Archives for January 2025

United(SM) Business Card Review: 125,000 Bonus Miles Offer (Refreshed)

Posted on January 31, 2025 // 4 Comments

The United Business Card offers unique perks for regular United customers including free checked bags and expanded award seat availability for redeeming miles. Here are the highlights:

  • 125,000 bonus United miles after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is open.*
    Plus, earn 5,000 bonus miles after you add an employee card to your account in the first 3 months your account is open.*
  • 5,000-mile “better together” bonus each anniversary when you have both the UnitedSM Business Card and personal Chase United credit card.
  • Free first checked bag for both you and one traveling companion on the same reservation (a savings of up to $160 per roundtrip) when you use your Card to purchase your ticket. Terms Apply.
  • Two United ClubSM one-time passes per year, and priority boarding privileges.
  • $125 United travel credit after making 5 United® flight purchases of $100 or more each calendar year with your United? Business Card
  • 2X miles per $1 spent on local transit and commuting, including train tickets, taxi cabs, mass transit, tolls and ride share services.
  • 2X miles on dining, gas stations and office supply stores.
  • 2X miles on United purchases and 1 mile per $1 spent on all other purchases.
  • No foreign transaction fees.
  • Your miles don’t expire as long as your credit card account is open, with no limit to the number of miles you can earn.
  • Employee cards at no additional cost.
  • $150 Annual Fee.

This card is considered a “new” card, differ from the old Business Explorer card:

This product is available to you if you do not have this Card and have not received a new Cardmember bonus for this Card in the past 24 months.

In addition, you can get this card and bonus if you had the consumer version of the United Explorer in the past 24 months (or have one now).

Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. The business type is called a sole proprietorship, and these days many people are full-time or part-time consultants, freelancers, eBay/Amazon/Etsy sellers, Uber/Lyft drivers, or other one-person business owners. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.

Note that Chase has an unofficial rule that they will most likely deny approval on new credit cards if you have 5 or more new credit cards from any issuer on your credit report within the past 2 years (aka the 5/24 rule). This rule is designed to discourage folks that apply for high numbers of sign-up bonuses. This rule applies on a per-person basis, so in our household one applies to Chase while the other applies at other card issuers.

The good news is that small business cards from Chase hardly ever show up on personal credit reports, so getting this card in itself won’t affect your future 5/24 eligibility. This it makes a “free” application if you are already eligible.

This card is very focused on rewarding you for being a United customer. Before you board, you might use one of your free United Club lounge passes. You have the first checked bag for free on United flights, both for your and a companion traveling on the same reservation. The fee is now $40 per person, each way, so that this how they get the value of $160 each roundtrip. You also get Priority Boarding, which helps you find space for your carry-on.

Expanded award availability. This card also makes it easier for you to redeem those miles on Saver level tickets with no blackout dates for MileagePlus members booking award flights on United. Expanded and exclusive award seat availability on selected flights are another perk of this card.

Another unique feature of this card is that it offers primary coverage on the Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver. On many other cards, this coverage is offered as secondary coverage, meaning it only kicks in after your personal auto insurance has been exhausted.

Bottom line. The United Business Card offers valuable perks for folks that fly United even just once or twice a year. The card provides lounge passes, a free checked bag, priority boarding, and inflight discounts. There are bonus categories to earn more miles, and special expanded award seat inventory for credit card holders to make it easier to actually redeem those miles for flights.

Also see: Top 10 Best Small Business Card Bonus Offers.

The information for the United Business Card has been collected independently by My Money Blog. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Firstrade Brokerage: 3% Match on IRA Contributions, 2% Match on IRA Rollovers

Posted on January 30, 2025 // 6 Comments

Firstrade is a discount brokerage firm that is smaller but has been around for decades. They have a new IRA match promotion with a 3% match on contributions and a 2% match on IRA transfers and 401k-to-IRA rollovers (up to a $20,000 match amount). They have no minimum balance requirements, no annual fees on the IRA, and they don’t require any premium subscription (like Robinhood Gold). There is a minimum 5-year hold period. You can also get up to $250 in transfer fee rebates for eligible transfers over $2,500. Must open IRA by 2/21/25.

Update: For IRA rollovers, note that the fine print states “Mutual funds and Fixed income products transferred into the account are excluded from the calculation of rewards for this offer.”

More details:

1. Open a Firstrade IRA. Open a Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, or Rollover IRA during the promotion period.

