It’s simple.

They separate the joy of getting something new from the pain of paying for it. It’s the same reason credit card companies entice you with “airline miles” that have nothing to do with the actual number of miles you’re traveling or “points” that don’t translate easily to a dollars.

At PerkStreet, you earn cash back at 1%, 2%, or 5% all year long, on all signature purchases. You rack up perks on your MyPerkStreet page, and each perk is worth exactly one dollar. Then we send you the gift card of your choice for exactly that amount. It’s simple stuff.

Still, the digitization of all of our financial lives has made budgeting more difficult in this century — we recognize that. It’s why, when we saw the Proverbial Wallets, created by our neighbors at MIT, we couldn’t help but tell you about them.

The Proverbial Wallets, developed by the Information Ecology team at the MIT Media Lab, use tactile indicators to relay how much is in your digital accounts. They’re just prototypes right now, but we think they’re awesome.

The Mother Bear becomes harder to open when your account balance is running low.

The Bumble Bee buzzes every time a transaction is processed, connecting card use to actual changes in account balances.

The Peacock swells when you have more money in your account and shrinks when you have less.

Check out this video, made by John Kestner, a member of the Information Ecology team that developed the prototypes:

Did you know PerkStreet’s own VP of Analytics, John Magee, is an MIT grad?

What do you think of the Proverbial Wallets? Do you know of other new technologies like this we should share with our readers? Please let us know in the comments!

Feel Your Virtual Money with the Proverbial Wallet is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

Nonetheless, the reasons to consider it are really appealing.

Gas is expensive. Maintenance costs are crushing. Insurance rates are daunting. Motor vehicle taxes are exorbitant. Car payments seem downright stupid. And driving is just plain bad for the environment. When you add up the padding it could mean for your budget, it sure looks like a super smart step to take, but ditching your gas guzzler is tough. As with all personal finance decisions, parting ways with your car is something that deserves careful consideration.

Here are three questions to ask yourself before getting rid of your car:

Can my family survive on fewer cars?

• Back in 2008, The U.S. Department of Transportation estimated the 304 million people in America owned a total of 256 million cars. That means we’re currently paying to keep 8/10 of a car on the road for every man, woman and child in America! It also means, we’re still living under the Baby Boom-era belief that every American should have a car. Do you really need all the cars your family owns? Ditching those payments, insurance, taxes and gas costs could mean enough for a much nicer annual vacation for your fam. (One they’ll complain less about.) Or a way bigger television for the living room. (What American family doesn’t want that?)

• Translation: Odds are, your family has more than one car. If you don’t need them all, consolidate. Look at your weekly transportation needs and see if intra-family carpooling is an option. It could translate to a way bigger family budget without your clan losing much in the way of convenience.

Can I take (new, improved) public transportation?

• Real-time data is making public transportation a whole lot more convenient across America. Gov 2.0 efforts are opening transportation data APIs all across the U.S., which means you can now know exactly when your bus or train will arrive at your stop based on GPS tracking of those vehicles. (Boston just opened up its subway train data this week.) Where before you used to have to run to catch the train or bus, you can now pop open your smartphone and watch it move from stop to stop on a map. This kind of innovation will make it much easier for urban commuters to take public transit than ever before.

• Translation: If you could take public transportation before but have been opting out of it, now might be a great time to make the switch. Unfortunately, this new technology doesn’t mean public transportation is now an option if it wasn’t before.

Can I use public car sharing to meet my transit needs?

• Let’s face it: Having a car is convenient. Driving can save you a ton of hassle and time. But if you don’t drive your car every day, you’re losing a bunch of money to insurers each month. Maybe you just like having a car to make weekend trips? Maybe all you care about is having a car to get groceries each week? If you live in one of the 50+ major cities or near the 100+ colleges and universities currently being served by Zipcar, parting with your car without having to lose that convenience could be even easier than you think. Car sharing basically gives whole communities access to cars within a 5-minute walk that they can rent by the hour. And, with emerging services like RelayRides popping up, car sharing is getting even cheaper.

• Translation: Car sharing can save you a ton of money if you’re just hanging onto your car for weekend getaways. Plus, it gives you options about the kinds of vehicles you can rent, so hanging onto that pickup truck is way less important than it was. But if your town or neighborhood doesn’t currently have car sharing as an option, you might want to hang onto your ride.

Ultimately, making the choice to break up with your car can feel brutal. If it seems like a good idea, but you can’t quite get yourself to do it, think about all the money you’ll walk away with. If a few thousand dollars in your pocket isn’t incentive enough, we don’t know what is.

Let us know how you decided to ditch your car in the comments section below!

Want even more cash in your pocket? PerkStreet Financial offers the best Cash Back Debit Card in the United States. The average American family can earn over $600 by switching to PerkStreet. What are you waiting for? Start earning Cash Back Rewards on your daily spending now!

