Archives for August 2015

History of 0% APR Interest Rates + Who’s Carrying a Monthly Balance?

August 17, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 3 Comments

From 2005 to 2007, a peek at my credit report might have revealed that I had over $30,000 in credit card debt. The good news is that I borrowed it at 0% APR and then immediately stashed it in an FDIC-insured bank account earning 6% interest at times. Just recently, a US presidential candidate disclosed an “up to $15k” credit card balance at 27% APR, which prompted Quoctrong Bui of NPR Planet Money to research how interest rates on credit cards have changed over time. I converted the interactive chart into an animated picture which cycles you from 2001 to 2013:

aprhistory

There’s also a chart showing the percentage of cardholders who pay off their balance in any given month, based on their FICO score.

0aprcredit2

Some observations:

The rise of 0% APR interest rates. In 2001, nobody was getting 0% APR interest rates. In 2004, there was a huge spike and that was basically “Peak 0% APR”. Since then, 0% rates have stayed around, gradually decreasing in popularity, until 2013 when there was again a slight uptick.

This doesn’t account for the changing length of 0% APR promotional periods. In 2005, there were a lot of 0% APR offers but they were usually for 6 to 12 months. As overall interest rates have remained very low across the board, there aren’t quite as many 0% APR offers available, but the best ones are for longer terms – up to 24 months.

Right now, you can get 0% APR for 15 months with no balance transfer fee, or 0% APR at 21 months with a balance transfer fee.

The big difference between the average cardholder with a 700 FICO and a 800 FICO score. I’ve always felt that anything above roughly 700 to 740 FICO was a “good enough” score with which I was rarely, if ever, denied credit. From the second chart above, you can flip the numbers to state that:

77% of folks with a 700 FICO carry a balance each month.
64% of folks with a 740 FICO carry a balance each month.
27% of folks with a 800 FICO carry a balance each month.

On the other hand, even 27% is higher than I though it would be. A lot of people with “good” and even “excellent” credit carry balances each month.

How many people are carrying balances after the 0% introductory period ends? Obviously, there is a reason that 0% APR offers are still around. But that reason isn’t completely explained above. Does 0% APR encourage “new” debt from people who wouldn’t otherwise carry a balance? For example, is it possible to look at 6 or 12 months after the 0% intro period ends, and see if that marks an increase in balances? Or are 0% APRs mainly a tactic to attract balances already held at other card companies?

If you DO pay your balances in full, you can still reap the benefits of your good credit score without paying interest. It’s now been a while since I was earning thousands of dollars in “free money” from 0% balance transfers. But the silver lining is that back in 2007 a “good” sign-up bonus was $100 while nowadays you can easily find credit card bonuses with $500 value. I would say it is even less work to manage a few new cards a year vs. juggling 0% balance transfers which required making last-minute payments to maximize interest earned, and thus worrying about missing a payment deadline.

A quick smartphone snapshot of credit cards in my wallet shows well over $2,000 of accrued bonus value – 2 free nights at any Hilton hotel for which I got over $1,000 value, $800 in American Airlines airfare (separate $500 in airfare credits offset the annual fee), 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points good for $500 in travel, and 40,000 American miles (former US Airways card). This is addition to any cash back/miles/points for purchases, free checked bags, or extended warranty perks.

aprhistory2

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers

Last updated: August 17, 2015

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Acorns App Review: Auto-Invest Your Spare Change, Now Free For Students

August 13, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 75 Comments

Updated review. New Android and web versions. Added details about “students invest for free” feature (anyone 24 and under). When I wrote about WiseBanyan, I remarked that now people could start investing a portfolio of ETFs with as little as 100 bucks. Well, what about investing just 57 cents at time?

Acorns is a new smartphone app that lets you invest your “spare change” into a diversified ETF portfolio of stocks and bonds. For example, if you bought something for $10.43, the Acorns app will “round up” your purchase to $11 and invest $0.57 into a brokerage account. The idea is that these small investments will make it simple and easy for folks to start saving and investing. Thanks to reader Steven for the tip.

How does it work? You’ll need to provide them:

Your personal information (name, address, SSN) because this is still a real SIPC-insured brokerage account underneath.
Your debit or credit card login information (so they can track your transactions and calculate round ups)
Your bank account and routing number (so they can pull money into your investment account)

The app scans your transactions, calculates the round-ups, pulls that money from your checking account, and automatically invests it for you. You can also make one-time deposits or schedule recurring deposits on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The app also tries to identify “found money” like rebates and rewards which it encourages you to also invest with a quick tap. Here’s a YouTube video demo:

Fees. You do not get charged any trading commissions for your investments, which can be a big factor in traditional brokerage accounts.