2. Make Contributions or Transfers. Contributions: We’ll match 3% of new contributions made within 30 days of account opening. Transfers: We’ll match 2% of the total amount transferred from another IRA or 401(k) made within 30 days of account opening, up to a maximum of $20,000 match bonus.

3. Earn Rewards. Bonuses are paid 30 days after your new account is approved.

Get a 3% match on contributions and a 2% account transfer boost when you open a Firstrade No-Fee IRA. No minimums, annual, setup or maintenance fees—plus, enjoy commission-free trading on stocks, ETFs, options, and mutual funds.

Promotion Period: Open to U.S. residents who open a new retirement account (Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, or Rollover IRA) between January 21, 2025, and February 21, 2025, and fund the account within 30 days of approval.

This is very similar to the current Robinhood IRA promo, but without the Robinhood Gold requirement that costs $5/month. You may prefer Firstrade as they have a published phone customer service number and a physical branch in Flushing, NY. Customer support is also available in traditional and simplified Chinese, with representatives who speak both Cantonese and Mandarin. Or you may just appreciate that they aren’t Robinhood.

This would be a great offer if Robinhood didn’t already do it first and locked many of us into their 5-year hold period, but then again, if Robinhood didn’t do it first, then Firstrade probably wouldn’t have made this offer.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Investing //

US Bank Smartly Checking Account New User Bonus (Up to $450)

Posted on January 28, 2025 // 3 Comments

Updated. US Bank has a up to $450 new checking promotion when you open a Bank Smartly Checking account with $25 minimum and complete the following within 90 days:

  • Enroll in the U.S. Bank Mobile App or online banking.
  • Complete two or more direct deposits.

Your bonus is determined by the total amount of your direct deposits in those 90 days:

  • Earn $250 when your direct deposits total $2,000 to $4,999.99.
  • Earn $350 when your direct deposits total $5,000 to $7,999.99.
  • Earn $450 when your direct deposits total $8,000 or more.

The Smartly Checking account has a $6.95 monthly fee which that is waived with any one of the following:

  • Your combined monthly direct deposits total $1,000 or more.
  • You keep a minimum average account balance of $1,500 or more.
  • You are age 24 and under.
  • You are age 65 and over.
  • You are a member of the military.
  • You hold an eligible US Bank credit card
  • Qualify for one of the four Smart Rewards® tiers (Primary, Plus, Premium or Pinnacle).
  • Are a member of another of their “special customer groups”.

You may still be considered a “new” account even if you had a US Bank account years ago:

U.S. Bank Smartly® Checking bonus: To be eligible, you or any owner(s) on your new Bank Smartly Checking account cannot have an existing U.S. Bank consumer checking account, had a U.S. Bank consumer checking account in the last 12 months or received other U.S. Bank consumer checking bonus offers within the past 12 months.

Note: US Bank often restricts their financial products to those states where US Bank has a physical branch presence. They will filter you out by zip code.

Tip: However, people outside this footprint may be allowed to open an account if they have other US Bank products. I was more recently able to get this bonus even though I was outside their physical branch footprint by opening a Smartly Savings account first. I think they may have opened just the Smartly Savings nationwide recently (or was it just me?). If that isn’t working for you, you may also try to open a small certificate of deposit (CD) or even a brokerage account or go directly for a credit card. It’s strange, but once they let you open one account, they’ll let you open the rest quite easily.

This offer comes around regularly, but is still a pretty solid bonus if you haven’t done it before. You may also find it worth the effort now due to the new US Bank Smartly credit card that can earn up to 4% cash back with enough assets at US Bank.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Vanguard 10-Year Stock Market Forecasts 2025-2035 (+Retrospective)

Posted on January 27, 2025 // 4 Comments

Vanguard recently released their most recent annual 10-year forecast as of mid-November 2024 (effectively the beginning of 2025). The beginning of the year is the time for forecasts, and that also makes it a good time to remind ourselves how badly they can be wrong and how you shouldn’t really use them for anything.

Let’s look back at how those same forecasts performed from 2011-2021, with confidence ranges within the 25th and 75th percentiles. I have some old images saved from when Vanguard gave us an update in 2021.

For US Stocks between 2011-2021, their forecast in 2011 was roughly between 6% and 12% annually for US stocks, for a median around 9%. That a wide band! The actual return? 13.4%. As of early 2025, we are still outside their confidence bands.

