I love taking advantage of the bank. Does that sound mean? Well, since I worked for several banks over my career, I can tell you this: banks are kind of mean themselves. They make a ton of money and they sit around most of the day trying to find new ways to make even more off of you.  Just recall the way they were back in the financial crises a few years ago, practically destroying our economy and rewarding themselves with “golden parachutes” while many were losing their houses thanks to their predator mentality in the mortgage game. So it is a good feeling to know that many of them are on their knees begging for my business.  The best part of that is that I know how to beat them at their own game. And now I want to share it with you. Am I being too hard on them? I don’t think so. Here’s how the bank begged me to take their free money!

One thing has changed since 2007. The banks are trying to win you back are being are pretty nice to you in one way. And that’s this: They will practically bend over backwards to get you to open an account by giving away free money! The sky is the limit and the competition is so fierce that the offers are just plain weird. You probably know that, if like me you get bombarded with e-mail, snail mail, and all kinds of promotions each week to draw you in to their “web”. So here are just a few of the ways that you can get something for practically nothing these days. I did it and so can you. Continue reading

The fears we all have about our finances are real. In fact, they are things that happen every day to many people and that’s the part that scares us the most. We never know when we might suffer a shocking natural disaster or some careless transaction in our lives that will cost us money, safety, and pride. There are scam artists and there are some us who are just a little too trusting as well. It doesn’t really matter if you are wealthy or not, no one wants to suffer these financial losses and thus we worry about it.

On Tuesday in Part 1, I covered four huge financial fears and how to cope. Today, in Part 2, let’s look at four more of these financial woes that can happen and what we can do to stop them. Continue reading

It runs through your mind at night like a scary movie. It’s those frightening financial fears that so many of us worry about daily. Some of these fears are caused by a thing as simple as student loan debt or it may be as complicated as dealing with a health issue and how that can affect your work, income, and spending. I don’t want to paint a picture of doom and gloom here but being a realist I have been in the position of worrying about money, so I understand what it is like. So what can we do about that? The worries and fears we have are in some ways a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Worries and fears about money and financial problems can have a terrible impact on you. It is debilitating to spend hours of time thinking and ruminating. It can affect the way you function and perform at your job and it can cause you to lose sleep at night. Even personal relationships are disrupted.  All of those things can actually make your situation worse and possibly expedite the very fears you have into happening.  While there are things that can and will happen to us in life, the time and energy we spend on this subject is much better when it is spent on a plan of what we can actually do to prevent our fears from ever happening or what we can do to prepare and fix them if and when they actually occur. Continue reading