Sad to see all these people thinking they are gaming the credit card reward system. There is a reason that they have these programs, and it isn’t to help you.

Best money hack for me has been You Need a Budget.

Anonymous wrote:Churning credit card and bank account sign up bonuses. Bank account bonuses unfortunately taxable, but credit card bonuses aren't.

This is what I do too. I look at it as a very lucrative part time job. I never pay out of pocket for hotels or airfare (aside from taxes on the tickets). Most of my vacations end up costing me $500-$1000 all in. So I vacation frequently.

I keep every single essential you can think of on hand, all the time! I am constantly rotating my stock and shop sales and clearances only. No last minute trips or Amazon emergency overnight deliveries.

Don't return to places that charge me THEIR credit card fees.

I pay my mortgage every two weeks instead of every month. It adds up to an extra payment a year plus I pay a little extra each month, so two extra payments.

We do a back door roth.

We have cds for our liquid cash.

I direct deposit into a vacation account. I can get anxious about spending and pulling the trigger on larger purchases like flights and hotels and then enjoying a great meal on vacation. This allows me to tell myself ‘this is what you set the money aside for. You’ve got your other costs covered in your checking account.’

In relation to this, our vacation account gets the same monthly deposit as the kids college savings accounts. Again, it’s psychological, but this gives me the headspace to balance enjoying life now and saving for the kids.

Anonymous wrote:I put our credit cards in the safe so I have them in a dire emergency, but I do all my spending with my debit card. It sounds like a superficial change but it makes such a difference to not have that big payment a month later, and forces me to stay on budget.

I used to do this, but now I just have a card set on autopay and I put everything on the card because the rewards really add up. Those credit card companies have us all by the balls.

Anonymous wrote:I put our credit cards in the safe so I have them in a dire emergency, but I do all my spending with my debit card. It sounds like a superficial change but it makes such a difference to not have that big payment a month later, and forces me to stay on budget.

Opposite. We rarely use our debit.

We pay the cc off in full. We count the July 9 cc transactions on July 9. It in no way affects our spending for worse or better because the method we use at checkout doesn’t give us extra spendy feelings (since we count it for the budget on this month anyway).

We always have $1,000 in credit card rewards in December, and that’s our Christmas. If we set aside more for Christmas, we can go above 1k too.

I borrow cash (up to $60k) from credit cards for 4-5% fee a year, but my returns in the market are 70%+.

Anonymous wrote:I put our credit cards in the safe so I have them in a dire emergency, but I do all my spending with my debit card. It sounds like a superficial change but it makes such a difference to not have that big payment a month later, and forces me to stay on budget.

Careful. Debit cards don't provide the same protection from fraud.

I put our credit cards in the safe so I have them in a dire emergency, but I do all my spending with my debit card. It sounds like a superficial change but it makes such a difference to not have that big payment a month later, and forces me to stay on budget.

Churning credit card and bank account sign up bonuses. Bank account bonuses unfortunately taxable, but credit card bonuses aren't.

Not really a hack but I track every dollar we spend and make sure that areas where we spend the most represent our priorities. We don't love dining out (budget $75/mo) but we do love travel (budget $1,800/mo). Having a budget ensures we spend according to our plan.

As for a hack, we use our taxable account dividends to fund our Roth IRAs so we are converting taxable money into tax-free money.

What are your not time-consuming money hacks?

I’ll start:

My credit union pays me $20 per month if I use my debit card 4x in a month. So I put it as my payment method for my weekly grocery subscription and my monthly Netflix subscription. Which means the money back pays for the Netflix subscription ($18).