For Global ex-US Stocks between 2011-2021, their forecast in 2011 was roughly between 6% and 11% annually for US stocks, for a median around 8.5%. The actual return? 4.0%. As of early 2025, we are still outside their confidence bands here as well.

I’m not trying to pick on Vanguard here, but they do release these things with a certain degree of seriousness and brand authority. But honestly, I wish they wouldn’t. I mean, sooner or later they’ll be correct, but how could you possibly attribute that to skill and not luck?

I’m going to include a copy of their late 2024 10-year forecasts (close to the start of 2025) here because they usually delete the post after a couple of years. This way, we can look back again in the future. For this chart, the ranges are their median forecast with a fixed 2% range of confidence for stocks and 1% range for bonds.

Notably, the 10-year median return forecast is 3.8% for US stocks, 7.9% for Global ex-US stocks, and 4.8% for US total bond. This table includes their percentile confidence ranges.

This all reminds of me of the old joke: How can you tell economists have a sense of humor? They use decimal points.

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //

IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card Review: 80,000 Bonus Points, No Annual Fee

Posted on January 24, 2025 // 5 Comments

The IHG One Rewards Traveler Card is the IHG hotel card that includes special IHG perks but with no annual fee. Here are the highlights:

  • 80,000 Bonus IHG Points after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.
  • Earn up to 17 total points per $1 spent when you stay at IHG Hotels & Resorts. Earn 3 points per $1 spent on purchases on monthly bills, at gas stations, and restaurants. Earn 2 points per $1 spent on all other purchases.
  • No foreign transaction fees.
  • Fourth Reward Night Free when you redeem points for any 4+ night stay. That means if you use points to pay for 3 nights in a row, the 4th night is free.
  • IHG Rewards Bonus points are redeemable at Hotels & Resorts such as InterContinental(R), Crowne Plaza(R), Kimpton(R), EVEN(R) Hotels, Indigo(R) Hotels & Holiday Inn(R).
  • No annual fee.

Note the following:

This product is available to you if you do not have a current IHG One Rewards Credit Card and have not received a new
Cardmember bonus within the last 24 months. This does not apply to Business Card Credit Card products.

What can you get with IHG points? The best redemption value for IHG points is for free hotel nights. The other options offer significantly less value. While the points don’t translate directly to a dollar value, I would use a conservative estimate of 0.50 cents of value per point, which would make 100,000 IHG points worth an estimated $500 value. Not bad for a no annual fee card. You can perform the calculations for hotels that fit your needs. I tried a bunch of other various combinations and got between 0.5 cents and 0.8 cents per point equivalent value.

IHG stands for Intercontinental Hotel Group which has over 5,000 hotels including the following brands:

  • Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts
  • Crowne Plaza
  • Kimpton
  • Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express
  • Staybridge Suites
  • Candlewood Suites
  • Hotel Indigo
  • EVEN Hotels

IHG points expire after 24 months of inactivity, which is relatively long so with occasional activity you can easily save up these free nights for later. Chase Ultimate Rewards points also convert to IHG points.

The 4th Reward night free perk can be very valuable and nice to see on a card with no annual fee. You get the fourth reward night free when you redeem points for a consecutive four-night IHG hotel stay (only pay for 3 nights with points).

Total of 17x points per $1 spent when you stay at IHG. Here’s how this breaks down: Earn 5X points per $1 spent as an IHG® Rewards Club Traveler credit cardmember + 10X points per $1 spent from IHG® for being an IHG® Rewards Club Member, 5X points with this card, plus 2X points from IHG® with Silver Elite Status (a benefit of this card) for a total of 17X points total at any of their 5,400+ IHG® hotels & resorts.

Given my 0.5 cent per IHG point valuation, I would book my IHG nights on this card, but not my everyday purchases on an ongoing basis. I would just put a little spending on there to keep my IHG points from expiring.

  • 3 IHG points per $1 spent at gas stations, dining, utilities, internet, cable, and phone services
    and select streaming services.
  • 2 IHG point per $1 spent on all other card purchases

Upgrade to Premier? Downgrade to Traveler? If you can reliably use a anniversary night certificate (40,000 point value) and get $99 value out of it, you should consider going with the IHG Rewards Premier credit card mentioned on the same application page. The Premier card also adds some other small perks like Platinum Elite status and a TSA Precheck fee credit.

If you already have the Premier card and don’t want to pay for those added perks, you may consider asking if you can downgrade to this Traveler now without any annual fee.

