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PerkStreet Financial Free Rewards Checking – Review: A Cash Back Checking Account? That’s Right!

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Over the past couple of years we've seen the rates on online savings accounts drop like a rock.  Most online savings accounts are currently hovering around 1-1.3% in interest earned on your money.  In other words it isn't exactly an amazing return on your money.

In addition to the online savings accounts souring,  rewards credit cards have been seeing their accounts drop benefits, add annual fees and in general become less of a good deal.   I know my rewards credit card terms have changed for the worse.

It isn't a great environment if you're actually trying to get something extra for your money.   Until now.

Perkstreet Financial has burst onto the scene with a new concept that has a lot of folks pretty excited.  It's a rewards checking account!  You get to earn money on the money that you spend from your account – up to 2%!

Perkstreet Financial Free Rewards Checking

For the most part online and bricks and mortar checking accounts haven't been anything to get excited about. You get an account, and you use it to pay your bills. While you may not be paying any account fees, you're also not getting much out of the account other than a place to put your money before you send it out to all your regular monthly bills and savings goals.  Now Perkstreet is turning things around by offering people cash back just for spending their own money.   How much money you get back really depends on a couple of factors.

  • How much you spend: The more you spend, the more you get back!
  • How much you keep in your account:  If you keep $5000 or more in your account at all times, you'll be able to earn 2% cash back on all your purchases.  While that might not sound like that much at first glance, if you consider it, it really does end up being quite a bit of money. For example, if you spend $2500 in a normal month on all your bills, you could start paying them via your Perkstreet Visa, and get back $50 in cash if you have a $5000 balance.  Even without a high balance you'd make $25 back!  That's $300-600 back in a year!

With cash back rewards that good on a checking account, what it really means is that my credit card account is becoming obsolete.  I pay cash for everything anyway, so why would I keep the credit card account, and it's associated risks when I can get the same benefits from my checking account?

Benefits Of The Perkstreet Checking Account

The account at Perkstreet really is chocked full of benefits. Some of them include:

  • No Cap On the Amount of Perks You Can Earn
  • Nation’s Largest Surcharge-Free ATM Network
  • No Minimum Balance Requirement
  • No Monthly Fees When You Use Your Account
  • Sign-Up In Just 5 Minutes
  • Free Online Banking and Bill Pay
  • No Need to Worry, Deposits are FDIC Insured Up to $250,000 and Protected from Fraud by the Visa Zero Liability Policy
  • PerkStreet Financial? Visa® Debit Card gives you 2% cash back
  • You can get 5% cash back on certain categories and certain merchants!
  • Super fast live phone service, 24/7

SignUp For Perkstreet In 5 Minutes

Getting a new account at Perkstreet is quick process that should only take you 5 minutes of your time, according to their site.  You select what type of rewards you want, give identification, review your information, and fund the account via credit or debit card.

What information will you need when you open your account?:

  • Social Security Number
  • Personal information
  • Driver’s license
  • Debit or credit card to make the initial $25 deposit.

Some have stated that when they opened their account they didn't get a hard credit pull on their credit report.  Others have stated that when they opened a “plus” account – with overdraft protection, they DID see a hard credit pull.  I’m not sure if either of these is true, so be forewarned.

Conclusion

When I heard about the Perkstreet Rewards Checking account, I was intrigued. It was a pretty new type of account offering, not one you're seeing yet at many other banks.  Time will tell if it is successful, but if it is, you can be assured that you'll see these account types popping up all over.

Some of the things I like the most about the rewards checking at Perkstreet include the large number of free ATMs you can use when you have the account (over 37,000 of them in the STARsf® surcharge-free network), no monthly fees as long as you use the account, free bill pay, and the protection of FDIC insurance of up to $250,000 on your account. So you don’t have to worry about your money being safe.

Best of all, the account will pay you to spend your own money, without having to use a credit card!

One of the few downsides I can see is that you have to keep a relatively high $5000 balance to earn the highest cash back rate (2%), but even at the lower rate, it's still a pretty good deal.

If you want a rewards account, but don't like dancing with the credit card devils, Perkstreet is a great option to consider.  Not only will you be paying cash for the things you buy, but you'll be earning money back on all your purchases!

