March Spending Freeze and Freezer Challenge

February was a stupidly expensive month:

1. Our car insurance for two vehicles was due-- $983
2. I had a stack of medical bills to pay-- $570
3. I had some car maintenance that needed doing-- $349
4. I owe the state of Massachusetts $817 in taxes

All totaled, this month gave me a $2719 kick in the face, which is actually more than my monthly take-home pay!

Also the weather has been alternating between being arctic and springlike in a way that's just unsettling. And since it's dark all the time, we are now a three humidifier household, and I've been trapped on the treadmill every morning, the electric bill has been higher than usual.  All this has come together to make me a super cranky individual, but instead of wallowing, I'm making a plan.

For the month of March I will engage in no unnecessary spending, and I will also endeavor to grocery shop as little as possible and instead eat from my pantry and freezer as much as I can.  My husband is going to be working in the UK office starting mid-March, and I'll join him at the beginning of April, so this is a perfect time to clear out the cupboards and make some space for our cat sitter.  I expect I'll be eating some pretty strange meals by the end of the month, but I'm sure it'll be fine and I probably won't get scurvy.

Cutting back on food-buying and unnecessary spending won't make too, too much of a difference, but it will help somewhat, and will hopefully make me feel like I have some modicum of control.  Thankfully, all of those expenses went onto our Capital One Venture card, so that earned us a fat stack of miles we can redeem when we're on vacation.  That card also has a 0% interest rate right now, so at least the money I charged won't cost us anything extra.

I also plan to list a few items on ebay/ facebook marketplace, to see if I can earn a little bit of extra money while decluttering.  I recently re-inherited my hockey card collection circa 1992-1994.  I sincerely doubt they are worth anything, but I have a few collectible items that I can potentially sell.  I also have a $60 LL Bean gift card that I'm never going to use, so I've got problem selling that at a discount.  So, dear reader, if you yearn for hockey cards from the early 90's or shop at LL Bean, hit me up!

Checking in With My Student Loans

Wee Watson, my trusty sidekick

My student loans and I have been together longer even than me and my precious cat!  And yet, despite being on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, they show no signs of actually going away after I make 120 on-time payments, despite me doing everything I'm supposed to do!

I've been much more aggressive about taking screenshots of my loans, because my loan servicer (Fedloan Servicing) repeatedly makes mistakes, doesn't do what I ask them to, and also generally doesn't seem like they know what they're doing.

Case in point, I was making extra payments to one of my high interest loans, but every time I made an extra payment, my regular payment would then not deduct from my auto pay.  I called them up and said "what the hell?" and they said "Oh, that loan is in paid-ahead status, therefore, since you've already paid more than your monthly payment, we won't deduct the normal amount from your bank, even though you're on the auto-pay plan."  This was in 2015, so I told the person I was speaking to to remove paid-ahead status from my account so that any extra payments I made would not interfere with my regular payments.  She said she would remove paid-ahead status from all my loans right away.

About four months later, it happened again, and I called, again, to ask why paid-ahead status had not been removed as I requested.  They said "So sorry, we'll do that right away."

In 2016, I put it in writing, and got this back:

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When I look at my loans individually, it shows me how many qualifying forgiveness payments I've made, and the anticipated date of forgiveness.

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That screenshot is from Loan #6, taken 02/15/2019.  This screenshot is also from Loan #6 taken 11/06/2016.

Notice how despite me making 100% of my payments on time (I'm on auto-pay, so they just take the money out of my account on the due date), my date of forgiveness has slipped by about six months?  Isn't that interesting.  This is the case on all of my loans (I have eight of them) EXCEPT the one loan I made some extra payments on.  Extra payments aren't supposed to advance your forgiveness date (though in this case they've more kept the date consistent), and you're really not supposed to be making them at all, but I'm losing my mind watching so much interest accrue on a daily basis, that I made the somewhat stupid decision to throw some extra bits of cash at that one loan.  Except maybe it wasn't a stupid decision because this is what that loan is currently showing:

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Fascinating!

