Slick Finances - Taking Advantage of the Easy Money

$450 Cash and 2 Free Round Trip Flights

September 27, 2012 by Mr. Slick

It has been way too long since my last post! As I had stated in my New Year’s resolution post I was holding off on getting any new credit cards to keep my credit report squeaky clean while I prepared to buy a home. Thanks to that patience I was able to get a killer 3.5% 30 year mortgage.

That is not why you are here though! I lured you in with a promise of cold hard cash and some free flights! Now that I am all settled in my new home, I can start taking advantage of the credit card deals that are just starting to pop back up. I have a double feature for you all today, both cards that I personally took advantage of in the past 24 hours.

Card #1 is the Barclay’s NFL Extra Point Card

(available with your favorite team on the front, Go Cowboys!).

This is one of the better bonuses I have seen in awhile, $400 after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days. Sign up here: http://www.nflextrapoints.com/nfl_2012/?campaignId=1717&cellNumber=501

If you won’t have any issues spending the $1,000 in the given 90- days than the $400 bonus seems like a no-brainer (or be creative and load up on some grocery/gas gift cards).

*Note: There have been reports of some people only seeing a $200 offer. Try using a different browser, or your browsers “private” mode to get the $400 offer.

Card #2 is the United Explorer Card

Get 50,000 miles after your first use + 5,000 Miles for adding an additional authorized user + a $50 statement credit after first use! ***Note this has a $95 annual fee that is waived for the first year, so if you are not taking advantage of some of the cards various flight perks, be sure to cancel before the year mark.

The sign up for this one is a little tricky as well. This seems to only work for users who already have a frequent flier number with United.

Step 1: Go to www.united.com and log in with your united airlines frequent flier number and pin.

Step 2: Go to https://www.theexplorercard.com/MPConsumer65k50AFWIC.aspx (You may have to copy and paste the url into your browser directly).

I was instantly approved for both cards which will net me $450 in cash (or statement credit), and 55,000 United miles which is more than enough for 2 round trip domestic flights.

Let me know if you sign up!

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Quick April Digest

April 18, 2012 by Mr. Slick

Nutella Class Action Settlement:

Apparently Nutella has been sued over masquerading as a “healthy” bread spread. If you purchased Kobe Bryant’s favorite hazelnut spread you may be eligible for $4 per jar you purchased, maximum 5 jars (no proof necessary). More details here: https://nutellaclassactionsettlement.com/

It is a new quarter and that means you need to make sure you activate the latest cash back on the credit cards with revolving categories.

Chase Ultimate Rewards:

If you have a chase card that is in the Ultimate Rewards program, from April-June you will receive 5% cash back on Grocery Stores and Movie Theaters make sure you have activated the card here: https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom/activate.aspx Maximum cash back is $75 ($1,500 maximum spending towards 5%).

Discover Cash Back:

If you have a Discover Cash Back card you will get 5% cash back from April-June on Restaurants and Movie Theaters. In addition to those categories, during the month of May you get 5% back at Gas Stations. Sign up here: https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/cashback-bonus/cashback-calendar.html Max cash back is $90 ($1,500 max spending on Restaurants and Movie Theaters plus $300 max at Gas Stations in May).

If you don’t already have either of these cards, I would not sign up for them right not. There are currently not any good sign up bonuses for the cards. I’ll be sure to let you know when I see a good deal on these two cards.

You should also check out the Financial Samurai’s latest blog post on “Achieving Financial Freedom“. It is a great recap of how over time you should not only diversify your 401k, but your entire income stream. He works through what he refers to as his “Freedom Portfolio”. He goes into great detail on what he has done to build up a multiple passive income streams.

Category Credit Card Bonuses, General Advice | Tags: | No Comments
Amazon Just Outsmarted Me

March 7, 2012 by Mr. Slick

Amazon just outsmarted me…
Today I made the mistake of trying to help my fiance buy high heels online . I figured I could spend ten minutes and help save some money. After a little research I found the exact pair of shoes she wanted (pictured above) on Endless.com and 6pm.com, both of which are owned by Amazon.com

The price was $30 on 6pm, and $90 on Endless (both owned by Zappos). This is where normally I would just go with the $30 pair and be done with it. The spin is that she wanted them asap for wedding stuff (apparently getting shoes the day before the wedding is bad?). This had me leaning towards Endless.com since they had free 2nd day shipping and free returns, while 6pm had free standard shipping and full price returns (plus you have to pay for the “free” shipping).