Ditching Your Vehicle to Save Money: How to Know it’s a Good Idea is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

To put it bluntly, we love it.

So when we sat down to create our first commercial last month, we couldn’t have been more excited. We haven’t advertised much — most of our growth has been word of mouth. Everyone on the team had opinions about what it should look and feel like and they all had a chance to speak their minds. Ultimately, with the help of the team at Redtree Productions, we created something we think represents what we’re doing here at PerkStreet.

Fixing banking is a tough mission to undertake, but sometimes it’s really a lot of fun.

Here’s a quick look behind the scenes at the shooting of our new commercial.

Stay tuned for the full-length version. We’ll be posting it on the blog as soon as it’s ready!

Dan O’Malley
CEO

PerkStreet Behind the Scenes: Our First Commercial is Coming! is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

The Emmys blew through town recently, a blinged out hurricane of designer gowns, diamond jewelry, limousines and swag. Not only do the nominees and presenters get feted with a gift bag filled with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, but swag suites abound the entire week preceding the event. And the recipients of all this incredible bounty?

Rich, famous people.

It seems counter-intuitive, but one of the quirks about Hollywood is that after struggling and starving to “make it,” you arrive at a point where you’re rich enough to afford anything your heart desires, but despite your bankroll you get it all for free.

Okay, you’re probably thinking, “And what does this have to do with personal finance?” Well, the whole concept of freebies for the rich and famous is very much analogous to something I like to refer to as “The Halo Effect.” Here’s how it works:

I am an exceptionally fiscally responsible person: I don’t have any debt, I don’t spend more than I can afford and I always pay my bills on time.

Except when I don’t.

It doesn’t happen with much frequency, but on rare occasions my brain stops working and I inadvertently forget to pay a bill. Or, in the case of this past May/June, a couple of credit card bills and my rent.

Yes, it was June 3rd before a light went off in my brain and I realized I hadn’t made my monthly rent payment which is due on the 1st. I quickly corrected that error (via bank transfer, as fortunately, my landlord is off in England), but it was several days later until I realized I had also neglected to pay two small credit card bills.

I paid them off and waited for my new statement with the inevitable late fees and interest. I know I deserved to be hit with a hefty fee and the associated interest, but the thought of paying a nice chunk of change for a momentary lapse into stupidity really irked me. Until I came up with a way to magically make those charges go away utilizing the Halo Effect.

When the new statements arrived, I called each credit card’s customer service. I explained what happened (I.E. I made up a plausible story that was more persuasive than “I forgot”…) and asked if they could waive the interest and late fees. Which they did without any fuss because I (almost) always pay my bills on time.

There lies the Catch-22 of the Halo Effect: If you’re the sort of person who needs to catch a break from late fees and interest because you’re always being assessed with late fees and interest, you’re not going to have too much luck employing the Halo Effect to save you money. But, if you have good credit and a stellar financial reputation, you probably don’t need to utilize the Halo Effect.

Sure, getting out of financial hot water just when they’ve caught you in a fee seems counter-intuitive, but, hey, we live in a world where rich, famous people get free stuff all the time. Sometimes these things can surprise you.

If you do use the Halo Effect, remember to use it wisely and sparingly.

Have you ever talked your way out of late fees or other penalties? How did you do it?

The Halo Effect is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

As my last article about odd jobs indicated, I have a fair amount of experience with them. In junior high and high school, I never even learned to fill out a job application. While my peers were working at fast food restaurants, I made more money and had a more flexible schedule working odd jobs.

An odd job is any type of work that is done in addition to your regular occupation. The work is usually temporary and irregular, involves short periods of time and is often seasonal.

Recently a question was posed to me: How do you find an odd job?

The real answer is: I don’t know. Odd jobs always seemed to find me, however if you would like to make a little cash on the side, there are some things that you can do to increase your visibility. Here are a few suggestions to help keep you busy:

Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open

People mention odd job opportunities all the time, but you have to be ready to jump on it. I once worked an entire Spring Break for a man who was spray painting a high school assembly room. I overheard him telling my father that he enjoyed the painting, but hated all of the prep work. I asked if he needed any help with the prep work and was hired. The painter would probably have never though of sub-contracting out that part of his job if I had not said anything. And almost every odd job that I have ever worked has led to more job offers.

Be Flexible

This is the biggest reason that odd jobs are sometimes difficult for adults to land. Teens and college kids have more flexible schedules in which to get the work done. Usually someone looking for help needs it within a specific time-frame, if not right away, and  waiting until next week or your next free weekend is not an option.

Be Proactive

Look for jobs that need to be done in your neighborhood or as you go about your day’s business and then say something! If you are a renter, look for a job that your landlord might not want and offer to do it in exchange for reduced rent. I recently talked to a landlord who was paying tenants $85 a month for snow removal, whether it snowed or not.

