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Monday Night Finance- Volume 50

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Monday, 01 February 2021 / Published in Monday Night Finance

Monday Night Finance- Volume 50

4 Credit Card Mistakes to Avoid

Credit cards are everywhere. When I was a kid I’d fantasize about the future. I thought we’d all be living in outer space. Instead of paper money, we’d just swipe our arm in front of a microchip reader. While we’re still on planet earth, I guess I had the money part right. When was the last time you pulled change out of your pocket to make a purchase? Credit cards are how we pay for nearly everything now. Credit cards are fast, convenient, safe, and frequently come with reward points that can be used to earn cash back or travel rewards. Despite their benefits, credit cards can have a downside. If you don’t know how to properly use a credit card, they can costs you thousands of dollars in interest. This article from TrueFees.com breaks down mistakes you should avoid making with your credit card.

Let’s say your credit card has an interest rate of 21% and a balance of $4,000. Every month you pay the minimum payment. For this example, the minimum payment will be 1% of the balance plus interest every month. Paying this way will take 21 years to pay the debt off in full. ~TrueFees

One of the downsides to credit cards is that they charge a high rate of interest. According to this article, only paying your minimum balance is the biggest credit card mistake you can make. (Obviously if you’ve recently suffered a job loss, you may have no other choice.) Assuming you can pay more than your minimum balance, this is a fantastic way to drastically reduce how much credit card debt you have and how long it will take you to pay it off. Even worse than paying the minimum balance is missing a payment entirely. Not only will this cause your balance to grow, but it will also impact your credit score. The article has several more great tips; check it out if you want some ideas about how to use your credit cards wisely.

Hyatt Mattress Running During Covid-19 and Getting Globalist Status for Two Years

There’s nothing more exciting to read about than travel hacking stories. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, travel hacking involves using credit card bonuses and various promotions to travel for free (or nearly free). While this is commonly done for frequently flier statuses (or points), it can also be done for hotels. A “mattress run” is where you focus on booking and staying in hotels to rack up points to achieve a hotel status. In this article, Shannon and Sergio of Screw the Average break down how they were able to achieve Hyatt Globalist status for 2 years using special promotions.

We love the adventure of mattress runs and are frankly just excited to be at it again. However, it of course needs to make sense (e.g. financial, logistical, etc.). The main goal of this Hyatt mattress run is to earn Globalist status (Hyatt’s top tier) for two years. ~Screw The Average

The key to Shannon and Sergio’s successful mattress run was that Hyatt is offering many promotions to encourage people to stay at hotels as a result of COVID-19. The biggest promotion is that instead of needing 60 nights in a hotel to reach Globalist status, you only need 30 nights. While this cut the number of hotel nights in half, Shannon and Sergio were able to make the deal even sweeter with credit card reward points. By stacking deals, they were able to show that they only needed to stay in a hotel for 9 nights to achieve the status for 2 whole years. Want to replicate their success? Check out their blog for a Google Sheet template to track your progress and links to all of the promotions.

3 Smart Money Moves for the New Year

Although it seemed like 2020 would never end, we have now made it to 2021. January is a month when many people set resolutions to change their life for the better. Additionally, many New Year’s resolutions are about money. Did you set a New Year’s resolution about money? Is it a dream or do you have specific actions you want to take? If you’ve already fallen to the wayside of your money goal for 2021, check out this article by More Money Tips.

This step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to set SMART goals- goals that truly work, goals with specific examples you can use in your life to enjoy success. ~More Money Tips

Many people know that the acronym SMART goals stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. You may need to set SMART goals as part of your job. But do your New Year’s resolutions fit the criteria of SMART goals? If not, you might be setting yourself up for failure. While some people might make a New Year’s Resolution to “save more money”, it doesn’t meet the S,M, or T of SMART goals. If you’re having problem articulating your goals, the article walks through many of these common resolutions and turns them into SMART goals to help you achieve success!

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What you can read next

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Monday Night Finance- Volume 36
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Reviews

Barbara Ann Feeney
16-05-2016

I switched from pencil and paper on grid accounting paper, then to a Google spreadsheet, then to CountAbout. Really happy with how this app makes it easy to track how I doing, staying (or not) on budget.

 
‏@davepurcell
15-11-2016

I rarely tweet endorsements, but -- after years of using/hating Quicken, Countabout is awesome for tracking home budget/finances. Thx!

 
David M.
16-07-2016

CountAbout is as easy to use on my mobile as it is on the desktop and it provides me with the same or better information than Quicken.

 
Nate E.
05-02-2016

Fantastic! I finally found a great replacement for Quicken! CountAbout is entirely cloud-based, so you can access it from whatever OS you happen to be using. And the mobile app isn't hamstrung like Quicken's. No looking back for me, this is a great app and a great service!