My genius plan was just to just buy from both. Endless has free returns, so I would easily be able to return those once the 6pm order arrives. I started to execute on my master plan and proceed to order the shoes on Endless, I even paid the extra $4 them shipped overnight. When I go to phase two of my plan (buying the shoes on 6pm), I hit a bit of a speed bump.

Remember how Endless.com and 6pm are both owned by Amazon? It turns out that Amazon’s inventory system is synced across all their sites (amazon, endless and 6pm in this case). This means that the $90 shoes on Endless and the $30 shoes on 6pm were the exact same pair of shoes. Or in other words, the shoe is now sold out on 6pm.

It is extremely clever how Amazon has managed to differentiate the value add for each of their websites, even while on the surface it appears that they own multiple properties with exactly the same product line. In this case they charge a premium on Endless for the faster shipping and easy returns, while 6pm is their discount store where there are lower prices but have much slower shipping times without the free return policy.

It also shows how my original logic of comparing the shoes purely on price is flawed. Endless and 6pm are not a apples to apples comparison, even when looking at the exact same shoes.

A more accurate formula to compare the two would have been:

Endless Cost vs 6pm Cost + 2nd Day Air + Cost of Return

Looking at things like this better evens the playing field. Note I said better evens, 6pm would still have been $30 less, and I am kicking myself over that $30. I am upset and impressed at the same time.

As I finished writing that last sentence, I decided that I was more upset than impressed. I called up Endless.com and canceled my order. Now I am left to patiently wait for the shoes to come back in stock in Amazon’s inventory system and place the order on 6pm (I am hoping this happens or else I may have a very upset fiance!).

I learned my lesson, I will no longer try and help with online shoe buying .

Category General Advice | Tags: | No Comments
Stop Dreading Filing Your Taxes

February 2, 2012 by Mr. Slick

Tax time, tax time, tax time is nearly here. There are many reasons to absolutely dread having to PAY taxes, but for the majority of people there shouldn’t be any reason to dread FILING them.

If all you have is W2 from your job and maybe a few 1099s from interest you earned from your savings (although interest rates have been near ZERO! so that is one less form for most people to worry about) filing your taxes is DEAD EASY. Not only is it easy, it can also be FREE.

Anyone who’s adjusted gross income is less than $57,000 can file their federal taxes for FREE. According to the IRS, nearly 70% of all taxpayers fall into this category. Remember this is AGI, so this means you can make under $57,000 after subtracting all your 401k deductions, HSA deductions, standard deductions, student loan deductions…. and the list goes on.

Here is information on IRS Free File straight from the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

I have helped people out in the past with their taxes and have always been a fan of Turbo Tax’s Free eFile: TurboTax® Online Federal Free Edition (Note this is an affiliate link, and I earn a few dollars if you sign up), but there are litteraly dozens of other options, all nearly the same. Here is the full list of IRS approved free file vendors: http://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?ck

Note that they will try and up-sell you left and right away from the free version. If you only have a few W2s and 1099s it really isn’t worth it. It is also important to note that the federal efile is free, this doesn’t mean that filing your state taxes will be free to efile. I believe most programs will let you print out your state return and file it yourself for free, but I live in Texas which has zero state income tax so that isn’t something I am familiar with.

For those that have an AGI higher than $57,000 or have more advanced tax issues, the tax industry would LOVE to help you out by selling you something. You have until April 17th this year to file, so you still have some time. I am personally a big fan of the software solution, it makes life so much easier when filing investment income and carrying forward certain carry over deductions I have. I personally use H&R Block At Home Deluxe which I paid $17 for a few weeks ago. I have zero complains, it gives me 5 free efiles, and many packages include state file. The tax software goes on sale every other week. Bookmark this page and I’ll be sure to update it with the newest tax software related deals. Currently the best deal appears to be going through State Farm where you can get 25% off each of TurboTax’s offerings: http://www.statefarm.com/landing/turbo-tax-11.asp

Again I will update with any new offers as they come up.

For the majority of people the above advice is perfect. For those with much more advanced cases, or those who run their own businesses, there is a definite place for seeking professional advice that software can’t replace. In addition to the advise you can get, you will also get a CPA on your side will definitely be a life saver if you end up getting audited.

Now for a rant! If you are filing your taxes and realize you are getting a big fat refund, stop celebrating! You are getting a refund because you gave Uncle Sam an interest free loan for the entire year! Your refund isn’t a prize, it is your over payment on your taxes. You are reading Slick Finances, what part of letting someone else hold onto thousands of your dollars for free is slick?