Want to sign up now?  Check it out at the link below:

Sign Up For Perkstreet Financial Rewards Checking

Personal Finance Basics: Live Below Your Means

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Last week I started a series called “Personal Finance Basics“.  In the series I plan on talking about basic concepts of personal finance, going back to the simple concepts that we sometimes forget or ignore.  Last time I talked about the idea of paying yourself first in order to ensure that your savings grow – instead of having your money mysteriously disappear.

This time I want to talk about another important concept – living below your means.

The Lure Of Easy Credit

One thing that this generation has done is to forget the basic concept of how you create and grow wealth.  The ideas of easy credit and buying things before you have the cash have taken  hold.  Whereas our parents  would save up and pay cash for the things they bought, when we have a whim and desire something – we just buy it.

The average age at which a U.S. consumer under the age of 35 first adopted a credit card is 20.8 years. The average age of credit card adoption for a consumer over the age of 65 is 40.6 years. (Source: “The 2008 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice,” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston)

The average age that we started using credit has dropped as time has gone on.   Using credit and going in debt has become more acceptable.  Millions of people have acquired debt and gone thousands of dollars in debt.

Total U.S. revolving debt (98 percent of which is made up of credit card debt): $852.6 billion, as of March 2010 (Source: Federal Reserve's G.19 report on consumer credit, March 2010)

So revolving debt in the U.S. has grown to near 1 trillion dollars.  That can't be a good thing!

So what can you do about it?

Spend Less Than You Earn And Live Below Your Means

Thomas J. Stanley in his book “The Millionaire Next Door” talked about millionaires and what the greatest factors were that lead to their creation of wealth. Contrary to the picture that many people hold of the wealthy, the picture of the lavish spending, expensive cars and expensive homes, most millionaires  that he interviewed were rather frugal.  They lived well within their means – and most lived below their means.

He said that the average millionaire doesn't have material things just to have them:

We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.  Most of us (97 percent) are homeowners. We live in homes currently valued at an average of $320,000. About half of us have occupied the same home for more than twenty years. Thus, we have enjoyed significant increases in the value of our homes.

Millionaires don't feel the need to display their wealth, or show off by living in fancy neighborhoods and drive a fancy car. They live below their means, make thoughtful homemade gifts, buy quality things, and don't focus on brand names or status symbols. They enjoy the good things in life, but also know good value. They know how to live on less than they make. In fact, for many of them, their frugality and living below their means is one of the primary reasons why they have created their wealth.

So what do you think – is living below your means an important piece of creating and growing wealth? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

Personal Finance Basics: Pay Yourself First

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Personal finance can seem like such an amazingly complex topic at times.  There are so many things to think about with financial management including budgeting, saving, investing, credit, debt, mortgages and so much more.  Each topic has sub-topics – and it feels like it could take a lifetime to figure it all out.  It can be overwhelming.

A few days ago I talked about how we as humans like to take things that are basically simple, and make them more complex.  In that article I argued that we should “keep it simple stupid” and try to focus more on some of the basics, instead of trying to make things too complex.

In the spirit of going back to the basics, today I want to start a series of posts called “Personal Finance Basics” where I'll be talking about some of the simple concepts of personal finance that I believe you should focus on in order to be successful. Today, I'll be talking about saving and paying yourself first.

Pay Yourself First

One important piece of advice that you often see repeated, but not followed is the simple advice of paying yourself first.    This advice has been around for ages, so sometimes it seems a little antiquated – something your grandfather might tell you.  The thing is, it works.

JD from getrichslowly.org explains paying yourself first this way:

Before you pay your bills, before you buy groceries, before you do anything else, set aside a portion of your income to save. The first bill you pay each month should be to yourself. This habit, developed early, can help a person build tremendous wealth. I wish I’d understood this when I graduated from college.

So to pay yourself first you make your saving a priority – and as soon as your paycheck comes in, you pay yourself, and fully fund your savings and investment goals.