As of January 1st, 2015, Acorns has changed their fees to be either $1 a month (balances under $5,000) or 0.25% of assets per year (balances above $5,000). So on a $10,000 balance that would be $25 a year. No fee on $0 balances.

As of July 8, 2015, the management fees above will be waived for all students – defined as anyone under the age of 24 or you register under a .edu e-mail address and list your employment as “student”.

Withdrawals are free, but you may incur capital gains at income tax filing time. I don’t know if they will support asset transfers via ACAT.

Portfolio details. You can choose one of five target portfolios, ranging in risk level from conservative to aggressive. Mostly the popular Modern Portfolio Theory stuff that most other automated advisors offer… not surprising as their “Nobel Prize-winning economist advisor” is Harry Markowitz, who is a paid consultant.

acorns_portfolioma

All portfolios are constructed using the following six index ETFs:

Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO)
Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB)
Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)
Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
PIMCO Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (CORP)
iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF (SHY)

Fractional shares are used. Dividends are reinvested. Rebalancing happens automatically. Their asset allocation has much in common with most other automated portfolios, although it is probably one of the more different ones that I’ve seen in that you have no exposure to any stocks from Developed European and Asian countries like the UK, Japan, or Australia.

I’m a little concerned about all the tax lots created when buying stocks in such small amounts. Dealing with taxes when you sell might be a headache if they don’t import directly to TurboTax or similar tax software.

Availability. You can now use Acorns in either iOS/iPhone/iPad, Android, or online web-based application. The apps are also compatible with Apple Watch and Android Gear, for those so inclined.

My thoughts. My first reaction was… that it was a great idea that I wished I thought of first. I used to participate in Bank of America’s Keep The Change program, which is similar in that it also rounds up your BofA debit card transactions to the nearest dollar but instead moves the money into a BofA savings account paying essentially zero interest. Acorns takes it further by letting you use any bank and any debit or credit card, and also lets you invest it for potentially higher returns.

In addition, I agree that Acorns will lower the psychological barrier to investing because you don’t even have to commit to $25 a week or $500 a month. You know if you can afford a gizmo or meal at $15.66, you can afford it at $16, so why not invest that spare change? The hurdle can’t get much lower than that.

At the same time, we have to be realistic. With this model how much you save depends entirely on how many purchases you make, with a theoretical average of 50 cents saved per transaction. Even buying five things a day times 50 cents is $2.50 a day or $75 a month. It’s good as a kickstart, but not nearly enough to fund a retirement.

If you want to look at it purely mathematically, a monthly fee of $1 taken out of a $75 investment ends up being like a front-end load of 1.3%. Or given the target demographic of active smartphone users, you could just look at a buck a month as something you’d otherwise blow on some Candy Crush Saga app. I do think it is smart to let anyone 24 and under or a student use it for free.

Also, don’t call it a “piggy bank”. A piggy bank means you put in a quarter, and you can take out a quarter later on. A piggy bank is a bank savings account. Acorns on the other hand is a long-term investment account that you have to be ready not to touch for at least a decade. Sure the “expected” return is 4-9% but you have a good chance of a permanent loss of money if you withdraw within the next few years. If you start using this app, please remember this.

Bottom line: Neat idea, very nicely-designed app. Free for students or anyone age 24 and under. The Acorns app may not fund your entire retirement, but it can help those that need a nudge to invest. Automation helps you keep on track. I think there should an option for an FDIC-insured high-yield savings account.

Filed Under: Investing, Reviews

Last updated: July 5, 2018

Motif Investing Review – Be Your Own Fund Portfolio Manager, Even Get Paid By Others

August 13, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 34 Comments

Updated. Ever wanted to manage your own mutual or ETF? A new brokerage company called Motif Investing will let you do just that. One of their pitches is that you can invest in a group of up to 30 individual stocks that fit into a motif or theme like “Housing Recovery” or “Lots of Likes” (companies that have the most Likes on Facebook). You can buy the entire basket of stocks with just one $9.95 commission, with no ongoing management fees. The minimum motif investment amount is $250.

My initial impression was that it felt a bit too trendy and gimmicky to recommend as a long-term investment. Indeed, I don’t really care how many Facebook Likes a company has, and I doubt I would buy stocks based on my love of pets or my political views. It’s just not my style.

Since they let you customize the basket, anyone could essentially make their own ETF or mutual fund with ZERO expense ratio. You can’t track a broad index like the S&P 500, but if you do have a basket of stocks that you buy regularly, this would be a very cost-efficient way of doing it. You can add or remove stocks, and adjust the relative weighting of each stock in the motif. Here’s a screenshot (click to enlarge):

Horizon Motifs are preset “target date” motifs which are commision-free and with zero management fee. There are 9 different Horizon Motifs – you pick one of three time horizons (1 year, 5 year, or 15 year) and one of three risk levels (conservative, moderate, or aggressive). Kind of like a Target Date 20XX mutual fund, kind of like a roboadvisor. If you buy these specific portfolios, they waive their $9.95 commission. More information at this post: Horizon Motif Review: Commission-Free, No Advisory Fee, Index ETF Portfolios.