End Rant! No worries, just make sure to fix things so I don’t have to hear you celebrating your refund next year!

The main way to fix this is to change your W4 withholding from your employer. The higher the number you put on your number W4 the MORE money you will get from each paycheck. That is right, by paying your taxes correctly you actually earn more each paycheck. Don’t go crazy here, read the W4 carefully. Come next tax time the net amount of taxes you pay will not have changed, you simply didn’t over pay your taxes every single paycheck. You can use the handy IRS W4 calculator here: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/page/0,,id=14806,00.html

Photo Courtesy of 401k

Category General Advice, Taxes | Tags: | No Comments
Chase $300 Cash Bonus After $500 in Spending is Back!

January 24, 2012 by Mr. Slick
You may remember when I first featured the Chase Freedom Visa back in October. Well looks like it is back! Sign up here: https://applynowdc1.chase.com/FlexAppWeb/renderApp.do?SPID=DN52 (Leave a comment if this link stops working and I will update!)

The details are the same as before:

Earn a $300 cash bonus after spending $500 in your first three months of having the card.

I am a big fan of this card as a daily spender. It gets 1% cash back on all purchases plus 5% cash back in revolving categories.

For January 1st – March 31st the 5% categories are:
- Gas Stations
- Amazon.com
Remember you need to manually opt-in for the 5% bonus categories. The link to sign up for this quarters 5% cash back on Gas and Amazon is here: https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom/activate.aspx

You can also sign up for text or email alerts to remind you to sign up for the new categories. I’ll also try and do a better job keeping track of the quarterly 5% categories going forward.
Category Credit Card Bonuses | Tags: | No Comments
2011 Recap and my 2012 New Years Resolution

January 1, 2012 by Mr. Slick

I’m planning on buying a home mid-way through 2012, thus I will need to start getting my credit report squeaky clean to qualify for the best mortgage rates. This means that I will not be signing up for any new credit cards or bank accounts in the next few months. The good news is that I am still going to share all the latest deals with you. My 2012 new years resolution is to live vicariously through my readers.

Now, how about we take a look at how I fared in 2011 just looking at credit card rewards:

Discover Card: $34.39 cash and $240 in Shell gift cards

American Express: $53 cash and $50 in Cheese Cake Factory gift cards
Various Citi Cards: $400 in Wal-Mart gift cards and 4,300 in Thank You Points
Chase AARP: $427 cash
Chase Freedom: $32 in cash and $800 in Amazon.com gift cards
Envaulted: $109.07 cash
Other: $116.20 cash
___________________

Total: $771.66 cash, $800 in Amazon gift cards, $400 in Wal-Mart gift cards, $240 in Shell Gas gift cards, and $50 in Cheese Cake Factory gift cards

Full Detailed Summary:

Discover Card: $34.39 Cash and $240 in Shell Gift Cards
I earned $174.39 in Cash Back by using my Discover More Card which offers revolving 5% cash back categories each quarter, as well as 15% cash back to Groupon through their ShopDiscover store. I had the cash back sitting in my account when Discover Card offered a redemption bonus of 50% off Shell Gift Cards. I redeemed $140 worth of discover cash back for $280 in Shell Gas Station gift cards. Can’t beat getting 50% off gas paid for using bonus points.

American Express Blue Card: $53 and $50 in Cheese Cake Factory Gift Cards
It was an extremely light year for me and my American Express card. I redeemed the $50 Cheese Cake Factory gift card for only $25 worth of Amex points. I really didn’t use this card much when I had cards with higher rewards on all my purchased.

Citi Cards Combined: $400 in Wal-Mart Gift Cards with 4,300 remaining thank you points (Valued at <$43)
I have multiple citi cards, the MTVu and the Forward which both give me 5% back (in thank you points, not cash) at Movies, Restaurants, and Bookstores. The kicker here was that they classify Amazon.com purchases as Bookstore. So these two cards were my go to cards for Amazon.com purchases. I had these cards more than 4 years, and the Thank You network redemption value has been getting worse each and every year. I went ahead and cashed out 40,000 thank you points for the $400 in Wal-Mart Gift cards when they offered the 10,000 for $100 redemption rate that they tend to have every few months.

Chase AARP: $427 in cold hard cash.
The AARP card gives me 5% cash back on all my purchases for the first 6 months. I still have 2 more months of the 5% off, but the first 4 months have been excellent. From paying my rent as well as all my other expenses, this card has been my favorite closing out 2011.