The problem is that most people don't pay themselves first.  They play the game backwards – and end up following a system where they pay all their bills, spend on entertainment and eating out and the last thing they do is fund their savings and investment goals.  When they do that they often end up running out of money before they are able to fund their savings.  Savings becomes a footnote and gets lost in the shuffle.

Why Should I Pay Myself First?

While most people agree that having some sort of savings and investment plans is important, not everyone agrees about how to get there.    For many it just seems too hard to save their money first because they feel like they've got too many other spending and debt priorities.

Here are some of the reasons why I believe that it's important to pay yourself first.

  • Paying yourself first makes saving a priority: When you save last by default it means that all of your other bills, spending and other monetary obligations are more important that saving for your future.  By paying yourself first it makes your saving and investment goals the priority.
  • Paying yourself first equals sound financial planning: When you pay yourself first it means that you're planning ahead – not just for the far future – 30 years down the line – but also for every day emergencies like medical issues, car troubles and so on.  When you save first and have an emergency fund, you'll be ready when these problems crop up.
  • Paying yourself first can help motivate you to reach your goals:  When you pay yourself first you'll see your savings and retirement accounts growing faster than if your savings goals came after your bills and entertainment expenses. Watching those savings can be very motivating to help move you towards reaching other goals as well!

How Should I Pay Myself Automatically?

Once you decide it's a good idea to pay yourself first, the next step to take is to put a plan in action in order to actually pay yourself first.   For me the best thing you can do is make paying yourself first automatic.

Here are some ways that you can work towards reaching your savings and investment goals.

  • Set up automatic investments:  Set it up with your company to automatically invest in your company's retirement savings plan, especially if they have a plan that matches your investments. If they do it's an automatic 100% return right away!  If they don't match think about setting up a tax-free Roth IRA and maxing that out first.  Then open one of the variety of pre-tax investments and maxing those out.   If you have the money come out of your paycheck before you even see it, it makes it much easier to make a plan that doesn't include that money!
  • Open a high yield savings account: Open up a online savings account where you can set up an automatic savings goal – where money is withdrawn for your savings every month without you having to do anything. Again, making it automatic makes it much easier!
  • Come up with your own ways to trick yourself into saving:  Doing things like saving coins and adding them to your savings, or saving every $10 bill that comes your way are examples of ways you can increase and add extra savings.

What are some ways that you can come up with to trick yourself into saving? Do you have thoughts on why it's important to pay yourself first?  Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Save Money On Hefty Hospital Bills Simply By Requesting A Discount

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The past couple of years have been tough ones at our house, and we've ended up spending weeks in the hospital for a variety of surgeries, births and other medical issues. We've been spending a lot of money on our family's health care costs. In fact, if we hadn't had health insurance we probably would have ended up paying in excess of $300,000 over the past 3 years.

Even with health insurance our hospital and health care bills have still been in the tens of thousands of dollars – and if we hadn't found this money saving tip, it would have been much more!

What is the tip? We ask for a discount on our health care!

Save Money On Health Care By Asking For A Discount

A couple of years ago my wife was in the hospital for a unexpected medical emergency.  We ended up amassing some pretty large bills, and when it was all said and done, we had several thousand dollars worth of care to pay for.

A friend of ours told us that they had found out through another friend that often if you just ask the billing department at the hospital for a discount, or tell them that you need some help paying your bill, they're often willing to work with you and give you discounts in the range of 10-20% or more!

Smart Money Magazine explains why they're often open to hearing from you, and why they'll give a discount:

When it comes to getting paid, hospitals have their work cut out for them. Medical bills are a major cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., and when collectors are put on the case, they take up to 25% of what is reclaimed, according to Mark Friedman, founder of billing consultant Premium Healthcare Services. That leaves room for some bargaining.Take Logan Roberts. The 26-year-old had started work as a business analyst near Atlanta but had no insurance when he was rushed to the ER for an appendectomy. The uninsured can pay three times more for procedures, says Nora Johnson, senior director of Medical Billing Advocates of America; Roberts was billed $21,000. “I was like, holy cow!” he says. “That’s four times my net worth.”