You can even make money when others use your Motif Portfolio with the Creator Royalty Program. Every time a client makes a $9.95 trade using your Motif, you’ll get a $1 royalty fee. For example, after reading an article about the Voya Corporate Leaders Trust Fund which bought 30 stocks in 1935 and then never sold them (but still charges a 0.52% management fee every year), I created the Depression Survivors Motif which does basically the same thing except it has zero management fees.

So far, I’ve made one entire dollar! 🙂 Recent performance has been abysmal due to recent oil price drops, as Chevron and ExxonMobil are significant holdings.

My plan is to someday create a custom basket of dividend-oriented stocks that hopefully will provide a long-term stream of growing income. For example, look at the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY) that holds 60 highest-yielding stocks of the S&P 1500 that have raised their dividends every year for the past 25 years. It’s a nice idea, but it leaves out some good companies and the 0.35% expense ratio eats up 10% of the original yield of the underlying companies. Why not hold most of these directly, remove some of the ones you don’t like, and keep the 0.35% as extra return for yourself?

Motif also uses dollar-based trades, which means every penny is invested, while they keep track of any fractional shares for you. No maintenance fees, no inactivity fees. In many ways, this is similar to the unlimited plan at Folio Investing, but Motif Investing has the potential to be a lot cheaper ($10 per motif trade with no minimum trade requirement vs. $29 every month for Folio) and is closer to a ETF in that they do real-time market trades. You can still do regular real-time trades of individual stocks for $4.95 per trade. Currently there is no automatic dividend reinvestment, the dividends go to cash and you reinvest yourself as desired.

Update: As of 8/13/15, Motif is adding the following features:

Dollar-based, real-time purchases of single stocks and ETFs (in addition to whole shares).
Stop loss orders by whole or fractional shares.
Create your own stock or ETF watch list.

New customer bonus. Right now, Motif Investing is offering new customers up to a $150 cash bonus when you open with $2,000+ and make 5 trades. If you make 1 trade, you’ll get $50. 3 trades will get $75.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Investing

Last updated: February 10, 2016

Weight Management vs. Money Management Advice Similarities, Revisited

August 12, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 2 Comments

I’ve written previously about the importance of permanent habit change in both managing your finances and your body weight. After finishing Smart People Don’t Diet by Charlotte Markey and then reviewing my Kindle highlights, please allow me to compare weight management and money management one more time.

I’m going to keep it simple; I’ll quote exact sentences from the book, and then tweak them ever-so-slightly to magically transform them into personal finance wisdom. Here’s a quote about her overall reason for writing this book:

Psychologists like me have been doing research about eating and weight loss for over a hundred years, and thousands of studies about these issues have been published. Scientists in related fields such as nutrition, medicine, and community health have also been studying and publishing about these issues for a very long time. And yet it seems that the most marketable and even outlandish ideas are what get the most attention when it comes to weight loss—not necessarily the ideas that are really going to work!

Here’s my Mad Libs version (all changes are bolded):

Finance academics like me have been doing research about investing for over a hundred years, and thousands of studies about these issues have been published. Scientists in related fields such as economics and behavioral psychology have also been studying and publishing about these issues for a very long time. And yet it seems that the most marketable and even outlandish ideas are what get the most attention when it comes to investing—not necessarily the ideas that are really going to work!

Sounds about right to me. Now, the recommended first step is to track your eating with a food diary:

Phase 1 is all about taking inventory and getting to know yourself—a critical first step. There should be no sense of deprivation when you follow the instructions for Phase 1. Phase 2 is when you’ll start to actually make changes to your eating behaviors.

In the same way, my recommended first step has been to track your spending with a daily log. There is virtually no change needed!

Phase 1 is all about taking inventory and getting to know yourself—a critical first step. There should be no sense of deprivation when you follow the instructions for Phase 1. Phase 2 is when you’ll start to actually make changes to your spending behaviors.

However, many successful people don’t need to keep up this daily tracking forever.

This is all common sense, but it is also supported by research: keeping a mental record of what you eat, or “counting” what you eat, is exhausting. This is one reason I don’t recommend constantly counting calories or counting anything as part of a long-term approach to weight management: food choices shouldn’t add to your mental fatigue.

The key is to measure your baseline and then make incremental but permanent changes. Nowadays, I still add up my expenses at the end of each month, but I don’t track anything on a day-to-day basis.