Bottom line. The IHG One Rewards Traveler Card now comes with no annual fee and a sign-up bonus. As with most of these co-branded cards, the best value is obtained if you can redeem for IHG hotel nights.

Also see: Top 10 Best Credit Card Bonus Offers.

The information for the IHG One Rewards Traveler Card has been collected independently by My Money Blog. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Vanguard Thoughts: After 23 Years, Should I Stay or Switch to Fidelity/Schwab?

Posted on January 22, 2025 // 31 Comments

I’ve been a Vanguard customer (ahem, owner) for 23 years now. As such, I’ve also been one of those long-time customers that has been disappointed to see their struggles with customer service for their individual retail brokerage clients. One of my big decisions in 2024 was if I would move the majority of my assets to Fidelity or Schwab. Here’s another long-winded post about my thoughts about Vanguard.

Jack Bogle made a powerful decision when he created the Vanguard ownership structure. Each of the mutual funds was its own entity, and the shareholders own the funds. In turn, the member funds own the umbrella Vanguard Group. The member funds each pay their own expenses for research, management, etc. Everything is “at-cost”. There are no outside shareholders that may call for profits to put aside or dividends to be paid out to them. In theory, this means that the goals of each individual retail investor are aligned with the Vanguard executives.

However, in practice, we are entirely passive shareholders in that we have no vote over who is CEO, who is on the Board of Director, how much each of those folks gets paid (we don’t even get to see the actual number), whether the company should prioritize customer service or growth of assets or employee benefits. As with many large non-profits, the executives at Vanguard get very large compensation packages and the target is almost always growth, growth, growth. Bigger is better; more assets means the executives can justify a larger paycheck.

When I started with Vanguard, they were much smaller and there was more “fat” in the system. Their expense ratio for the flagship S&P 500 index fund something like 0.20% annually ($20 a year for every $10,000 invested). ETFs did not exist, and mutual funds usually charged users a transaction fee unless they were on a “mutual fund supermarket” with a pay-to-play structure. In turn, this made mutual funds more expensive because they passed the costs onto the customer. Vanguard refused to pay kickbacks because that would increase the costs to shareholders, so us retail investors had to go “direct” to Vanguard to get access with no transaction fees. The cheapest option was to go direct with Vanguard, and they had a “cheap and cheerful” reputation. They weren’t the best in customer service, but phone calls were answered promptly.

Then came the exchange-traded fund (ETF). ETFs were cheaper to maintain for Vanguard (and everyone else). This drove costs even lower. ETFs could be bought and sold at any brokerage with the same transaction costs as a stock. ETFs also had inherent tax-advantages that made it much easier to avoid creating capital gains distributions. I believe a big break happened when Vanguard stopped holding the mutual fund and ETF expense ratios at the exact same level. Everyone was incentivized further to hold the ETF version.

Today, the expense ratio for the flagship S&P 500 index mutual fund is only 0.04% annually ($4 a year for every $10,000 invested). But the ETF version is only 0.03% annually ($3 a year for every $10,000 invested). There are both certainly much cheaper than 20 years ago, but today each of their ETFs also has at least two other competitors at the same low expense ratio. Vanguard probably feels forced to keep their ETF costs as low as possible, lest they hurt their “low-cost” brand.

However, since each Vanguard fund has to pay for its own expenses including customer service costs, Vanguard is now incentivized to have you hold your ETF at another brokerage. (And once you start holding Vanguard ETFs in another brokerage, technically you should be rooting for lower costs and thus Vanguard to spend less on customer service as well.) Trades are zero now everywhere. But every single customer service call still has to be paid for somehow, and from this perspective, you can begin to understand why their customer service has gone downhill. Their margins are purposefully thin and the only solutions are to either raise their expense ratios a tiny bit (slower growth and perhaps lower executive salaries) or just try to keep spending as little as possible on customer service.

Guess which one they picked? From WSJ article (gift) Vanguard’s Die-Hard Customers Have a Message for New CEO: ‘The Service Is Abysmal’:

Brokerage-account customers were also recently warned that “excessive reliance on phone associates” could lead to additional fees or account termination.

Importantly, Vanguard has limited ways to subsidize the low costs of their ETFs. Meanwhile, Fidelity still makes a ton of money upselling customers to a variety of wealth management services. Schwab earns hundreds of millions extra by quietly paying nearly zero interest on their cash sweep (they recently dropped it to 0.05% APY in December 2024), pocketing an average of 2% to 3% annually on their customer’s idle cash. Robinhood lets me trade random crypto 24/7 and promotes active trading which results in an insane amount of payment for order flow.