So I emailed them in December asking why this is happening, and I received this response:

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After not hearing anything after that email, I followed up again February 1 to ask if they've got any answers for me, and I haven't heard a peep.

So, this saga is taking up a tremendous amount of my time and energy, but I am determined to be their worst nightmare until they actually do what they've said they'll do.  I have to keep up my end of this devil's bargain, why don't they?

Thankfully (maybe?) I'm not the only one having these kinds of issues.  According to NPR: "While all nine loan servicing companies occasionally failed to follow the rules, some did so more frequently than others. According to one review of borrower phone calls from April 2017, servicers failed to comply with federal requirements in 4 percent of calls, on average. But PHEAA failed to give adequate or accurate information in 10.6 percent of its calls with borrowers. A review of more than 850 calls the following month found that PHEAA representatives failed to follow the rules in nearly 9 percent of those interactions — more than five times the average failure rate of the other servicers that month."

PHEAA is my servicer, and I can 100% agree that depending on who you talk to when you call, you can get completely different answers.  And they are incredibly eager to put your loans into forebearance for almost no reason at all.

Even if you're lucky enough to not have any student loan debt, there is still going to be a reckoning coming that affects everyone.  The fact that these government loans are being serviced by non-government agencies that charge insane interest rates is alarming and should bother everyone. I have over $40,000 in loans at an interest rate of 6.55%, and the monthly payment that I have to make in order to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness doesn't even cover the interest each month, so the amount owed keeps climbing higher and higher despite me following the rules that they set.

https://myfedloan.org/

I don't think they're actually read the banner on their own website.

2019 Savings Goals

Since 2018 was the year of decimating my car loan, I've fallen a bit behind on putting money into my Roth IRA.  According to my mint.com account, I am nearly on track to retire at the age of 70.  Sure, that's great, but also, I'm pretty sure I can do better than that.  I do love my job, and thankfully it's not physically demanding in a way where I won't be able to do it at age 70, but I also would like to have options.  Having money means having options.

Despite the fact that I didn't put any money into my Roth IRA in 2018, I was still saving for retirement.  I have a TIAA Cref plan through my work, and my monthly contribution is pretty aggressive, since until literally this month, I've been behind on saving for retirement.  My employer also has a very, very good match (10%), so that helps significantly.

So, the plan for 2019 is as  follows:

1. Contribute as much as I comfortably can to my Roth IRA for tax year 2018, which I can do until April 15.  I'm not getting much of a tax refund, but what I do get will go into my Roth for 2018.
2. Contribute as much as I comfortably can to my Roth for tax year 2019. I don't think I'll be able to max it out, but I'll certainly do my best. It helps that I can contribute for tax year 2019 until April 2020.
3. I will pay off the credit card that has the balance of my car loan on it in July, but I should still have $10,000 in my emergency fund at that time.  $10,000 is my low threshold for my emergency fund, since I need to have at least that much to get the interest rate of 2%.  I'd like to have at least $12,000 in my emergency fund, so I will still be putting some money in there each month, but the Roth is the priority.
4. Look into micro-finance loans.  This is something I'll write an entire post about, but in a nutshell, micro-finance loans are loans that you give to people in developing countries to help them grow their small businesses.  It's not something that will make me money, but it's a very low cost way to give people a hand up.  I'm still investigating this, so I will report back in the future!
5. Get our household emergency fund over the $10,000 threshold.  My husband and I have a shared emergency fund, and I really want to get that over the $10k mark so we can move it to a Money Market and double our interest rate.  We're close, but that goal is a few months away.

That's it for now!  I have a couple other things percolating in my mind, but I think five goals is a very reasonable batch to write down.  

What are your annual financial goals?

2018 Savings Goals

Every year I set a new savings/ financial goal, but since I wasn't blogging in 2018, I didn't write that one down even though I'm particularly proud of it.  So, better late than never.