This is all common sense, but it is also supported by research: keeping a mental record of what you spend, or “counting” what you spend, is exhausting. This is one reason I don’t recommend constantly tracking every expense or counting anything as part of a long-term approach to money management: financial choices shouldn’t add to your mental fatigue.

Here are tips on creating better habits that won’t suck up all your willpower:

You don’t need to squeeze your own oranges to make juice; just eat an orange. You don’t need to make homemade bread; just buy whole-grain bread. It is okay to rely on frozen fruits or veggies to ensure that you eat enough each day. If you want to change your habits for the long-term, stick to a plan that is simple and create food routines. Simple is sustainable.

Simple is sustainable, I like that phrase!

You don’t need to analyze the balance sheets of individual companies; just buy an index fund. You don’t need to remember to manually save every month; make it automatic with scheduled online transfers to your IRA and/or 401k. It is okay to rely on Mint.com or PersonalCapital.com and credit/debit cards to track your overall spending. If you want to change your habits for the long-term, stick to a plan that is simple and create financial routines. Simple is sustainable.

Finally, a nice little summary. (The book has a lot of good advice, but it is a little repetitive.)

What I recommend to people to help them to lose weight is not always sexy, but it is what works. Weight-loss books change; most of them don’t stick around because they don’t work. To be healthy and lose weight, you have to change your habits. You also have to understand why you are eating. Convenience, habits, and our emotions are all an important part of our food choices.

What I recommend to people to help them to save and invest wisely is not always sexy, but it is what works. Personal finance and investing books change; most of them don’t stick around because they don’t work. To save prudently and achieve financial freedom, you have to change your habits. You also have to understand why you are earning and spending. Convenience, habits, and our emotions are all an important part of our financial choices.

Filed Under: Behavioral Economics, Investing

Last updated: April 25, 2019

Portfolio Charts Visualization Tool: Returns vs. Time (Holding Period)

August 10, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 2 Comments

When investing in stocks and bonds, it is important to take a long-term perspective. We’ve all heard that phrase. A new tool called PortfolioCharts.com lets you create charts that make it easier to visualize the relationship between returns and holding periods. Created by a fellow named Tyler, found via The Reformed Broker.

With the Pixel chart, you can customize any asset allocation and see that portfolio mix’s returns over a multitude of timeframes. Here’s the chart for The Swensen Portfolio, which is the closest “lazy portfolio” to my personal portfolio – 30% US Total, 15% Foreign Developed, 5% Emerging Market, 20 US REIT, 15% 5-Year Treasuries, 15% TIPS.

You can see that depending on your starting year, the returns over the next 1-9 year period could be pretty rough. But as long as you held for 10 years or more, you always got a positive real return above inflation. You can also see that the often-promised 5% real returns aren’t always guaranteed, although historically if you held on for 20+ years your odds were pretty good.

You may recall a similar style of chart from the NYT and Crestmont Research which includes additional data going back to 1920:

nytcrestmont

My favorite style is the Funnel chart:

The Funnel chart shows the changing uncertainty of compound annual growth rates over time. This demonstrates how long you may need to hold a portfolio to experience the average long-term returns it advertises. It also provides a nice snapshot of the range of 1-year volatility.

Here’s the Funnel for the same Swensen Portfolio:

The funnel chart also supports the notion – in an even simpler way – that if you can take a long-term perspective, your risk of losing money should decrease. Here’s a similar chart from the classic investing book A Random Walk Down Wall Street that was one of my early blog posts:

randomwalk_stocktime

Finally, the Hurricane chart allows you to simulate what would have happened to your portfolio balance if you made annual withdrawals, such as in a retirement scenario.

Warren Buffett is another famous supporter of taking the long-term view. From a recent CNBC interview:

Buffett, who looks to buy stocks or business for their long-term prospects, said recent weakness in the market does not concern him.

“Stocks are going to be higher, and perhaps a lot higher 10 years from now, 20 years from now,” he said, adding that’s why he does not try to time the market.

Hopefully for those investors with a long runway ahead of them, this new tool will help you view your portfolio in a more patient manner. I’ll try to remember it when the next market panic arrives.

Filed Under: Investing, Tools & Calculators

Last updated: August 19, 2015

Best Interest Rates for Savings Accounts and CDs – Updated August 2015

August 7, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 8 Comments

percentage2 Our family keeps a year’s worth of expenses (not income) put aside in cash reserves; it provides financial insurance with the side benefits of lower stress and less concern about stock market gyrations. In my opinion, emergency funds can actually have a better return on investment than what you see on your bank statement.