Chase Freedom Card: $32 cash and $800 in Amazon.com Gift Cards
Yes you read that correctly, $800 in Amazon.com gift cards. I received $250 cash back after spending $300 for this card very early in 2011. In addition to the $250, I took advantage of the revolving 5% cash back categories the Freedom card offered. I ended up with just north of 40,000 Ultimate Rewards Points by Black Friday (November 25th, 2011), which is normally redeemable for $400 in cash. What ended up happening was that Chase had a Black Friday Cyber Monday sale through Best Buy. Everything seemed to be over 50% off. I picked up a top of the line Samsung TV worth $800-$1000 for 37,000 points ($370).

When I got the TV home it ended up not fitting in my entertainment center so I went back to Best Buy to see what they could do. Turns out they had no problem just giving me a refund for the price of the TV in the form of gift cards. So now I have $800 in Best Buy Gift Cards, a store I rarely shop at.

A little known fact is that most Best Buys sell Amazon Kindle gift cards which they keep either in the gift card section of where they have the eReader accessories. These Amazon kindle gift cards work on ALL amazon.com purchases. So I promptly traded in my $800 Best Buy gift cards for $800 in Amazon gift cards. So if my family members are wondering why all their Christmas gifts came in Amazon boxes, this is why.

Envaulted: $109.07
This is cash back from Envaulted.com, a cash back site that gives me 1% or more on all my credit card purchases. This 1% is on top of any cash back I get from the credit cards directly. It is currently in private beta, and I encourage you to sign up and try to get in.

Other: $116.20.
This was from two class action settlement checks I received. I do not recall the specifics, but I received some forms maybe even last year about my eligibility and just in the past two months received two checks. One for $18.04 for a foreign currency fee settlement, and $98.16 for a class action against Bank of America for a class action against their excessive fees.

Hope you all had a great 2011. I am looking forward to sharing more opportunities as they come up in 2012.

Category Credit Card Bonuses | Tags: | No Comments
My Credit Card Number Was Stolen

December 28, 2011 by Mr. Slick

It is a scary thought for just about anyone. Having anything taken away from you makes you feel violated. Having money taken away from you, especially around the holidays, really makes you feel violated. This was just the situation I found myself in this past week. No sweat though, this story has a happy ending.

Recalling back to my post on knowing where you are spending money, you know that I am a rabid Mint.com user. After writing that post I thought I didn’t really give the competition a fair chance. Over the past few weeks I have started testing Yodlee, mint.com’s main free competitor. Because I had registered all my cards with Yodlee, by default they send me emails whenever I spent over $100. This is something that you can manually set up with Mint (sign in to mint, then click “Your Profile” and then “Email and Alerts”) but I had never changed the defaults.

So there I am sitting in Washington DC’s Reagan airport when I get an email from Yodlee, alerting me that I had spent >$100 somewhere. Now normally I disregard these emails, since I have a habit of looking at my transactions on Mint at least once a day from my phone. This time though it seemed suspicious. I had been in DC for the past few days allowing my older siblings and my mom to pick up all the tabs, so I knew I didn’t spend any money recently. Especially not more than $100 (other than a $100 cash donation to a classy casino in West Virginia).

This is what I saw when I opened the email:

I definitely didn’t recall spending $368.52 at Macy’s. A few hours later, after I arrived home from my travels, I called the number on the back of my previously trusty AARP card. I asked the representative the city that the Macy’s purchase had taken place, she replied “Wayne, New Jersey”. I let her know that I had never heard of a Wayne, New Jersey nor had I stepped foot into a Macy’s in the last year. She said “No problem Mr. Slick, I will take off the charge and send you a new card via Express Mail”. Two days later, as I was leaving for work the UPS man knocked on my door and handed me my new AARP card. From the time someone made a fraudulent purchase on my CC 3 total days had passed, I had a new card already in my hand and my account balance didn’t show the fraudulent charge.

The main point of this post was to highlight that by always knowing where your money is, and taking advantage of Mint.com’s and Yodlee’s built in alerts, you can make recovering from Credit Card Theft as painless as possible. This also highlights why I only use Credit Cards instead of debit cards for all my payments. Besides all the rewards points (which is the main driver for me choosing which particular credit card to use), credit cards offer increased security from fraud. Sure if your debit card was stolen the bank would get you back your money. But when you use a debit card the money comes straight out of your checking account. This opens you up to not only losing the money in the account, but could cause all your bill payments to default resulting in a headache of fines, fees, overdrafts that would takes weeks to sort through.