After advice from advocacy group The Access Project, Roberts spoke with hospital administrators, telling them he couldn’t pay in full. Hospitals frequently work with patients, offering payment plans or discounts. It paid off for Roberts, whose bill was sliced to $4,100 — 20% of the original.

So basically it boils down to this:  Hospitals are willing to give discounts or help people pay for their bills because it's cheaper for them than having to put a bill collector on the case, especially when the collector will take up to 25% of what is collected. It is in the hospital's best interest to work with those who are trying to pay their bills.

When we asked for a discount on my wife's hospital bills we ended up saving about 10% off of our total bill, which came out to several hundred dollars. Not bad for a single phone call!

Save Money Everywhere By Asking For A Discount

The fact is that hospitals aren't the only place that you can ask for a cash discount, or for a discount for paying in full.  For example, many electronics stores  have wiggle room on their prices which means that you can usually ask for a discount on the item, or work deals where you buy two items, and get one for free.  Just ask for a manager or someone in authority who can make the decision.

The moral of the story is that it never hurts to ask for a discount.

  1. Ask for a discount or help in paying.
  2. Ask for it in writing – or for a new bill to be sent.
  3. Pay in cash in full.

That's it!

Have you ever saved money at the hospital or elsewhere just by asking for a discount?  Tell us your story or thoughts on the topic in the comments.

Watch TV For Free On Your Devices Using PlayOn Media Server

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how you can save money on your cable or satellite TV bill by just cutting them off, and watching your favorite TV shows and movies online, and on your TV via a game console or other networked media player.

While just telling you that you can do this and save money is great, today I thought I would do a quick video and text tutorial and walk-through to show how quick and easy it is to setup your home entertainment system to use a streaming media server like PlayOn.

Here it is, and if you'd like you can follow along with the text below to install your own version of PlayOn.

Watching TV For Free Using Playon Media Streaming Software

As mentioned in my previous post, setting up a home system to watch TV shows, movies and other online video isn't as tough as some people might think.  Some of the online video options that we use at our house include:

Many of these video options  (and a ton of others) are available to you when you stream your video content using a PlayOn media server.   In fact, because you can use plug-ins for the software – just about any show you might want to watch excluding some live sports content is going to be available to you somewhere.

So what exactly does PlayOn do?

In more technical terms, PlayOn software is a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) digital media server and Web browser that runs on your Windows PC and browses web pages from Internet content providers. PlayOn formats and forwards the display output on the fly to make sure that your DNLA-compliant networked media device can receive it over your home's wireless network and present it on your TV (on-demand). Whew!

Setting Up Your Home Entertainment Center With Playon

Setting up your video home entertainment center to watch all your favorite shows is pretty simple.  Here is what you're going to need to get started.

Playon Streaming DVR
  • Computer with Playon software installed:  You'll need a computer on your home network where you can install the playon media server software and any plugins.
  • Network Media player:   You'll need a network media player or compatible game console (Xbox One, Playstation 4 or Wii will all work). List of compatible devices here.
  • TV: You'll obviously need a TV connected to the media player of your choice.

So let's start by installing the software on your computer.

playon dvr compatibility

Step 1: Installing Playon On Your Computer

The first step in getting your video home entertainment system setup is downloading and installing the Playon media server on your home computer. Here's how:

playon dvr
  • Download the 14 day free trial of the Playon Digital Media Server software here.
  • Install the software according to directions.
  • If you want you can download additional plugins for the software at sites like playonplugins.com and playonlabs.net (Some of our favorite plugins?  HGTV Network, Food Network, SyFy).  To install plugins place them in your “..\Program Files\MediaMall\plugins” directory and restart the software.
  • If you want to view your saved content or favorites lists on sites like Netflix, Youtube, Amazon VOD, and other services you'll want to enter your username and password information in PlayOn's settings screen.
  • If you're into this sort of thing – you can also share your viewing habits with friends via Twitter or Facebook by entering login information.

There you go – not too hard, right?  Now let's get to watching our shows!

Step 2: Viewing Content On Your Networked Media Device

After you've installed the software and plug-ins, and have made sure your computer and media device are connected to your home network, the next step is to try and view content on your media device.