I don’t chase rates nearly as much as I used to, but it still pays to shop around. Too many places are paying ZERO or close to it – the Megabanks, short-term US Treasuries, and money market sweep funds. Do you know what Chase offers on a 1-year CD? 0.02% APY. Bank of America on their 10-year CD? 0.15% APY. Meanwhile, the rates below vary from 1% up to over 3% annualized.

Best Currently Available Interest Rates
Here is a brief roundup of the best interest rates available on deposits backed by the full faith and credit of the US government (FDIC-insured, NCUA-insured, US Treasury Bonds, US Savings Bonds). I will try to sort them from the shortest to longest maturities.

High-yield savings accounts

It seems every bank has their own online savings account, with the best accounts with long-term competitive rates earning around 1% APY. These savings accounts can change their interest rate at any time, so if you’re going to just pick the highest one, be ready to move your money.

Short-term guaranteed rates (under 1 year)

Everbank Yield Pledge Money Market and Interest Checking account both offer 1.60% APY guaranteed (balances up to $150k on the Money Market) for the first 6 months for new accounts. Since it is fixed, this is essentially a 6-month CD with a higher rate than any other 6-month CD rate out there and with no early withdrawal penalty to worry about.

Flexible Savings Bonds

“Series I” US Savings Bonds offer rates that are linked to inflation. Unfortunately, “I Bonds” bought right now will earn nothing for the first six months, and then a variable rate based on ongoing inflation after that. For new money, I would wait until mid-October when the next rate adjustment is announced. More info here.

Rewards checking accounts

These unique checking accounts pay above-average interest rates, but with some risk. You have to jump through certain hoops, and if you make a mistake you won’t earn any interest for that month. Rates can also drop quickly, leaving a “bait-and-switch” feeling. But the rates can be high while they last. Consumers Credit Union offers up to 5.09% APY on up to a $20k balance, although 3.09% APY is easier to achieve unless you satisfy a long list of requirements. I list this one because the rate is guaranteed until December 31, 2015.

Certificates of deposit

If you have a large cushion, it’s quite likely to just sit there for years. Why not put some money in longer-term investments where you can still take it out in a true emergency and pay an early withdrawal penalty. Synchrony Bank (formerly GE Capital Retail Bank) is offering a 5-year CD paying 2.25% APY $25k+ balances (2.20% APY for $2k+) with an early withdrawal penalty of 180 days interest. For example, if you withdraw from this CD after 2 years and pay the penalty, your effective rate earned will still be 1.69%. Capital One 360 also has a similar 5-year CD.
Other notable CDs… USAlliance FCU has a limited-time, callable 25-month CD paying 2.27% APY (anyone can donate to eligible charitable organization to gain membership). E-Loan Bank has a 5-year CD paying 2.45% APY but with a big early withdrawal penalty of two years of interest.

Longer-term Instruments

Willing to lock up your money for 10+ years? Did you know that you can buy certificates of deposit via Vanguard’s bond desk? These “brokered CDs” offer the same FDIC-insurance and are often through commercial banks like Goldman Sachs. As of this writing, you can get a 10-year CD maturing 8/12/2025 that pays 3.05% APY. Prices will vary regularly.
How about two decades!? “Series EE” US Savings Bonds are not indexed to inflation, but they have a guarantee that the value will double in value in 20 years, which equals a guaranteed return of 3.5% a year. However, if you don’t hold for that long, you’ll be stuck with the normal rate which is quite low (currently a sad 0.50% APY). Think of it as a huge early withdrawal penalty. You really want to be sure you’ll keep it for 20 years.

How about my money? In terms of the opportunities above, I have opened an account at Everbank in the past for the promo rate and I have usually try to buy the max in US Savings I Bonds each year (no EE bonds, too long of a commitment). I don’t currently juggle any rewards checking accounts nor do I have any deposits with any other banks mentioned above. It’s just not worth it me to switch right now.

Besides some older CDs at higher rates, I keep a good chunk of my money at Ally Bank because right now they are the all-around “good enough” bank for me. Sure I could eek out 1.05% in a savings account somewhere, but Ally Online Savings is paying a 0.99% APY (as of 8/6/15) which serves as a no-fee overdraft companion to my Ally Interest Checking with ATM fee rebates. Along the same lines, I could get 2.25% in an outside bank’s 5-year CD, but Ally has 2.00% APY on their 5-year CDs and a relatively short 150-day early withdrawal penalty. A rate difference of 0.25% on $10,000 over a year is $25, and I’m not sure that’s enough to open a CD at another bank when my current Ally CDs mature.

All rates were checked as of 8/6/15.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers

Last updated: August 9, 2018

Consumer Reports on Auto Insurance: Watch Your Credit Score, Shopping Behavior

August 5, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 11 Comments

cr_auto0 Consumer Reports (CR) has released a multi-part Special Report on Auto Insurance, included in their September 2015 print issue but also available online without a subscription (at least for now). They analyzed over 2 billion quotes from over 700 companies across 33,419 zip codes. Here are some highlights of what they found.