Is this the natural end for Vanguard? Will they just make the commodity product and let others distribute it and deal with customers?

This is why the new CEO will undoubtedly have a big focus on low-cost wealth management. This will allow them to charge customers a higher fee for increased financial advice and customer service. They would finally have something to upsell. The only other alternative is for them to raise Vanguard brokerage fees so that the retail customers pay directly for the additional services they require.

In the end, I asked myself, “If something happens to me, would I rather have my wife deal with Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab?” She may end up wanting to pay for extra assistance and advice. Vanguard would have the worst customer service, but perhaps they will come up with a reasonable-cost advisory system. Fidelity and Schwab would undoubtedly be happy to provide her additional financial advice as well, likely at a higher price. Fidelity has solid customer service in my opinion, but I don’t really like their wealth management options based on my past experiences helping older relatives. Schwab has a conveniently-located physical branch near us, but I have a bad taste in my mouth after their “Intelligent Portfolios” zero-interest-cash-is-good-for-you fiasco. (See CBNC article Charles Schwab to pay $187 million to settle SEC charges that it misled robo-advisor clients on fees.)

In the end, I have punted my decision and only made some smaller moves. I transferred our Vanguard IRA assets over to Robinhood as a 5-year test run (in exchange for $16,000). I already have my Solo 401k and an active Cash Management Account at Fidelity. Perhaps Vanguard will shore up their customer service to “decent enough” and use AI to create a at-cost/low-cost advisory platform for the masses. Perhaps the Fidelity model of solid customer service plus a whole bunch of both low-cost and higher-cost menu items is the best one. Perhaps I will place the highest value on a local Schwab human rep.

Image credit: Canva AI generated with prompt “HMS Vanguard in rough seas”

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //

Laurel Road High Yield Savings Deposit Bonus: 4.15% APY + Up to $200 (Referral Offer)

Posted on January 21, 2025 // 13 Comments

Updated and back for 2025. Laurel Road is a digital subsidiary of KeyBank (not a fintech) that reminds me of SoFi in that they are building a relationship that starts with student loan refinances and then expands to personal loans, mortgages, bank accounts, and credit cards.

Laurel Road is again offering up to a $200 deposit bonus (my referral link) for their High Yield Savings Account by referral only. This bonus is on top of the standard interest rate, which is currently a relatively competitive 4.15% APY. Here are the steps:

  • Open a High Yield Savings account before June 30, 2025 using a referral link that shows this offer. Offer not available on their regular website.
  • Deposit at least $1 in the first 20 calendar days of account open.
  • Have at least $5,000 (or whatever tier you pick) in your account by calendar day 90 after open. $50 bonus for deposit total between $5,000–$14,999.99. $100 bonus for deposit total between $15,000–$29,999.99. $200 bonus for deposit total of $30,000+.
  • Once the requirements are met, the bonus amount will mailed to you as a check within 45 days of meeting the requirements. Your account must be open to receive the bonus, no other form of payment will be provided.

Note that it says that the “Referred individuals cannot be the owner or co-owner of a Laurel Road account in the last twelve (12) months.”.

Importantly, my reading of the terms is that there is no minimum hold period. The actual fine print:

Starting at 12:00AM EST on January 16, 2025, through 11:59PM EST on June 30, 2025 (“Campaign Period”), a $50 bonus (the “Bonus”) will be awarded to existing Laurel Road members (“Referrer”) for each friend who opens a new Laurel Road High Yield Savings (HYS) account (the “Referred”) and meets the following requirements, the Referred must: 1) submit the HYS account application through the Referrer’s link during the Campaign Period, 2) have a minimum HYS account balance of at least $1 by 7PM EST within the first twenty (20) calendar days of account opening, and 3) have a minimum balance of $5,000 by 11:59PM EST on the ninetieth (90th) calendar day of HYS account opening for Referrer to earn the Bonus. This offer cannot be combined with any other programs.

In other words, technically you just have to put $1 there by Day 20, and the rest can land on the 85th day or so to be safe.

