Alex Merrick

4% match on transferred account assets up to $10,000?! This tastytrade promotion is absolutely bonkers.

As far as a deal goes, this appears to be a pretty stellar one. It’s orders of magnitude bigger than other investment account signup bonuses, and the restrictions associated with it are pretty reasonable (cannot withdraw funds for a year else bonus is forfeit). The company/platform I have had less exposure and experience with, but

4% match on transferred account assets up to $10,000?! This tastytrade promotion is absolutely bonkers. Read More »

That beefy AMEX Platinum $895 annual fee just posted. Somehow, remarkably, it’s actually worth paying.

I don’t like paying fees. I don’t like paying small fees. I ABSOLUTELY don’t love paying big fees. That said, I have found there are many cards where the annual fees are worth the slew of rewards and benefits that come with the membership. American Express Platinum is one of those, despite the outrageous, marketplace-topping

That beefy AMEX Platinum $895 annual fee just posted. Somehow, remarkably, it’s actually worth paying. Read More »

“Would you like the car rental supplemental damage waiver?” — Absolutely not

We had a lovely MLK weekend trip up in New York City and Connecticut this past weekend. While we didn’t need (or want) a car in the city itself, we did need one to visit the family in more rural Connecticut. The internet helped find a reasonably cheap booking (<$100 for a one-way, one-day rental),

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Sometimes too good to be true really is too good – Origins Card 6% Everywhere Card

The past few weeks I’ve been targeted for a few Facebook and Instagram ads. I’m a sucker for a deal, and so I like to humor what comes across because occasionally there’s something to take advantage of. Fancy marketing copy. Bold value claims. Big headlines. However, just because you can make something pretty and make

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A Flat Rate Story — NYC Taxi from LGA airport scamming magically resolved… within a day

It’s Mamdani’s New York now! We’re traveling up to NYC for the long weekend. Some fun with family, some free points from a Hilton timeshare presentation, a play, some good food (I already chomped a halfway decent lox-bagel this morning!) Things are expensive, but that’s no reason to sit back and stand for being scammed.

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“Hello, is this still available?” — Facebook Marketplace is a great tool for subsidizing household upgrades

We’ve done some nice home upgrades these past few months. Newly painted walls. New wallpaper. New vacuum. New decorations in our front room. Cleaning out our utility closet. Many of these left us with some perfectly functional but used old household items and arrangements. Even more so than making money, I feel wasteful throwing away

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Capping credit card interest rates at 10% sure may sound good, on the surface…

…but there’s always more to the story. I’ll keep this focused on the the cap, and avoid the challenges associated with the…politicization at play. If the question were around affordability and predatory industry behavior, there would be a wide range of other administration focus, like…not gutting the CFPB. With that said, let’s get into it.

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The easiest $1k I’ve ever made (Fidelity brokerage & IVV S&P500 index fund)

Once upon a time, Fidelity had a $100 bonus for opening an individual personal investing account and funding with $500. In late 2022, I took advantage of this, and funded a total of $1,000 ($500 in December’22, $500 in January’23). I parked almost all of this money in a S&P500 index fund (IVV) and did

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