance blog whose goal is to help you get out of debt and start investing for your future. If you’d like to guest post on Money Q&A, be sure to check out the site’s Guest Posting Guidelines.

We all know that small expenses add up over time. This concept has been popularized and tagged as “the latte factor” by various experts and authors. The idea goes, if you cut the spending on smaller items, not only will it be easy, but you can reap a large amount of savings over time.

While the potential for saving money is not in doubt, many people solely focus on the small expenses and forget about the big ones, when in fact, the big ones can help you learn how to save a ton of money. Here is why you should focus first on the big expenses first, and then concentrate on the small ones.

How to Save a Ton Of Money on Large Purchases

Bigger Potential Savings Mean Bigger Impact

While cutting out a $3 coffee two days a week will add up to a nice $312 extra over the course of a year, if you focus on the big expenses in your life, you can easily save much more than this.

For example, I shop my insurance needs every year or two. At first, I was skeptical that I could save money doing this. After all, I thought the company I was with for over 10 years valued me and offered me their best rates.

Boy was I mistaken. It turns out many insurance companies use the practice of price optimization. What this means is that those who don’t shop around for insurance coverage pay for those that do. How does this work?

At its most basic, let’s say you are with ABC Insurance Company. I shop around and get a quote from ABC Insurance. They offer me an incredible deal to come on board. This deal might even cost them a few dollars. How do they overcome this? They raise the rates on their long-term (loyal) customers, who happen to be you.

If you don’t shop around for insurance coverage, most likely you are costing yourself money. When I switched companies the other year, I ended up saving $200 a year

The Dangers Of Income Tax Refund Anticipation Loans

by Hank Coleman

Income tax refund anticipation loans are not a good deal for consumers. In fact, they are downright crummy and can cost you hundreds of dollars. Unless you are in dire need of funds right away for a legitimate emergency, you are better off being patient and waiting for your income tax refund to come to you through direct deposit or even the mail instead of getting an income tax refund loan. What Is an Income Tax Refund Loan? A tax refund anticipation loans is a program offered by many of the nation’s largest tax filing companies. The program allows taxpayers to get their tax refund from the filing company immediately that day instead of having to wait for the IRS … Read more

How to Save Automatically and Eliminate Bank Fees with Chime

by Hank Coleman

Chime Card Reviews - What Is Chime Card?

If you often find yourself struggling to save money on a regular basis and at the mercy of monthly fees, overdraft fees, and nearly every other type of fee your bank cheerfully tacks onto your accounts, then perhaps it’s time for a new approach to personal financial management. Chime bank and the Chime card may just be the right bank account and debit card to help you take back control over your personal finances, finally start saving, and stop paying bank fees once and for all.

Chime, for instance, is an up-and-coming online and mobile bank account that offers a simple way of tricking yourself into saving more money. Rather than gouging you on bank fees, Chime offers a spending account and a savings account with no monthly minimums or fees, no overdraft, no international fees, and a fee-free ATM network. Plus, they offer an automatic savings program that delivers weekly savings bonuses to their cardholders.

Additionally, Chime has some pretty cool features if you’re having trouble getting started savings. I had the opportunity to check out Chime for myself. And, the results were awesome!

Chime Card Review – What Is Chime Banking?

When you sign up for a Chime bank account and a Chime Visa Debit card, you can transfer funds into your new Chime account for free and use the card anywhere Visa cards are accepted. It’s a demand deposit bank account with a debit card. So, like all checking accounts, you can only pay for items with your Chime card after you’ve deposited funds into your Chime bank account.

You also have the option of setting up direct deposit from your employer directly to your Chime spending account. You also receive access to the Chime Checkbook feature, in which Chime will mail physical checks on your behalf after you authorize a payment and provide them with the name and mailing address of the recipient.

Chime members can get paid up to two days early when they fund their account through payroll direct deposit. Chime makes it easy to set up direct deposit with a form that can be emailed or printed and provided to the employer.

There are many different options when it comes to managing your money with Chime. Not only does Chime offer its own Spending and Savings, but Chime also offers easy access to mobile check deposits and direct deposits into your accounts through the Chime app.

The Chime app is available for both iPhones and Android devices, allowing you to access real-time updates on your account balances, recent transactions, locate nearby fee-free ATMs, and contact Chime’s customer service on-the-go.

6 Reasons Why Your Business Need Enterprise Content Services

by Guest Contributor

Do not forget to follow up from a business conference.

This ‘structuring’ of processes has driven incredible productivity benefits for companies throughout the world, but as it turns out, not all businesses make use of content management system (CMS) to avoid data processing/storage issues and maximize productivity.

Why Your Business Need Enterprise Content Services

So, why should you have one set up for your business? Here are the reasons.

1. Less risk and more control over company information.

This is the main reasons why enterprise content services are being used by both small and big companies. With the right CMS technology, companies control the access to their data, maintain audit trails, histories, and automate the distribution of content based on a set of policies. All of these help businesses decrease risk and increase control around the natural life cycle of their data.

2. Direct and efficient access to content for efficiency.

There are countless amounts of time wasted on researching for information. Traditional techniques for finding and supplying information result in significant efficiency and even profitability losses, hindering the company’s ability to remain effective and ahead of their competition.

Companies should always have quick access to the data they need at the right time and the right context. CMS solves this issue instantly through better information management.