Napkin math. Given that there is no minimum hold period, the annualized yield is theoretically sky-high. Note that the $50 bonus is at best a 1% bonus on $5,000 deposited, while the $100 and $200 bonuses are at best a 0.67% bonus on either $15,000 or $30,000, respectively. This is pretty solid since the standard APY is already competitive. Even if you held the money in there for 30 days, the $100/$200 bonuses would work out to an extra 8% annualized. Added to the 4.15% APY standard yield, that would be a total of 12.15% annualized interest.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Truist Bank $400 New Checking Account Bonus 2025 (Limited States)

Posted on January 21, 2025 // 14 Comments

Updated for 2025. Truist Bank formed from the merger of BB&T and Suntrust Banks, now roughly the 10th largest US bank with branches in 17 states and DC. Trust has brought back a $400 checking bonus for new checking customers that have a mailing address within a state in their branch footprint: AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, KY, MD, MS, NC, NJ, OH, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV or DC. I usually don’t list bonuses that aren’t nationwide, but this is a sizable bonus with a large regional bank. If I lived in this area, I’d certainly rather open an account when they are giving out 400 bucks. Here are the steps:

  • Open a new Truist One Checking account online from October 31, 2024 through April 30, 2025. Minimum opening deposit is $50. Must open online with promo code DC2425TR1400 (or AFL2425TR1400 from alternate link)
  • Receive at least 2 qualifying Direct Deposits* totaling $1,000 or more within 120 days of account opening.
  • The reward will be deposited to the new checking account within 4 weeks after the qualification requirements have been met and verified. Truist verification will occur one time after the qualification requirements are initially met. The new checking account must be open and in good standing with a balance of at least $0.01 at the time of Truist verification and until the reward is deposited to receive the reward.

Compared to an earlier offer, they have increased the direct deposit requirement, but removed the 15 debit card purchases requirement.

Note the following definitions for new customers:

Clients that are the primary account holder on an existing personal checking account with Truist or who have closed a personal checking account with Truist on or after 10/31/23 are not eligible to participate.

The Truist One Checking account has a $12 monthly maintenance fees that is waived each statement cycle by any one of the following:

  • $500+ in total qualifying Direct Deposits
  • Maintain a total combined ledger balance of $500 or more in Truist related accounts across personal deposits (excluding Truist HSA) and all investments as reflected on the business day before your statement cycle end date.
  • Having a personal Truist credit card, mortgage or consumer loan, excluding LightStream®.
  • Having a linked Small Business Checking Account.
  • Students under the age of 25.
  • Primary account owner age 62 and older.
Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Huntington Bank $600 New Checking Account Bonus (No Direct Deposit Required, Limited States)

Posted on January 20, 2025 // 1 Comment

Huntington Bank is offer a $600 bonus when you open a new Platinum Perks Checking account and make total new money deposits of $25,000 or more within 90 days of account opening and keep account open for 90 days. No monthly maintenance fee with $25,000 in total relationship balances, otherwise $25 a month. Expiration shown is 2/7/25.

Note that this offer is limited geographically to residents to certain states:

To be eligible for this offer, click Apply Online or Open at a Branch from this page, so that the promotion code is claimed at time of account opening. This offer is only available to applicants residing in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Wisconsin.

I usually try to stick to offers that are available nationwide, but this was a big bonus that is pretty straightforward with no direct deposit requirement. Earning $600 on a $25,000 deposit for 90 days works out to a 9.6% annualized yield.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

TurboTax Deals at Amazon, Sam’s Club, Costco: Deluxe Federal & State

Posted on January 17, 2025 // 30 Comments

Update 1/18/25. Amazon has some sale prices for the TurboTax + $10 Amazon gift card bundles (not Product only). Might be 1-day only, might last through the holiday weekend. The benefit of “old-school” desktop tax software is that it doesn’t require your Social Security Number and income details to be stored in the “cloud”, a fancy word for a third-party server where it can be copied or hacked.

Amazon has listings for both the products alone and in a bundle with a $10 Amazon gift card. The prices for both keep changing, so I won’t list them anymore, but you can compare to see the lowest net price. Or compare and go with the Costco and Sam’s Club deals with $10 product credit below if you know you’ll pay the state e-File fee.

The products alone:

The bundles:

Costco also has TurboTax Deluxe Fed+State for $44.99 w/ $10 Add-on credit, so instead of a $10 Amazon credit you get a $10 credit towards a future TurboTax add-on like State e-File. Compare prices to Amazon for Premier and Business. Ends 1/26/25.

Sam’s Club joins with TurboTax Deluxe Fed+State for $44.99 w/ $10 Add-on credit. Works out if you plan on paying for State e-File anyway. Ends 2/2/25.

You also get 5 Federal e-Files so you can file taxes for other family member in your household. (Click here to view the Amazon links if you can’t see them.)