Focus on Quality

Do the best job that you can. You never know who your employer is going to talk to next or who is going to see your work. I once took a job painting a garage when I was eleven years old and it was too much for me to handle. It involved scraping old paint, priming and then the actually painting. I should have gotten some help, but I bungled through it as best I could. Of course, the end product was poor. That person never asked me to work again.

Be Willing to Work for Free

Sometimes the best way to get an “in” is simply to work for free. Help a friend with moving, offer to mow the yard for a elderly neighbor, help with maintenance or cleaning at church. People who need work done are more likely to ask someone who is already working.

I remember my very first odd job. I was in third grade and my mother told me to go next door because my neighbor needed some weeds pulled. I walked over to the next yard and completed the task in about an hour. The neighbor gave me a five dollar bill. That was a lot of money for an eight year old in 1983! I felt bad and thought that I had been overpaid. A few minutes later, I rang the doorbell and attempted to give some of the money back!

Since that time, I never discussed payment when doing odd jobs, I just accepted the money that I was handed. This might not be a great approach for an adult who is looking for odd jobs, but I almost always come out ahead. Of course, there was that one time that my brother was paid with a bucket full of potatoes for a whole day’s work . . . but on the whole, most people overpay.

Finally, be a perfectionist, take pride in your work, and clean up when you are done. When word of mouth is your marketing method, you cannot afford any bad reviews!

What are your best tips for finding odd jobs? How do you use odd jobs to supplement your income? Let us know in the comments section below!

How to Find Odd Jobs is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

As of yesterday, summer is officially over. (No groans, please.)

It’s autumn and that means stores are already stocked with Halloween items. As October 31st comes and goes you’ll see some brief Thanksgiving displays then a full-on push for the big end of the year holidays — Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Heck, every year it seems the big holidays start earlier in the stores!

So what does this mean for you?

It’s time to start saving for the holidays if you aren’t already!

According to a Gallup poll released just before holidays last year, Americans expected to spend an average $743. Three in ten expected to spend $1,000 or more! Are you ready to spend that kind of money?

Regardless of what your holiday budget will be, it’s a good idea to start saving up now for the holidays so you aren’t hit with a big lump-sum bill later on. A gift budget will help keep your spending from going overboard. Here’s a simple plan to get your holiday savings started:

1. Jot down everyone you need to get a gift for and figure out how much you plan to spend on each of them. By making an actual list with a price range you are more likely to follow your budget. Otherwise it’s easy to let your spending get out of hand.
2. Add up the gift amount for all the people on your list. This is your gift total. Don’t forget to add a bit more to your total as there always seems to be a few people you forget or have to get last minute gifts for (“Oh, Aunt Minnie is coming to town for the holidays next week with her kids? Great.”)
3. Also add in the cost of cards, postcards, wrapping paper, and decorations. These things add up to a pretty penny too! Remember, setting a budget and saving now will help you keep you from splurging too much when the Christmas Spirit kicks in.
4. Decide how often you want to contribute to your savings. This could be monthly, weekly — whatever works best for you. Add up the saving cycles between now and the holidays. (For example, there are about three months until Christmas so if you contribute monthly you have four periods to save.)
5. Divide your total spending budget by the number of saving cycles you have left. This is how much you will need to save per cycle.
6. Set up an automatic savings plan. Many banks offering savings accounts these days will let you create an automatic savings plan, and will take out money automatically depending on the instructions you set up. Some allow you to create a sub-account that you can set up for a specific purpose while others have Christmas clubs for holidays savings. Whichever it is, setting up an automatic savings plan will ensure you actually save the money you will need so you aren’t stuck with a huge bill after the holidays!

Here are some other holiday shopping tips to help you save (and maybe stretch your budget further):

• Start shopping for gifts now. You have a list and the amount you want to spend. Who says you have to wait until November (or worse, December) to do your holiday shopping? Take advantage of “end of Summer” deals that are going on. Grab what you can at the lowest price you can find now.
• Shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On these two days, the first Friday and Monday, respectively, after Thanksgiving, many retailers offer up enormous discounts as this is the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. With good planning and research you can find gifts at significant discounts. Be warned though – Black Friday is a high traffic day and you should expect to find your favorite stores packed with people looking for deals. Some retailers offer limited amounts of some items or have different sales over the course of the day. But you can also find great deals online deals don’t just happen on Cyber Monday; you can find them on Black Friday as well.
• Agree to not give gifts. Ever have a friend you always trade a gift with but they never quite get the right thing for you and you don’t quite get the right thing for them? Maybe you feel obligated to buy a gift because you know they will get you one and you don’t want to be the inconsiderate one? Talk to these friends beforehand and agree to not buy each other gifts. You may be able to do your friend a favor and save your self some money at the same time.
• Take advantage of cash back rewards and “Perks” (get it? Perks, like PerkStreet?). When used responsibly, cash-back debit cards can be a great way to stretch your dollar a little more. If you are going to spend, why not get a little cash back for your trouble or earn a gift card or two?