2018, I bought a new-to-me car for the first time in years.  I started commuting about 90 miles a day to work, and after buying gas for my 2005 Malibu three times in one week, I snapped and went to get a more fuel efficient car.  Because this decision was somewhat impulsive, I did not do my homework beforehand and ended up financing through the dealership.  Despite my exemplary credit rating, they got me a loan at 5% interest, which seriously filled me with rage.  I tapped into savings and threw a few thousand dollars at it, but interest was accruing on my eight thousand dollar balance much faster than I liked, so I came up with a different plan.

This was around November, which is apparently when credit card companies start aggressively sending out 0% balance transfer letters.  I got one from my Capital One card that offered me 0% interest for 18 months, with a one-time 2% fee.  I decided to take an $8500 cash advance ($190 fee)  and pay off that stupid loan right away.  Then, since the interest rate on that card was 0%, I made the minimum payment on the card, and redirected the rest of my payment into a Money Market savings account that earned me 2% interest.  I'll pay off the card in full in July, before the 18 month period runs out, and for the year 2018, I made $150 in interest.

A few things I had to consider before doing this:

1. I had to do a bit of math to determine if I would have the money to pay that card off in full before the 18 month period runs out.  If I don't pay it off, anything on that card will be assessed something like 25% interest, which I do not want to pay.
2. I had to take that card out of my payment rotation completely.  I disconnected it from any automatic payments, and physically took the card out of my wallet and stashed it in my office at home.
3. My credit score took a bit of a pummelling.  My credit limit on that card is $10,000, and I put $8500 on it and paid it down by only about $100 per month.  That looks really bad on a credit report, but since my score was already excellent, it didn't matter too much.  I got a bit of a bump when I paid off the car loan, but not enough to compensate for carrying such a high balance for so long.

Despite those few drawbacks and minor inconveniences, I am 100% glad I did this.  I saved myself hundreds of dollars in interest on that stupid bank loan, and the balance transfer fee is a non-issue since I'll more than make that back in accrued interest on my Money Market savings account.  I had almost enough money in my emergency fund to pay the bank loan in full without involving my credit card, but that would have obliterated my savings, which makes me deeply uncomfortable.  This way, I was able to keep some liquid cash on hand for emergencies (which I did end up needing).

Post Government Shutdown Budgeting

Thankfully, I was not personally affected by the recent government shutdown, but like most people, I was avidly following the news stories about the affected workers struggles to pay basic living expenses after missing more than one paycheck.  If nothing else good comes from this, at least its (possibly) created a bit of a dialogue about personal finance and forced people to examine their saving and spending.  At least, that's what it did for me.

I'm a saver, and always have been.  But when I looked at my accounts and tried to calculate how many months we could last if both of us lost our income, it was surprising.  We live in a very expensive city, and have been primarily focused on reducing debt (which is a good thing!) for the past year or so.  What that means, however, is that our rate of savings has slowed a bit, which is alarming.

By my calculations, it should cost us $3000/month to cover our basic costs.  This includes:

1. Rent ($2300)
2. Electricity (~$120)
3. Gas bill (home $50)
4. Food (~$250)
5. Household (things like toilet paper, etc. $50)
6. Phones ($100)
7. Misc-- ($100) Things like home internet, Netflix/Hulu.  This is an area that we could cut if things get desperate, but there's always hidden costs with doing that as well.  For example, we could cut home internet since we're lucky enough to have a great public library less than a mile away that's open 12 hours a day.  But, reinstalling internet comes with additional fees.  Also, if we were aggressively trying to find new jobs, it would be inconvenient to have to camp out at the library all day, though I recognize that plenty of people do that.

Thankfully, both our cars are paid off, and if we weren't driving to work every day, we'd save about $200/month on gas.  Our car insurance bill is due 2/15 though, so that's a $900 expense that's unavoidable and would really pummel our savings.  Probably my first impulse, if we were in a lost income situation, would be to put that on a credit card to try to buy some time.  I imagine that's what a lot of people had to do.

Because we have a chest freezer, and I have a tendency (compulsion?) to stock up on food when it's on sale, we could probably go more than a month buying very minimal groceries. That number in my calculations is our average food budget. In fact, I'm going to do a pantry challenge in February and March to try to eat down some of my stores of food before we go on an extended vacation in April.