 
My Bank Tracker
24-11-2016

...you won’t be bombarded with ads when you log in. Mint, for example, uses targeted ads to help keep the platform free. All in all, CountAbout could be a good choice for Quicken and Mint users who want to start fresh with their finances without losing their past transaction history.

 
Mark Goldfarb
20-01-2017

I love the software – nice and clean – the categories was a must have that your competitors are lacking.

 
Widgets to Compare Monthly Spending in Active Categories
17-02-2017

Huzzah! I can add widgets now and already made one to compare my monthly spending in my active categories to my budget. Excellent. That tool is one of my favorite features in a personal finance product.

 
Shirley Hou
CountAbout was Perfect
15-03-2017

I was looking for finance software to use as treasurer of the parent-teacher association at my child's school. CountAbout was perfect - it had all the register features and download capabilities that I was familiar with from desktop Quicken, but it has the advantage of being in the cloud so I can use it from any computer.

 
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Steve P.
22-09-2017

My search for a cloud-based alternative to Quicken is over! Very easy to transfer my Quicken data and customize my account. Thank you CountAbout!

 
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Jim Powell
17-03-2018

Vastly superior to the execrable Quicken, which caused me to have to choose a new bank password every time I used it. CA is fast, simple, and all you need unless you have a complicated investment portfolio. Its almost fun!

 
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Jeffrey Wilk
02-04-2018

Great product and great customer service. Thanks!

 
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Nancy
10-08-2018

I love CountAbout! I have hated Quicken for years, but didn't have an alternative. Now I do! I love that the cost is only $9.99 per year for the basic service (which is all I need). You can upgrade for more features, if you need them. But for personal use, the basic plan is just fine. When I found CountAbout, I gleefully gave Quicken the boot and I haven't looked back or missed it at all. Bye bye Quicken!!!

 
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Dana Linder
29-03-2019

This is an incredibly well thought out program.

It imports QIF files perfectly. I tried a number that failed miserably.

It has a function that emails reminders about scheduled transactions. That is an extremely useful function that I hadn't seen anywhere.

Tech support is second to none. All my questions were answered in detail within hours (sometimes minutes).

The companion phone app is very simple. You can browse, search, enter transactions and see scheduled transaction. That's really all you need on the phone.

It's one failing for me is that I have a transaction that I have a transaction that occurs on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and it's not possible to set that up. It's easy enough for me to change the date of next transaction when I enter the current one.

I am extremely impressed with the company. The trial is free for 15 days. You have nothing to lose.

 
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Keith Hurst
22-05-2020

I've been trying to ditch Quicken for years, finally a worthy replacement, but it's so much more, so clean and intuitively designed. I was really surprised and delighted to find a full featured iphone app that meets all my needs.

 
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Amanda Sherlock
25-08-2020

I started using Quicken in 1987, before I had my own PC. I continued using it for years, frustrated by the frequent breaks in the synchronization. Finally I took the leap and used Mint for a year or two. Free software is worth as much as I pay for. Finally, in 2019 I found Countabout. The synchronization is great and I am happy to have a product that's easy to use and reliable. The customer support is excellent and very responsive to my questions.
There aren't as many bells and whistles as Quicken but the simplicity outweighs the complications.

 
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Richard Luna
03-02-2021

I'm a one-person real estate brokerage and having accurate financial records and being able to easily search transactions and generate reports is crucial. I'd been using Quicken for Mac for 10+ years and wanted to migrate to using a Chromebook instead of a Mac, to do that I had to find a replacement for Quicken.

The replacement had to be online; available from my phone, tablet, etc., and no software installations almost every year. I immediately dismissed any 'free' financial software (Mint, etc.) - I believe that you get what you pay for and there is no such thing as 'free.'

I settled on Tiller and CountAbout and subscribed to both; I quickly decided that a spreadsheet is not what I wanted. I wanted something that worked a lot like Quicken and CountAbout fit the bill. It took me awhile to fully embrace it but once I did I've been very happy and would not go back to Quicken even if they offered a fully online version. The few times I've had a question about using CountAbout I've always gotten a response by the end of the day - and often in an hour or less. If feels like I'm working with a small enterprise that's interested in putting out a superior application, improving it and solving issues and responding to questions. I'm very satisfied!

 

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CountAbout® is an easy-to-use online personal finance application that imports data from Quicken and Mint and automatically downloads data from banking, credit card, and retirement accounts. With no software to install, we’re anywhere you have an Internet connection. Our platform is stable, secure, and totally private. Our dedicated customer service team is friendly, knowledgeable, and quick to respond.

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