  • Make sure your computer, TV and media device are all turned on.
  • Make sure the PlayOn Digital Media Server is running on the computer.
  • Depending upon what device you're using, find the PlayOn video content by going to the “video” section on your device.  (For example, if you're on an Xbox, browse to the “video” category and select “PlayOn:[computername]” as your video source.  (see screenshot above).  On Playstation it will be a similar process.  Go to video and select the “PlayOn ([computername])”  as the media server.  On Wii you'll want to go to the “Internet channel”, click on “www” and go to “playon.tv”.)
  • Once PlayOn is selected as the video source, you can then select what video service you want to view, and browse the content by show title and other categories.
  • View the content by selecting it and hitting the play button on your media device.  Be aware that sometimes it may take a short while for the video to buffer before it starts playing, and you may be shown some short commercials depending upon which video service you're watching.
  • To get more details and a full user guide for PlayOn, check out this .pdf file.

Watching TV Online Is Easier With PlayOn

One thing I've found to be true with the Playon software is continually updated, and that new content options are always being added either by the software's creators or by independent developers via the API and plugin interface.

If you don't find a video content provider listed that you would like to view, it would serve you well to check out one of the plugin sites mentioned above to search for a plugin – it might be available. If not, request a plug-in be made and someone else might create one for you!

Do you have questions about how to setup PlayOn for your household?  Have you already set it up at your house? Tell us how you like it in the comments!

Rags To Riches Millionaire Success Story: Jimmy Dean

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From time to time I think it's an interesting exercise to look at the stories of people who have risen to fame and fortune, and figure out how they did it. Was it luck? Hard work? A burning desire to succeed? Today i wanted to look at one such story of rags to riches.

This past weekend we saw the passing of a entertainment and business icon, musician, actor and sausage magnate Jimmy Dean. While most of us are probably familiar with Jimmy Dean's sausage because of the prolific TV commercials, what a lot of people don't know is that Jimmy Dean lived a true to life rags to riches story. He was a musician and singer, actor, businessman and more.

Early Life And Musical Beginnings

Jimmy Dean was born in 1928, in Plainview, Texas. He was raised in poverty and dropped out of high school after the ninth grade. Despite his humble beginnings, he rose above his situation, worked hard and made himself into a huge success.

Dean grew up in a musical household where his mother taught him to play the piano. His father, who left the family, was a songwriter and singer. Dean taught himself to play the accordion and the harmonica.

Dean began a band “The Texas Wildcats” in 1948 that by the early 1950's had it's first national hit.     In 1961 he  won the Grammy  for his big hit “Big Bad John,” which is about a coal miner who saves fellow workers when a mine roof collapses.  It's one of his more famous songs, that you can still hear today. Here's a video of the song:

Fame, Fortune And Business

His fame in the music business ended up leading to a career in TV and movies.   He had a couple of iterations of “The Jimmy Dean Show” on CBS and ABC, played an ally of James Bond in the film “Diamonds Are Forever.”   He was also the first guest host on “The Tonight Show”.

In the late 1960's Jimmy Dean returned to something that he knew well – the meat business. His family had raised hogs when he was little.  Jimmy and his brother  slaughtered the hogs and ground the meat – and his mother seasoned and prepared it.

Jimmy Dean opened the The Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in his home town of Plainview, Texas – and after six months, the company was profitable.  Jimmy was a good businessman.    He sold the company to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984, although he stayed on spokesman until 2003.   Who hasn't seen one of the commercials for Jimmy Dean Sausage?

By the early 1990's Jimmy's personal fortune had grown by leaps and bounds and was estimated at near 75 million dollars. Not bad for a poor kid from Plainview!

Jimmy Dean – Careful Money Manager

Having watched other stars fritter away their fortunes, Dean was always a careful money manager – which helped him to amass such a fortune.

“I've seen so many people in this business that made a fortune,” he told the AP. “They get old and broke and can't make any money. … I tell you something, … no one's going to play a benefit for Jimmy Dean.”

Jimmy Dean rose from a life of poverty with a single mother to attain every dream he had ever had. He did it through hard work, persistence and through common sense business practices and integrity. If we can learn anything from his life it is the power that can be found in those things.