Student loan payments are a bit tricky.  I'm on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan (assuming it still exists when my time finally comes), which means that I pay a prescribed amount of money every month, and I can't deviate from it.  I could put my loans into forebearance, if I was really hard up, but my interest rates are so high that that would really cost me a lot of extra money and time down the road, so it's not a very appealing option.  My student loan payment is $440/month, which is almost double our monthly food budget.  It seems incredibly backward to be mulling over whether I would pay my student loans or buy food, but that's a real problem facing plenty of people.

Over all, we're certainly in a better position than many, but not a comfortable position by any stretch.  I've been trying to build up our emergency fund, and doing this audit is making me realize that that needs to be more of a priority.

Where to save:

I have several Capital One online bank accounts, and I LOVE them.  Their accounts are fee free, and have the best rates I've found.  The traditional savings account has a 1% interest rate, which means that we're earning somewhere around $6/month on our current balance of $8600.  That's not amazing, but it's still quite good.  I'll take free money wherever I can get it.  

Their Money Market savings account, which requires a minimum balance of $10,000 has a rate of 2% interest at the time of this writing.  Compare that to my bricks and mortar bank, which has an interest rate of .02%, and earns me about $.20 per year, this is a no-brainer.

Our plan is to keep about $15,000 in a Money Market account so that we have easy access to liquid cash, should we need it.  At the current 2% interest rate, that will earn us about $25 per month in interest. Above and beyond that, I've got my eye on some of Capital One's CDs, that currently have a rate of 2.85% for the three year.  That's a ways down the road, but I want to have a plan in mind for when that day comes!  Plus, it's pretty fun to shop for low stakes investments, and makes me feel very virtuous.

We're going to be feeling the fallout from the government shutdown for a long time, but I really encourage people to take this is a wake-up call to really examine your finances and make a plan.  It's cold outside, and a good time to hunker down with your bank balance.

It's Hard to Pay Yourself First

Back in the day, I worked at giant corporate bookstore when those Rich Dad Poor Dad books were really popping off.  I didn't read them until a few years later when I was working at the library and frantically saving for a cross country move, while also becoming a bit obsessed with personal finance.  In addition to a steady diet of Suze Orman, Jean Chatzky et al., I decided to try out Rich Dad Poor Dad.  I remember finding it pretty basic and repetitive, but the line where he says always pay yourself first, stuck in my head.  The idea is that before paying any bills, you put money into savings or invest it.  You will always find money for bills, because bills have to be paid, but if you don't prioritize yourself, you won't ever save.

Initially, it seemed like a terrible idea to me because I've been raised with the idea (from my banker mother) that debts need to be paid, early, if possible.  So the notion of putting money into savings when you could use it to reduce debt, and by doing so, save money on interest, just didn't hold water with me.  Except that by having no savings or financial safely net, you can potentially put yourself in a position to have to put emergencies on a credit card, and therefore pay more in the long run.

It's all very speculative, but there is merit to the idea, and I'm trying to get better about it.  For instance, I financed my car instead of paying cash for it, because that would have wiped out my emergency fund.  Ideally I would have been able to keep my previous car for many more years, but the repairs were coming more frequently, and with a two hour a day commute, I needed something more fuel efficient and reliable, so I bit the bullet.

Right now, with that car payment looming over me, I'm really fighting my natural impulse to forgo this year's goal of maxing out my Roth IRA, and funneling that money into the car loan instead.  I still have $2360 to contribute for 2017, which is $590/month, which seems impossible at this point.  But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try, and I need to keep reminding myself of that. 

It's really, really hard to focus on a goal that is so far in the future, but as much as I love my job, I don't want to do it forever.  My profession is one that people tend to never want to leave--or maybe can't since it rarely pays well, and I've worked with too too many people who should have left ten years ago.  I don't want to be that person.  It would also be nice to just work less, at some point, if I feel like it.

Despite not knowing exactly WHAT I want yet, I know that having extra money gives a person options, and I like having options.  The car loan will get paid, but so will I.