So go to Mint.com now, set up your alerts and stop buying things online with a debit card!

Category General Advice | Tags: | No Comments
How I Make $50 a Month By Paying Rent

December 18, 2011 by Mr. Slick
Dear readers of Slick Finance, I have a confession. I have not been sharing with you many of my more recent, more slick, financial trickeries. In the next few posts I will try and make things right. I just needed to establish a few ground rules before getting to the really good stuff.

Quick recap of the ground rules:
1: Understand Whats on Your Credit Report
2. Know Where Your Money Is At All Times
3. The Basics of Personal Savings

Also it is probably a good idea to refresh yourselves on my general criteria for taking advantage of credit card and banking bonuses.

OK, now that we both have that out of the way I can go over with you how I make $50 a month paying my rent ($48.42 to be exact).

Now you may remember that I am a proud card carrying member of the AARP, but did you remember why? Why to be eligible for the Chase AARP visa, which gives me 5% cashback on ALL my purchases for the first 6 months of course!

If you remember from my AARP post, I recommended that the card only be for those who would spend more than $5,000 in the 6 months the 5% is active. The reason being is that is what gets you to the $250 cash back bonus which is my personal threshold to make a credit card worth signing up for.

Here I am, getting 5% on everything I put on the credit card for the next 6 months, looking for any arbitrage opportunities that I can find. The most ideal type of arbitrage would be being able to buy money, essentially earning 5% right away and being able to take the money back into the bank and pay off the credit card. These types of situations are extremely rare, although in early 2011 you could essentially do this by buying dollar coins directly from the US Mint at face value with free shipping… but that is a story for another day! Also before you think you found a loophole, understand what gets counted as a cash advance!

For many people (me included) my monthly rent is my largest monthly expense. I normally pay rent the boring way by sending a check to my landlord; I pay through ING direct so I don’t have to pay for any stamps or have any actual paper checks on hand. Now that I can get 5% cashback on all my purchases it opens things up to some interesting arbitrage opportunities around paying my rent with a credit card.

My landlord doesn’t offer me any way to pay rent via credit card, so I needed to get a little resourceful. Then I found William Paid, who for a monthly fee ($1.75) and a % of the payment (2.45%) will charge my credit card and send my landlord a paper check. Normally it would not be smart to take a 2.45% fee on something that a paper check could do fore free. Since I have my trusty AARP getting me 5% cash back I can handle the fees and still make money.

Here is the full breakdown of how I make nearly $50 a month paying my rent:
- Rent + Utilities: $1,500*
- Monthly Fees to WilliamPaid.com: $1.75 a month +2.45% = $38.50
- WilliamPaid rolls the fee up into the Credit Card charge so my AARP is charged $1,538.50
- AARP CashBack: 5% of $1,538.50 = $86.91 (rounded down for easy counting, and chase probably steals my half a cent)
- EnVaulted** CashBack = $10
- Total Cash Back = $86.91 + $10 = $96.61
- Profit (Fees – CashBack) = $96.61 – $38.50 = $48.42
There you have it. The full details on how I am making $48.42 cents by simply paying my rent each month. By the time my AARP card is done with it’s 5% goodness I will have earned $290.52 thanks to this little arbitrage opportunity.

*I pay my rent and utilities directly to my land lord. My land lord also allows me to overpay my rent each month and just carries over the balance to the next month. Since I only have the 5% cashback for 6 months I am trying to get the most out of it and am paying $1,500 a month to my land lord.
** Envaulted.com is a cashback site that pays me 1% up to $10 max per purchase on any credit cards I have set up through their site. The site is in a private beta, which I encourage everyone to sign up for. Just note that it took me more than 6 months to get in. Full details of their model are beyond the scope of this post, if you want to know more let me know and I can dedicate a post towards it.

There are a lot of arbitrage opportunities out there, you just need to keep your eyes peeled and run the numbers to see if it works out. I will be sure to share any other slick opportunities as that I come across.

Photo Attribution: Images_of_Money
Category Slick Tricks | Tags: | No Comments
The Basics of Personal Savings

December 7, 2011 by Mr. Slick

This past week a friend asked me the following: “I want to invest some money in the stock market. What do I need to do?”

This is one of those loaded questions. The kind of question that is asked like it should be answered with a single sentence when in reality it can easily turn into an all night conversation.The vast majority of the time the answer to this is not about getting started trading stocks at all. My version of the answer is to make sure that they have the basics of personal savings in check, then as you will see attempt to avoid the actual question all together.

What are the basics of personal savings you ask?