First, here’s a big picture view of which major car insurers are more expensive on average.

cr_auto1

The biggest individual factor in your premium may be your credit score. Clicking on your state on this 50-state interactive map will give you an idea of the effect of having a “poor” or merely “good” credit score as opposed to an “excellent” one. California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts are the only states that prohibit insurers from using credit scores to set prices.

Often, having a poor credit score with clean driving record is more expensive than having an excellent credit with a DUI/DWI! Here’s a screenshot for Florida:

cr_auto2

Another important factor is your loyalty and tendency to comparison shop other items like cable TV. You often think “Loyalty Discount”, but often there is a “Loyalty Penalty”. If you don’t shop your auto insurance, some companies don’t see something to be rewarded; they see a sucker. In my limited experience, the companies with the lowest quotes to entice you from another company are also the ones to hike up the rates every year afterward. Here’s what CR found:

Geico Casualty gave us whiplash with its $3,267 loyalty penalty in New Jersey and its $888 discount just across the state line in New York for longtime customers. State Farm Mutual consistently provided discounts of a couple of dollars up to a few hundred dollars; Allstate Fire and Casualty and Allstate Property & Casualty tended to prefer penalties.

As noted in a previous post, Big Data knows if you’re comparison shopping or not. Such “price optimization” occurs when they find out you could have saved money somewhere else like broadband internet, but didn’t. Not a price-sensitive shopper? You may get the higher rates. Even states that officially ban the practice don’t really have any foolproof way to know if it’s happening. Here’s what CR found:

Amica Mutual and State Farm told us they don’t use price optimization. Representatives from Allstate, Geico, Progressive, and USAA declined to discuss price optimization.

Here’s the general conclusion:

What we found is that behind the rate quotes is a pricing process that judges you less on driving habits and increasingly on socioeconomic factors. These include your credit history, whether you use department-store or bank credit cards, and even your TV provider. Those measures are then used in confidential and often confounding scoring algorithms.

What can a consumer do about all this? Consumer Reports wants you to write to your state’s insurance commissioner, and they have a petition template ready for you. David Merkel of The Aleph Blog says you should simply fight back the market-based way: comparison shop your personal insurance lines every 3 years.

Bid it out. Bid it out. Bid it out. What do you have to lose? If loyalty means something to the insurer, they will likely win the bid. If it doesn’t, they will likely lose. Either way you will win. If you have an agent, they will note that you are price-sensitive. The agent will become more of an ally, even if it doesn’t seem that way.

[…] You don’t need transparency, or more regulation. You don’t get transparency in the pricing of many items. You do need to bid out your business every now and then. You are your own best defender in matters like this. Take your opportunity and bid out your policies.

I tend to agree with Mr. Merkel. However, I am still a long-time customer with State Farm. I’m happy to see that State Farm was found to consistently providing loyalty discounts and claims not to engage in price optimization. I shopped around for auto quotes in 2013 and GEICO was cheaper by about $372 a year. However, I had to balance that with the knowledge that GEICO will probably hike my premiums every year and also I’ve had excellent claim service from State Farm. Perhaps it is time for another comparison shop.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Insurance

Last updated: August 5, 2015

PolicyGenius Review: Long-Term Disability Insurance Quotes for Independent Contractors

August 5, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 6 Comments

policygenuis_logo I would say that the insurance with the highest ratio of most-needed to least-bought would be long-term disability insurance. According to the Social Security Administration, just over 1 in 4 of today’s 20-year-olds will be become disabled at some point before reaching 67. According to a Harvard study, lost income due to illness was a contributor in 40.3% of all personal bankruptcies in the US. Here is a chart that shows the average duration of disability claims lasting more than 90 days, measured from the start of disability to (at most) age 65.

policygenuis0

Sometimes your employer offers group LTD coverage, but what happens when you switch to another job that doesn’t have it, or you get disabled while unemployed? Not all group plans are convertible to individual policies. Finally, what if you are self-employed? Many people are freelance graphic designers, writers, and other hard-to-define jobs.

PolicyGenius is one of many sites that offer online insurance quotes, but their specialty is straightforward information and non-pushy quotes for “young, self-directed people”. They sell:

Term life insurance
Long-term disability insurance
Renter’s insurance
Pet health insurance

I have to admit, the fact that they actually listed “blogger” as a legitimate job was the spark that made me want to get a quote from them. I also liked that they only sell term life insurance, and not whole life, permanent life, or indexed-confusing-whatevernot.