When Frugality Flails

I have had the most expensive couple months in a very long time. Probably the most expensive since I had to pay college tuition.  Since I last checked in, I have:

1. Moved to a much more expensive city into a much more expensive apartment.
2. Acquired a commute.
3. Got a newer, more fuel-efficient car to deal with said commute.
4. Had to increase the amount of car insurance I have because my new car is actually worth more than $50. 
5. Husband got into a car accident, so he's had to pay for a rental car since our bare bones insurance doesn't cover that. 
6. Kitty was diagnosed with hyper thyroid, which is a common and manageable condition that most older cats get, but it means expensive medicine and more frequent vet visits, which neither of us enjoy.
7. We hit another patch of weddings--fun, but expensive and with some travel involved.
8. Odd, random expenses that come with a new place are gobbling up my money.  Like curtains and rods, paint, fans, something to hang paper towels on, etc.

I am currently reeling from the fact that I will have a car payment for the first time in eight years, but I also plan to pay it off aggressively.  I technically could have just paid cash for the car and avoided financing it altogether, but that would have eliminated my Emergency Fund entirely, and I'm not willing to do that--especially so soon into this move.

Despite these extra expenses, there are a few good things that have come out of this situation.

1. I do have to drive more to get to and from work, but our new place is in an actual neighborhood where I can walk to pretty much everything.  There is a street full of restaurants three blocks away, and a grocery and liquor store two blocks away.  Previously, my work commute was 15-20 minutes, but the only place I could really walk to from my house was the library, or to get Chinese takeout.  Now I can drive to and from work, then park my car and do everything I need to do on foot.
2. Our new place is smaller, which may seem like an odd thing to want, but it makes a lot more sense for us.  Our previous place was a huge loft style apartment with no real rooms.  It was great looking, but not very practical for two people who like their privacy.  Since it was also really big, it was easy to start to acquire more things to fill the space.  Now, our house is only slightly too big, and we've been getting rid of a lot of things.
3. Taking on extra expenses, along with being forced by the move to really examine my possessions has got me streamlining and making a bit of side cash.  I had started getting rid of things via Craigslist and Freecycle before the move, but the new area we live in has a very active Buy Nothing group on facebook, and I've been doing a bit of ebaying.  I'm not going to get rich, but it's feeling really good to get things out of my house, and make a bit of cash that goes toward my goal of maxing out my Roth IRA. Once I start looking at my possessions with an eye to sell, it becomes that much easier to keep the momentum going.

Despite these setbacks, I am determined!  Fall is my favorite time of year, and once my house is in order, I look forward to exploring my new neck of the woods.

Maxing out my Roth in 2017

I do pretty well with retirement savings. I get a 4% match from my employer, which helps a great deal, and I try to contribute to my Roth IRA as often as I can.  I am behind in retirement savings, however, because I got a late start, and my mint.com account reminds me of this painful fact every day. 

It makes the most financial sense to really double down on that savings immediately, so that I can get as much interest compounding as possible. I'm planning to increase the percentage I save through work, which will up my match, but my plan for 2017 is to also max out my Roth IRA contribution, which is something that I should be able to do for the first time--maybe ever.

The maximum amount you can contribute to a Roth IRA is $5500/year.  I'm starting this year out with an advantage in that I already have about $2300 in that account because I cashed out a life insurance policy and rolled it into last year's and this year's Roth.  So I just need to find an additional $3200 or about $350/month.  My plan is to divide that amount up into tiny dollar amounts and see how quickly I can snowball it.

My financial goal last year was to be more charitable.  I set up a monthly sustainer donation with NPR, ACLU, got a subscription to the New York Times (which I know isn't a charity, but good journalism is important) and I made donations to a few local theatres.  The amounts donated were small and relatively painless at the time, so I'm going to approach my Roth with the same mindset.

