Open Enrollment Season: Maximizing Your Employee Benefits

As open enrollment season is around the corner, Morningstar offered up an 10-minute video interview with Christine Benz discussing tips on maximizing your employee benefits. (Is it just me, or does open enrollment too often seem to be a game of … [Read the rest]

Smarter Better Faster by Charles Duhigg: Book Review and Highlights

We'd all like to improve our productivity. Ideally, this would only involve downloading an app for 99 cents. :) Instead, Charles Duhigg did a lot of research in various areas and filtered out universal concepts that we can apply to our everyday … [Read the rest]

Citibank $400 Checking Account Bonus

Citibank has a $400 bonus offer for new checking account customers. Here are the highlights: To qualify for a $400 cash bonus, open a new consumer checking account in The Citibank Account Package by 10/31/16. Within 30 days from the date … [Read the rest]

Vanguard Complacency Check

Vanguard recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, the first index fund available to individual investors. If you are like me and have a significant portion of your net worth in Vanguard products and services, you … [Read the rest]

Jack Bogle WSJ Interview Highlights (September 2016)

When Jack Bogle grants an interview, I sit down and take notes in case he drops something significant. Here is a link to his WSJ interview dated 9/2/2016 (paywall, use Google redirection if needed). Bogle estimates 2% annualized returns over … [Read the rest]

7 Essential Money Questions from The New York Times

The NY Times has a new essay called 7 Essential Money Questions Sure to Start a Conversation: What follows are the seven best queries that I could find that tend to stop people cold and get them to open up about whatever money they have and the … [Read the rest]

Free BJ’s Club Membership for American Express Cardholders (New Customers)

If you are an American Express cardholder, they have a promotion with BJ's Wholesale Clubs that will essentially net you a free 1-year membership if you are a new BJ's customer. The membership is discounted 50% down to $25, and then you also get a … [Read the rest]

Amazon Problems: Counterfeit Products

In my previous installment of Amazon Problems, I talked about fake Amazon product reviews. This time, I talk about fake products themselves. Thanks to lax Amazon policies, buyers now have to worry about whether their products are genuine or … [Read the rest]

Free 25 Hertz Gold Plus Points

Hertz has a Summer Bonus promotion with bonus points on your summer car rentals through 9/5/2016. Not much time left, but you can still get 25 free Hertz points just for registering with your Hertz Gold membership number. Register to earn up to … [Read the rest]

Schwab Target Date Index Funds Review

Charles Schwab has announced Schwab Target Index Funds, a new series of "all-in-one" target date mutual funds that are made up entirely of in-house Schwab Index ETFs and a Schwab cash mutual fund. Their existing offering Schwab Target Funds differs … [Read the rest]

US National Park Centennial: Free Admission, Special Events, and Virtual Reality Tours

The National Park Service turned 100 on August 25, 2016. From Thursday 8/25 to Sunday 8/28/16, there will be special events and free admission to all 412 national parks. Visit FindYourPark.com to find details about your nearest park. The fee … [Read the rest]

Free Educational Apps for Children: Duck Duck Moose

If you're a parent of young children these days, you're likely looking to make their screen time active and educational instead of passive. Unfortunately, free apps are often of low quality or severely restricted. Meanwhile, there are some … [Read the rest]