Another plus is that they have quotes from all seven major LTD insurers, and the quotes you get should be identical to everyone else’s for the exact same policy from the exact same insurer. That is, there are no various levels of markup depending on where you buy it from, like there is for Tide detergent or a Toyota Camry. The commission to the seller is already baked into the premiums.

I applied for a long-term disability insurance quote, which they call “insurance for your paycheck”. PolicyGenius has a modern, comfortable user interface. First, they’ll ask for basic information like gender, birthdate, and state of residence. Click on any screenshot to enlarge.

Income. Usually a policy won’t pay more than about 50% to 60% of your current income. I’m guessing they don’t want to make it too appealing an option!

Health info. Pre-existing conditions are usually excluded. The worse your health, the more likely you’ll become disabled.

Monthly benefit. Obviously the higher that is, the higher your premium.

Waiting period. The longer you are willing to wait before claiming a disability, the lower your premium.

Benefit period. How long do you want to be able to claim benefits?

Additional riders. There are coverage options which you can add or remove.

I made a quote with my own personal details, but also an additional quote for the following theoretical situation. The quotes still require additional underwriting, meaning you’ll probably have to submit supporting financial documents and complete a physical examination (blood, urine, body measurements). Here’s a rough outline:

Female, non-smoker, California resident, age 33.
Current income $5,000 a month. Policy benefit $3,400 a month.
Self-employed blogger for 5 years (classified as Reporters and Correspondents).
90 day waiting period, claim until age 65.
Own occupation, residual disability, and non-cancelable.

After 3 business days, I was e-mailed a quote of $265 a month from Principal Financial Group for this situation. This was significantly higher than the $130 to $175 a month estimate that was given initially, and much higher than the $98 a month quote I got for myself. My guess is that my monthly benefit was relatively high at 68% of current salary? I have also read that women are quoted higher premium when statistically likely to have a baby since pregnancy causes a lot of disabilities. I wrote back to them asking what things I could tweak (like a lower monthly benefit and/or a 180-day waiting period) in order to get the premium down to around $100 a month.

If you do get a LTD quote yourself, be sure to read all the tips during the quote process and also wade through the entire detailed proposal package for what is excluded. My thoughts are to treat this as true insurance (as opposed to a payment plan), which means you are trying to just cover catastrophic events and hope to never make a claim. That means I tried to make the benefit just big enough, the waiting period as long as I could bear, but I kept the claim period to age 65 in case I become permanently disabled.

One thing to note about disability quotes is that the price is usually the same across all the different comparison sites. I chose to highlight PolicyGenius because it was easier to use and less intimidating than other places that I’ve tried. If you choose to run a quote through my link and actually purchase a policy, I may receive a commission. If you’ve gone through the individual long-term disability insurance process, please share your experiences in the comments.

Filed Under: Insurance

Last updated: August 20, 2019

Pact App: Cash Motivation For Exercising or Eating Healthier

August 3, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 3 Comments

I am nearing my 6-month anniversary of making a weight loss bet with HealthyWage (3 months left) and DietBet (less than a week left). My aversion to losing money has really helped me remain focused on my goals, so I have a newfound respect for this niche inspired by behavioral economics. I’m also looking forward to spending my winnings! 😉

The Pact app (Free: Android, iOS) is another way that you can use money to motivate your health-related goals. (Formerly known as GymPact.) While the betting websites above track weight loss, this one has three different goals that you can choose:

Gym workouts. You make a commitment to “work out” at a set frequency per week. Any gym workout, run, or bike ride over 30 minutes counts, as does walking 10,000 steps in day. Only one workout per day counts, and the app will use GPS or built-in motion sensors to track your progress. You can also link up a Fitbit or Jawbone.
Food diary logging. You make a commitment to log your daily food intake a certain number of times per week. A complete daily food log with at least 1,200 calories and 3 recorded meals will count as a completed day. In partnership with MyFitnessPal.
Eat more veggies. You make a commitment to track and eat a certain number of servings of fruits and vegetables per week. This is tracked by uploading pictures taken by your smartphone and verified by other Pact users.

Some screenshots:

For each item that you miss, like a missed workout, you agree to a set penalty like $10. Upon starting a pact, you must provide a payment source of either a credit card or PayPal. If you complete the pact, then you will actually earn a small profit from the money taken from other users. The numbers will vary, but the reports I have found indicate that it has worked out to between 15 cents to at most $1 for each completed task, usually more towards the lower end. Pact gets their cut of the broken commitment penalties first, as that is how they make money.