So let’s recap: Set up a budget for your gifts, then create an automatic savings plan so you can start saving now. This way your holiday bills won’t seem so bad and you will have the money to pay them off.

What are your best tips for holiday budgeting? How do you find the best deals? Let us (and our readers) know in the comments section below.

Begin Your Holiday Savings Now is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

My story

I started as a PerkStreet customer, just like you. (Not a customer? Open an account in less than five minutes!) I had a horrible experience with my big bank – a story for another blog post – and was looking for a solution that was fee-free, convenient, and had amazing customer service. I was really happy with my experience as a customer, and six weeks in to my new job I’m absolutely loving being an employee here.

Inside the PerkStreet Studio

If you’ve ever watched Inside the Actor’s Studio (or the SNL parody with Will Ferrell) you’re familiar with the list of questions James Lipton asks each guest. In the interest of getting to know me, I thought I’d give them a whirl here:

What is your favorite word?
“Cattywompus.” I guess I picked it up when I lived in Virginia, because everyone in New England looks at me like I’m nuts when I say it. And if you’ve ever tried to drive in Boston, you know I have cause to use it frequently.

What is your least favorite word?
Knowledgeable. I can never remember how to spell it, and that’s a particularly sore point for a former spelling champ.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Sharing food and conversation. There is no better place to cultivate ideas than over a plate of something delicious, like nachos or goat cheese or nachos WITH goat cheese.

What turns you off?
Rudeness. Having a bad day is one thing, but I just can’t wrap my head around what drives some folks to be mean all the time.

What is your favorite curse word?
Without realizing it, I picked up “Son of a bee sting!” from Anchorman. I say that a lot, especially when I bump into things. I bump into things a lot, because I’m often in a hurry – I hate being late – or flailing around expounding upon some great idea and WHACK. Ow. Son of a bee sting.

What sound or noise do you love?
The silence of my grandmother’s farm in Maine. The sound of sabrage (yes, that’s me. I do my own stunts.)

What sound or noise do you hate?
Noisy neighbors late at night.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Farming. My very first job was working on a blueberry farm in NJ. I was always sunburned, filthy, and bruised and I never had a day off to join my friends at the beach. But at the end of the day, there’s a real sense of accomplishment. And no, I never got sick of blueberries.

What profession would you not like to do?
Anything that would cause me to act in a way that’s untrue to myself. I have to know that the company or product I represent is ultimately out to do good in the world, and work for and with people who support that.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
“The ice cream here is calorie-free.”

Now it’s your turn: tell me about you. Tell me why you love PerkStreet. Tell me what you want to see on this blog. Grab some nachos – let’s chat.

Who’s Writing This Blog, Anyway? is a post from: PerkStreet Blog

Ah, July 4th! Our day to celebrate independence with hotdogs, burgers, and fireworks.

I love celebrating in these typical July 4th festivities, but I don’t like spending a pretty penny to do it. Who wants to be burdened with credit card debt just to take a day off work?

photo credit: JrzyKat

Those Were The Days

Back in my hometown the city always had a massive show of fireworks at a central location — the high school baseball fields.

Growing up it was just a known thing. This is where you wanted to be on July 4th. Sure you might go to a neighborhood street party earlier in the day, but around dusk it was time to head over to the fireworks show.

Thousands of people would descend into a relatively small area with not enough parking. But that was just part of the charm of it. You would block several blocks away, grab your gear, and hoof it to find the best  spot to watch the show.

Some Things Never Change

You can still have this kind of fun and frugal July 4^th!

Get together with your friends to organize a cookout. Determine how many people are coming, and pool your money and resources. Your pooled dollars will stretch further together and you’ll end up with great food and a low per person cost.

Obviously you can’t put on a professional fireworks show. (At least for your neighbors’ sake I hope you can’t!) So it is probably best that you cookout earlier in the day then head on over to the community show. Plus if your municipality is paying to put on a show there is no need for you to buy small fireworks to entertain at your house. Check local radio and TV stations or newspapers for information about community activities.

Minimize Holiday Event Cost

The most frugal way to enjoy my hometown’s fireworks show is to:
1. Eat ahead of time
2. Bring a well-packed cooler, a couple of blankets, and some portable lawn games
3. Carpool

There are usually vendors selling food, plastic glowing items, flags… all things you don’t need or can buy for much cheaper on your own. Eating ahead of time will help you avoid premium prices for average quality food, and bringing the cooler will help you stay cool and avoid paying $2 for a bottle of water from a vendor.

Once you’ve found your spot just set up your blankets, crack open a soda, and lay back to enjoy the show.

Have a Frugal 4th of July is a post from: PerkStreet Blog