Andy Hough

Alternative Income:Bank Bonuses and other Sign-Up Bonuses

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This is another way to make some extra money. Banks often offer cash bonuses for opening a free checking account. I opened a free checking account last month at a local bank and received a $50 bonus. It only took about twenty minutes so I consider it well worth the effort. You can also receive bonuses for signing up for new credit cards and some services. Just make sure that you don’t end up spending more than the bonus. Read the details carefully to make sure the bonus is as good as it seems.
Another example of a bonus I received is the $150 bonus I received for signing up for the Sony card in January. It also came with a 0% balance transfer offer which I used and put into a savings account at Emigrant Direct earning me another roughly $20 a month.

If you are interested in bank bonuses a good place to find them is my other blog Bank Bonuses. You can also find information on bank bonuses and a variety of other types of bonuses at FatWallet and Slickdeals.

My Baby Emergency Fund is Now Fully Funded

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I set up a transfer from my checking account to my Emigrant Direct account yesterday that will finish the funding of my baby emergency fund. I’ve had a goal of saving $1000 for an emergency fund since I started working in late April but it has taken me much longer than I anticipated to complete it. Extensive dental work and car repairs hampered my ability to save money. Now that I have this emergency fund established I am going to concentrate on paying off my credit  card before my 0% interest expires and possibly increasing my Roth IRA contribution.

July Income

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Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

Job

$2089.41

Medical Study

$100

Online Income

$30.96

Selling Stuff/Bonuses

$66.25

Surveys

$10

Interest

$17.84

Total

$2314.46

Online income was down because I didn’t receive an Adsense payment or sell any links in July. Also I paid for one more year of hosting for this site and two others. Job income will most likely go down in August because I will hopefully be returning to school. Interest income will also go down because I’m ending my credit card arbitrage. My other sources of income will probably be about the same.

July Expenses

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Here is the summary of my July expenses.

Rent/Household

$445.24

Utilities

$53.58

Transportation

$844.35

Food

$104.83

Medical/Dental

$416.09

Entertainment

$59.83

Debt

$85

Total

$2008.92

My transportation expense for the month was very high. This was due to having almost $600 in repairs done to my car and using lots of gas for work. This should be lower in August although my car still needs a repair which I’m not sure how much it will cost. I’m almost done with my dental work. I should only get one filling this month making my dental total much lower. After that I’m  thinking about getting some dental implants which would be very expensive. All other categories should remain roughly the same.

Sales Tax Holidays

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Missouri is having their state sales tax holiday this weekend (Aug. 3-5). I doubt I’ll be taking advantage of it. The benefit of these holidays is commonly overblown. The Missouri state tax rate is 4.225%. With county and city taxes the total rate is around 7-8%. Stores commonly run sales with discounts much larger than 8% so I don’t know why people get excited over not having to pay state sales tax. Not all cities and counties participate in the holiday which would make your savings even less. In addition only certain items can be purchased and there is a maximum cost limit on these purchases. If you’re already planning on making a purchase and the store also has the item on sale this can be a good deal but I don’t think it is anything worth going out of your way for.