State e-File is extra (now $25 per state). I would personally just print the (usually shorter) state return out and snail mail it in if you don’t have a free State e-File option.

Note that TurboTax Deluxe lets you manually input stock gain/loss information, but does not include “guidance”. For that, they’ll try to nudge you to upgrade to Premier. This is what makes H&R Block Deluxe a more affordable alternative (as it does include guidance for stock sales), if you are willing to make the switch. However, I also understand the urge to stick with what works and TurboTax does offer auto-import of many 1099 forms.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Amazon Pharmacy: $15 Whole Foods Gift Card for New Orders

Posted on January 15, 2025 // Leave a Comment

Amazon Pharmacy is offering a $15 Whole Foods gift card promo for your first order. Most insurance plans qualify, but not government insurance.

You are eligible to redeem this offer if you place your first Amazon Pharmacy order during the limited-time offer period, and do not have government insurance (Medicare, Tricare, etc.). If you cancel your order before it ships, you will not be eligible to redeem this offer.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

My Cash Setup: Checking and Liquid Savings (2025/2024 Year-End)

Posted on January 14, 2025 // 19 Comments

Although I continue to monitor the best interest rates out there, in 2024 I made the conscious decision to tone down my rate-chasing and look for a lower maintenance setup that still gets a solid interest rate on my cash. Warning: This is going to be an informal, rambling post with a lot of personal opinions. Let me know what you think in the comments. I’ll list them by most activity to least activity.

Fidelity Cash Management Account (Direct Deposit and Internal Push)
I consider the Fidelity Cash Management Account my primary cashflow account. The vast majority of my household cash flows are direct deposit into my CMA, and then bill payment out via their BillPay service. In other words, I have to manually schedule any money going out. I like that I can transfer money quickly to and from my other Fidelity brokerage accounts, if necessary.

The Fidelity CMA is not a bank account. It is a full brokerage account with bank features bolted-on like a debit card, check-writing, and Bill Pay. The core position is the Fidelity Government Money Market Fund (SPAXX), which has a 4.01% 7-day yield as of 1/12/25. However, at ~40% US Government Obligations in 2023, it did not meet the requirements of having interest exempt from state taxes for California, Connecticut, and New York.

However, I use automatic recurring purchase system to keep it mostly in Fidelity Treasury Only Money Market Fund (FDLXX), which has a 4.03% 7-day yield as of 1/12/25. At ~90% US Government Obligations in 2023, it did meet the requirements of having interest exempt from state taxes for California, Connecticut, and New York. If you assume a 10% state income tax rate, this works out to a tax-effective yield of ~4.4%.

Money market funds are not FDIC-insured, but they are highly-regulated after the 2008 financial crisis and I am comfortable with their safety as they hold 90% Treasury bonds and as long as I am buying from a reputable name like Fidelity.

Fidelity uses various third parties to provide their banking features. The Fidelity debit card is issued by Leader Bank, and the debit card program is administered by BNY Mellon Investment Servicing Trust Company. Fidelity works with UMB, NA to process checks and ACH transfers. The ACH routing number for Fidelity accounts is 101205681 and belongs to UMB, NA. If you experience fraud from using the debit card, then you will have to deal with BNY Mellon. These third-party providers do not have the same level of customer service reputation as Fidelity, and Fidelity seems to punt to them, and I wish to avoid dealing with any of that.

Accordingly, I never use the Fidelity Debit Card (it is locked), and I never give out the ACH routing number and account number linked to my Fidelity CMA account (besides direct deposit). Therefore, no outside entity should have the ability to “pull” money out of my CMA account. My Fidelity CMA account is also on “Fidelity Lockdown” which prevents an unauthorized ACAT transfer of my entire account. (Lockdown does not interfere with ACH transfers.)

A reader asked if Fidelity should be treated as a “Fintech” to avoid since they use a third-party to provide some of their banking services. As you can see, I do treat them with extra care because whenever there are extra parties involved, there is room for confusion and blaming each other. However, the problem with many fintechs is that they open up what is called a “FBO” (For Benefit Of) account at their partner banks, which is a big pooled account of all their customers’ money mixed together, and then the fintech or middleman keeps a ledger of individual account balances. Even though there are routing numbers and account numbers, the bank does not open an individual account for everyone. What happens when the ledger from the fintech isn’t kept accurately? How do they split up the big pool of money? Ask the Yotta app users who completely lost access to their funds for several months, and many are still waiting to this day. Apparently, if the middleman or fintech company fails, it’s a poo show. If the bank itself failed, then the depositors would supposedly have been covered.