1. Does your employer provide you with a match on your 401k? If so the first step should be contributing to this up to your match. This is essentially free money. TAKE IT.

2. Do you have any debt? Work on paying that down in the most efficient way possible, hitting the highest interest rates first with larger payments and snowball that debt down.

3. Max out that Roth IRA. Seriously do it. For 2011 the Roth ira maximums are $5,000. You have until tax day (April, 17th 2012) to max out 2011, so if you haven’t started yet… you have plenty of time. The 2012 limits are also $5,000 and you can start contributing your after tax dollars January 1st, 2012. (If you need a recommendations on a company I am a fan of both Fidelity and Vanguard). Remember, money you put into your roth is post tax. This means that you don’t have to pay any taxed on the gains when you take it out later in life (retirement). Another thing many people miss is that any contributions you make to a Roth can be withdrawn any time tax free, making it a great last resort emergency fund.

*Note that for some people step 3 is “Set up a 3-6 month emergency fund”. I like to suggest the Roth IRA contributions ahead of the emergency fund since you can take out your Roth IRA contributions at any time, which could be considered ample emergency funding.

4. The emergency fund. Have enough liquid cash to be able to last you 3-6 months of normal expenses. You can include any Roth IRA contributions towards this total if you are comfortable with that.

5. Back to the 401k! If you still have money left to save, pat yourself on your back and when you finish go to your 401k provider’s website (or talk with your HR department) and up your contributions so you contribute the maximum for 2011 $16,500 of sweet sweet pretax currency. For 2012 the 401k limit is increased to $17,000. Not much of an increase, but i’ll take it!

6. You made it this far. You have saved $16,500 pretax in your 401k (plus any matching you get), $5,000 in your Roth IRA post tax and have a 3-6 month buffer. Now things get tricky. It is really personal preference once you get to this point. Your short and long term goals will really drive where your money goes now. Start making larger contributions to your mortgage payments. Buy some low fee stock funds that meet your objectives or index funds.

All this from the simple question “How do I invest in the Stock Market”. On top of that I managed to completely avoid directly answering the question. You don’t invest in the stock market just to invest in the stock market. You use it as an additional tool to help you achieve whatever goals you made for yourself.

Did I miss anything? Any other suggestions or questions?

Disclaimer: All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. SlickFinances.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

Category The Welcome Kit | Tags: | No Comments
Refinance Your Car Loan at 1.99% APR

November 7, 2011 by Mr. Slick

I am sure by now you have heard refinancing offers on homes at historically low rates. Did you know that it is also possible to refinance your car the same way? Have a used car? No problem you can refinance too.

Is your car a 2010 or newer? Are you currently paying more than 1.99% APR on your current auto loan? If so than this is for you.

The principles of refinancing a loan can get complicated. I am going to try and walk you through the process.

Step 1: Donate $20 to the Red Cross

Ok you are probably really confused about how donating $20 to the Red Cross has anything to do with refinancing your car loan. Trust me on this, it has everything to do with it! The slick part of this deal is that by donating to the Red Cross you now meet the criteria for joining one of my favorite credit unions out there, Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PENfed for short). If you are a member of our armed forces you don’t have to pay the $20 as you are instantly eligible, there are also a few other ways to be eligible. Here is the full list of requirments to join: https://www.penfed.org/howtojoin/overview.asp . As you can see #6 reads “A volunteer is defined as anyone who provides wealth wisdom, or work. Wealth can include a blood donation or a financial donation.” That is it! One financial donation later and you are eligible to join PenFed.

Step 2: Join PenFed

Now that you are eligible to join PenFed based on step 1 go ahead and do so here: https://www.penfed.org/membershipApplication/2008/americanRedCross.asp?app=

Step 3: Apply for a Refinance On Your Used Car

Once you joined PenFed you can apply for a car refinance at the amazing 1.99% APR rate here: https://www.penfed.org/productsAndRates/loans/vehicleLoans/refinanceAutoLoan.asp

Now go off and enjoy your lower monthly payments! If you are in the market for a new or used car PenFed is also a great option, offering 1.99% APR on those as well. It is rare getting that great a rate on a used purchase. If this post didn’t apply to you, than I hope you at least took from it that most credit unions have ways to join that are accessible to nearly everyone who can read the membership terms and be a little creative.

(photo curtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/windelbo/)

Category Auto Expenses | Tags: | No Comments

Older Entries

Card #1 is the Barclay’s NFL Extra Point Card

Card #2 is the United Explorer Card