1. Schemes and found money. I have a few ways to earn a bit of extra money, and that had previously gone into my travel fund.  For now, I'm going to re-route all those revenue streams to my Roth until I hit $5500, then they'll go back into my travel fund.
2. Interest income.  I generate a little money every month in interest income on my savings accounts.  Normally I just leave it alone and let the account balance grow,  This year, I'm going to move it into my Roth.  I can't do this every month, since you're only allowed to make five withdrawals from savings per month, but I can move this money over quarterly.  My capital one savings accounts tell me exactly how much interest I've earned in the calendar year, and having that money in my Roth rather than regular savings will help it grow faster.
3. Returns/ Refunds/Rebates.  When I buy something and return it, that refund money is going to go into my Roth unless I absolutely need it.  I have a pair of shoes that I need to return, so that's $60 extra dollars right there. I've also been doing very well with ibotta lately, so all of that money will be funneled right into retirement.  Same thing for my quarterly Big Fat Check from Ebates, which is currently sitting at $34.99.
4. House Cleaning. I have a lot of things I no longer need. There's an older macbook pro power cable that isn't compatible with my current computer, a TV/DVD player that I haven't used in two years but that works perfectly well, etc.  I'm looking  at the things in my house with a critical eye, and listing anything that I don't use, but that someone else could use on craigslist.  I find craigslist generally annoying, but I have four listings that net me enough money the hassle of dealing with people should be worth my time. I also have a gift card that I got as a gift that I am selling on ebay.  I was stressing out trying to think of what to spend it on, when I realized that I don't want to buy anything and I'd be much happier with cash.  Maybe this is tacky, but I don't really care.

We're also approaching a more temperate time of year, so hopefully heating bills will finally go down, and that will free up a little bit of extra cash.  I'm like a magpie looking for that shiny money, and I think I'll be able to make my goal!

Five Frugal Things Weekend Edition

1. Friday night, I went out to eat and then saw the touring production of Rent.  The show tickets were free because I have a volunteer job writing theatre reviews.  For the low cost of ~700 words about how fantastic the show was, we had excellent seats.
2. Before the show we went out for dinner and drinks to a place I had a gift certificate for.  We spend far more than the gift certificate, but it was still nice to have that discount, and the food was yummy.
3. Saturday night, I invited a couple friends over to hang out.  I got some beer and picked up a couple pizzas with a Groupon.  The Groupon was actually free due to me being part of the class action lawsuit against Groupon, which netted me $60 Groupon bucks, which I turned into pizza.  Now I have plenty of leftovers to pack in my lunch this week, and I got to spend time with some fab women without having to pay for a meal out like we usually do.
4. Sunday morning, it was 60 degrees and I went for a nice long run.  Since it was such a beautiful morning, there were tons of people out walking dogs and just having fun outside.  A good run is always a delightful thing, and excellent people watching is an added bonus.
5. The rest of Sunday will be spent tidying up the house, packing lunch for the week and watching tv with my cuddly kitty--free and delightful.

 

Schemes and Finds

I love a good money-making scheme.  For me, the thrill of the hunt sometimes gets me into situations where I spent far too much time trying to earn a paltry amount of cash, but somehow this small amount of cash that I've gotten outside of my actual job is more exciting since it's unexpected. What's even better is finding low-maintainence schemes to make money doing things I already do, or things I should do.  I've had a few in play lately that I'm really enjoying, and I'd love to hear of others!

Fitness related:

• Pact--Pact is an app where you track the number of steps you take, and/ or you could also track the food you eat, and you earn cash on a weekly basis if you meet your goal.  For instance, the fitness pact requires you to pick a number of days each week where you will walk at least 10,000 steps.  You also establish a penalty for yourself if you fail to meet this goal.  My pact is that I will walk at least 10,000 steps five days a week, and if I fail to meet that goal, I am penalized $10. At the end of the week, if you've met your pact, you get a share of the pot from the other people who didn't make theirs.  You need to have a fitness tracker to record the steps, but other than that, it's pretty low-overhead.  I have been using this for about 8 months, and I make on average $.90/week.  That's not a huge amount of money, but for those 8 months, I've made about $30 doing something that I should be doing anyway.  Once you're in the habit, 10,000 steps per day is very achievable, and I've never not made my pact since I started using the app--even if that means walking laps around my apartment.
• Step Bet--Similar to pact, there is a newer app called step bet, where you pay a $40 buy-in up front, and then the app assigns you a daily step goal based on your previous data. The bet runs for six weeks, and at the end, the winners split the pot, and the losers just lose.  This one was a legitimate challenge, but I'm very proud of myself for completing every week, even though this has been a terrible winter and I wasn't been able to get outside to go running more than a couple times while the Step Bet was going on.  My step goals that the app assigned me were four days at minimum 13,401 steps and two days at least 16,493, then one rest day.  I'm a pretty active person, but that many steps was very tough sometimes.  At the same time, I met the challenge, and I'm pretty proud of myself.  For my efforts, I earned a cool $6.43, but I would actually do this again just because it's satisfying, and any little extra bit of money is nice.  Since winnings are based on other people not completing the challenge, your winnings can vary wildly depending on the people you're competing with.
• Dietbet--Dietbet is the same company as Step Bet, and it's the same concept except with weight loss rather than steps.  There are a number of different games you can join, all of which have various buy-in costs, different amounts of time the game lasts and different goals.  I've done The Transformers game for the last couple years.  That's a six month game where you pledge to lose 10% of your body weight, and there's a buy-in of $125, which is steep, but last year I doubled my money and lost weight!  You have to weigh in by taking a picture of yourself standing on your scale, and then a picture of the number on the scale, along with an index card with the secret word that's sent out during weigh in time.  The company verifies your weight, and you get a percentage of the buy-in at the end of the game.

Shopping:  One caveat with regard to shopping apps, it obviously makes no sense to try to save money by buying things you neither need nor want just because they're a great deal.  I use cash back and rebate apps only to buy things I either have bought before, or I've thought about buying.

• Ebates--I hate going to stores, so I buy online whenever I can.  Ebates is an online shopping website that gives you a percentage of cash back when you authorize them to see what you bought.  The number of stores Ebates is connected to grows all the time, and you can money quarterly via paypal.  You can either go directly to ebates.com and search for the online store you want to shop in, or you can download their browser extension, and every time you go to a website where they would give you cash back, the ebates button lights up and you can enable it for your shopping trip.  I've been with ebates forever, and apparently have gotten $529 cash back.  The cool thing is that you can get cash back on more then just online shopping in the traditional sense.  For instance the three most recent things I've gotten cash back on are online tax preparation via HR Block, a new phone plan through Verizon and cash back on hotels booked via Expedia.  All of those were things I was doing anyway, so getting a little extra money ($75 in the case of Verizon) is pretty awesome.
• Ibotta--Ibotta is a rebate app that you can use for groceries, liquor store purchases and a few other things I've never tried. It's basically like a coupon, except it gives you a discount after purchase.  Your rebate money is banked in your Ibotta account, and once you get to $20, you can cash out via paypal, or get gift cards.  The grocery rebates are frequently pretty small, so it takes a while to add up, but the rebates for beer, wine and liquor add up very fast. For instance it was just St. Patrick's Day, and my local liquor store was running a special on Guinness and Harp beer.  Guinness is usually 13.99 for an 8-pack; Harp is $13.99 for a 12-pack.  The store had them on sale for $11.99 each, and I had Ibotta rebates for $3 off each in addition to that.  So that's a tidy savings on something I would have bought anyway.  Once drawback with liquor store purchases, is that in order to get a rebate from Ibotta, you need to scan the items you bought and take a picture of an itemized receipt.  It can be tricky to find liquor stores that give itemized receipts--so make sure you're getting one before you go nuts buying things!  This week, I have both a $1 off coupon and a $1 off rebate for Fairlife milk, which is usually $3.99, so that's half price for me!  I always buy milk when it's on sale, since my preferred milk is more expensive, and then I portion it out into pint sized mason jars and freeze it. $2 isn't much, but if you found $2 on the ground, you'd probably pick it up, this is just another version of that.

Little bits of money can add up to real savings, and once you're in the habit of looking for deals and rebates, it just become automatic.  Are there any other schemes you've found that I should investigate?