In order to understand how or why such money-based incentives work, read this article from The Atlantic which summarizes recent academic research in behavioral economics:

Cash is a strong incentive, but the motivation goes away soon after the money does. That’s where those commitment contracts come in. At the end of the month-long incentive program, Royer and her team approached some of the employees with a proposal: They would hold onto your money if you committed to going to the gym once every two weeks, over a period of two months. If you met that goal, they’d give you your money back; if you didn’t, they’d give it away to charity. Not everyone the researchers approached signed on, but the ones who did—women and overweight people were the groups most likely to opt in—went 25 percent more often than those who didn’t.

[…] But it was the after-effects of the contracts—the behavioral changes that had been cemented long after the agreements expired—that most thrilled the researchers. Even two to three years after the study, those who participated in the month-long incentive program and then signed a two-month contract went to the gym at a rate that was 20 percent higher than those who weren’t entered into any program. Twenty percent may not seem like a lot, but it’s a remarkable uptick for an experimental program to maintain long after its conclusion.

Despite the hype about “getting paid to work out” or “cash rewards for health living”, this app is mostly about the human tendency of loss aversion. Losing $5 or $10 for every time you slack off and skip the gym is going to hurt a lot more than getting 50 cents if you do go. But based on my own experiences, such motivation can definitely work if you make the commitment.

I personally like this app because I don’t think I can lose another 10% of my current weight, but I can keep eating a steady stream of fruits and vegetables. I just have to consider whether I will actually remember to check-in several times a week, even if I actually do the healthy activity. Otherwise, I’ll just be losing money due to another human tendency: procrastination!

Filed Under: Behavioral Economics, Reviews

Last updated: August 9, 2018

Paribus: Automatically Request Price Drop Savings

August 2, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 5 Comments

paribus_logo Many online retailers offer a “Low Price Guarantee”, which doesn’t mean they actually have the lowest prices but only that they will match a lower price if you find it and ask for your money within a certain time window. Sometimes they’ll match certain competitors, and sometimes they’ll only match themselves.

For example, let’s say you buy some shoes and you find that a week later they are $25 less. If you don’t both notice and ask using the proper channels, you won’t get that $25 adjustment.

Paribus is a start-up which promises to help you automatically request price adjustments on all your online purchases. They’ll even see if you could have saved more using another coupon code. Thanks to reader Colin for the tip.

What does it cost? The service makes money on a contingency basis, taking 25% of any savings found. If it doesn’t save you money, it doesn’t get paid.

What merchants does it support? Here’s the current list:

Amazon.com
Target
Wal-Mart
Bloomingdale’s
Best Buy
Macy’s
Sephora.com
NewEgg.com
Staples
Bonobos
J. Crew
Zappos.com
Nordstrom
Gap
Banana Republic
Old Navy
Athleta
Piperlime

Any concerns or catches? Well, in order for their bots to do their thing (and basically impersonate you), you’ll need to hand them a decent amount of information. I signed for an account and this is what they wanted:

Control over your e-mail address. You will need an e-mail from a major provider (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or iCloud) and either need to authenticate them or give them your e-mail password. They need the ability to both scan your e-mail for receipts and send e-mails requesting refunds on your behalf.
Your Amazon.com password. If you want to utilize Amazon’s price match policy, you’ll have to give them your account password (which they promise to keep encrypted on their servers).
Your credit card information. Most retailers will credit your money onto the same payment method as the original purchase, so you’ll have to leave a credit card on file with Paribus for them to charge their finder’s fee.

A workaround for e-mail privacy concern would be to create a special e-mail address for shopping (i.e. yourname_receipts@gmail.com) and then set up auto-forwarding of everything going to that “dummy account” to your normal e-mail address (i.e. yourname@gmail.com). That way, you can just check your normal e-mail and still get all your online receipts.

I just signed up for an account today, but here’s a screenshot which shows some theoretical savings:

This does seem like a good idea for a service, although the merchants probably won’t like it as they profit when we are lazy and uninformed. I don’t like the idea of giving out my Amazon password, but really that is the only online merchant that I use regularly. The final question will be if their execution lives up to the promise of “set-it-and-forget-it” savings.

More: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Deals & Offers

Last updated: February 9, 2017

Archives for August 2015

History of 0% APR Interest Rates + Who’s Carrying a Monthly Balance?

Acorns App Review: Auto-Invest Your Spare Change, Now Free For Students

Motif Investing Review – Be Your Own Fund Portfolio Manager, Even Get Paid By Others

Weight Management vs. Money Management Advice Similarities, Revisited

Portfolio Charts Visualization Tool: Returns vs. Time (Holding Period)

Best Interest Rates for Savings Accounts and CDs – Updated August 2015

Consumer Reports on Auto Insurance: Watch Your Credit Score, Shopping Behavior

PolicyGenius Review: Long-Term Disability Insurance Quotes for Independent Contractors

Pact App: Cash Motivation For Exercising or Eating Healthier

Paribus: Automatically Request Price Drop Savings

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