Get a debit card that gives you cash back. I don't know how many banks have this, but I am loving it. I just used my debit card to pay rent, and got $9 cash back from the puchase. That's probably my biggest bill, but still, that's like saving $9 a month on rent. That's an extra $100+ a year!
Or, get a money market account or a checking account that pays you interest.
Or, check into how you pay your bills. After finding out about the cash back, I was going to switch my car insurance to be paid monthly with my debit card. But when I called, they told me I could save $3 a month having it directly withdrawn from my checking account. That's more than the cash back on the card and one less hassel for me.
I have a PayPal account and am getting better benefits from it than I have from any regular bank account. I used to just use it for eBay, but recently I thought about it, and I'm starting to use my PayPal account more. I've made my PayPal account into a money market account, so now I earn 4.7% (currently, it's subject to change) on my balance. And I get at least 1% cash back on any debit card purchases (when I use it like a credit card) because I list my eBay listings as PayPal preferred. And I only sell a couple items on eBay each year. In fact, I think I've sold less than 20 items total on eBay in the 6 or so years I've been on.
Since I get better terms in my PayPal account, I've decided to start using it more like a bank account. And if I don't have enough money in my PayPal account to cover a debit card purchase, it pulls the money from my regular bank account to cover it, and I still get the cash back. But, I do have to have money in the PayPal account to get the 4.7% from the money market. The only downside I'm finding with this is that it takes about 3 business days to transfer money into the PayPal account, so it takes a little bit of pre-planning.
While I'm singing PayPal's praises, I'll also add that I like they way they show my transactions. As soon as anything is charged to my debit card, it shows up as a pending transaction, even if the money's not taken out yet. My regular bank account doesn't do that. When I use my checking account debit card and forget to log it in my checkbook, it can throw me off and sometimes I don't see it come out of my account when I look online for a couple days. I don't have that problem with PayPal.
At any rate, I guess all I'm saying is with money getting tighter, it might be worth looking into the options your bank, or competing banks, offer. A checking account that earns interest or a debit card with cash back might give you an extra Starbucks a month at the very least. Or, take a look at how you pay your bills, sometimes certain payment types will give you a discount on your bill.
A security group recently discovered that for SOME reason, PayPal is allowing "Double Click" access to user's data. There are quite a few of the internal PayPal pages that are routed through Double Click servers. It has been demanded that PayPal explain why they are routing user data through one of the largest ad/user tracking operations on the net.
Well, I read a couple articles, and it looks like I haven't clicked on any of the links that go through Double Click. Right now I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.
But my main point stays the same. You don't have to go through PayPal for any of these tips, regular banks have money market accounts and debit cards that give cash back.
OK, that's the article/transcript I read. I searched news sources for an article about it, but didn't find anything. Hopefully they can clear it up soon, but in the meantime I'll pay more attention to where I click. That account is working out so well for me that I really don't want to just abandon it.
Like Steve even said in the podcast . . . even though I don't like what PayPal is doing, I'd rather trust one big provider with my financial info rather than giving my credit card to a whole bunch of little online shops.
Back on the saving pennies, the reason I mention this is because I have heard of this stuff before. But I basically live paycheck to paycheck (but I am getting better), so I never thought this stuff was for people like me. And I don't know much about investing and such, so I thought it was over my head.
So even if you don't have much money to work with, you can still use this stuff.
Like Steve even said in the podcast . . . even though I don't like what PayPal is doing, I'd rather trust one big provider with my financial info rather than giving my credit card to a whole bunch of little online shops.
And I want to doubt that they really are allowing access to all this information. If so, there would be a class action lawsuit that would involve nearly every eBay user. I'm guessing (hoping) it's just poor website organization.