In my case, most funds are invested in a SEC-regulated money market fund from Fidelity inside an SIPC-insured brokerage fund.

Ally Checking and Savings (ATM card, checks, Venmo, etc)
For a long time, Ally was my primary checking and savings account. Even though they are an online bank with no physical branches and thus lower overhead costs, it still offered solid customer service and well, it simply knows to be a traditional bank. I have deposited large paper checks remotely, made large wire transfers, made large ACH transfers regularly, and used their ATM card around the world. My limited interactions found a knowledgeable human on the other side of the phone. Live chat is also available.

Their website interface is also clear and reliable, with the ability to link many external accounts (many of which won’t otherwise initiate transfers themselves) and make reasonably fast transfers between all of them. For each transfer, Ally will clearly tell me ahead of time the date that the funds will be pulled from the source account, and also the date that the funds will arrive at the destination account. I’ve moved over a million dollars in aggregate around, chasing various bonuses and bringing it back. Ally never bothered me.

The interest rate is 3.80% APY as of 1/13/25, and while that isn’t horrible, Ally used to keep themselves closer to the top rates. Given the differential is now up to a full 1% APY higher at my other options when taking into account the state tax exemption, that was enough to move some funds out. I still keep enough money at Ally to cover other cash needs (ATM card, checks, Venmo, etc).

I can keep minimal amount in Ally Checking as they offer free automatic overdraft protection from a chosen Ally Savings account. If you overdraw your checking, they just pull from Ally Savings in $100 increments on demand at no cost.

The Ally ATM card has domestic ATM rebates (up to $10 per statement cycle) and does not charge a fee on their side on international withdrawals. If I am facing a lot of international ATM fees, I can unlock my Fidelity ATM card temporarily for the rebates. However, in reality, I’d rather deal with Ally rather than Fidelity/BNY Mellon if I have a problem with a foreign ATM skimmer or something, so I just use my reliable Ally ATM card, pay the $5 or whatever, and take all the cash out I need in one transaction per trip.

Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund
One of the main draws of keeping a Vanguard account remains that they don’t play any funny games with cash sweep. Fidelity charges what I would say is a reasonable amount for its services, while Schwab straight-up hopes you aren’t paying attention while they pay you nearly nothing. Your cash sweep is the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX), which has a 4.27% 7-day yield as of 1/12/25. However, based on history it also may not qualify for state tax exemptions in any given tax year.

(Keep in mind that 7-day yields quoted on money market funds do not include compounding, so a constant 4.27% 7-day yield is the equivalent of 4.35% APY.)

For larger cash balances, I use the Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund VUSXX which has a 4.34% 7-day yield as of 1/10/25. At ~80% US Government Obligations in 2023, it did meet the requirements of having interest exempt from state taxes for California, Connecticut, and New York. If you assume a 10% state income tax rate, this works out to a tax-effective yield of ~4.8%. This is as good as the top 1% of savings rates out there.

I don’t use VUSXX for any bank features, so there is little need to contact customer service. It just earns a reliably high interest rate due to its low expense ratio (0.09%) and mostly holding short-term US Treasury bonds directly.

Note: An honorable mention goes out to iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV), which has the same low expense ratio (0.09%). Trading it will expose you to a small bid/ask spread of about 0.01% for each trade, though. But if I’m holding at some new brokerage for a while, then SGOV is my go-to cash equivalent holding.

The rest
I maintain minimal balances in a local megabank bank account and a local credit union account, in case a physical bank branch is useful for whatever reason – unlimited ATM access, cash deposits/withdrawals, safety deposit box, notary, medallion guarantee, etc.

I also have some existing certificates of deposit from credit unions that I am waiting to mature, like the 5-year 5.00% APY CD I bought in 2023. I just don’t like the idea of my wife having to track down four different credit unions one day to piece together my crazy CD ladder.

Recap. My simplified cash setup utilizes existing brokerage account relationships and the fact that US Treasury interest is exempt from state income taxes to maximize my tax-effective yield earned on cash while minimizing the work required to chase rates across several smaller banks, fintechs, and credit unions. It also minimizes exposure to poor customer service. I maintain liquid access to cash, and my top option pays roughly an effective 4.80% APY, and overall is quite competitive with what I could achieve if I did constantly chase rates.

Filed Under: Banking //
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