Golden Rules for Making Money (1880) • Hacker News Board

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#171

Post by brianpgordon » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

slothtrop wrote: post #170

billfruit wrote: post #109

One modern trick to earn a tiny bit of extra money: Use credit cards for buying/paying anything at all, never use debit cards or cash: Credit cards usually pay a small reward point for spends which can often be redeemed as a cash discount later, and also since the expenses go to the credit card, the cash in the savings account stay untouched till the day you make the credit card bill payment, which will keep earning…

These cards typically have annual fees. The rewards are worth it if the volume of purchases is sufficient to yield benefits in excess if that fee, e.g. $100 a year.

If you have good credit you can easily get 1-2% cash back with no annual fees.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#172

Post by maccard » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

the_jpg wrote: post #129

billfruit wrote: post #109

One modern trick to earn a tiny bit of extra money: Use credit cards for buying/paying anything at all, never use debit cards or cash: Credit cards usually pay a small reward point for spends which can often be redeemed as a cash discount later, and also since the expenses go to the credit card, the cash in the savings account stay untouched till the day you make the credit card bill payment, which will keep earning…

I'm against this practice because of two things: First, you are selling a little bit of your privacy, the bank you know all your purchase patterns and even though this seems not to be abused it creates a precedent that I do not like. Secondly, every time that you buy things with your credit card the bank change the business a small fee, so in a way you are making the 'rich' more richer and the 'poor' more poorer. I b…

> every time that you buy things with your credit card the bank change the business a small fee, so in a way you are making the 'rich' more richer and the 'poor' more poorer.

I used to work for a small "mom n pop" style computer store, and did the cash drops most days. My understanding was that the cash handling fees were roughly the same as the card fees. Arguably card processing was cheaper for us,and less error prone (card machine hooked up directly to the till means I won't accidentally give the wrong change when I'm hungover, for example. )

Most of the time you see steep charges for paying by card (e.g. taxis) theyre related to tax avoidance - if you pay cash thryll just pocket it and not log it as a trip, whereas if there's a card payment there's a paper trail.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#173

Post by AlwaysRock » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:15 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #109

One modern trick to earn a tiny bit of extra money: Use credit cards for buying/paying anything at all, never use debit cards or cash: Credit cards usually pay a small reward point for spends which can often be redeemed as a cash discount later, and also since the expenses go to the credit card, the cash in the savings account stay untouched till the day you make the credit card bill payment, which will keep earning…

I have a card with Barclays I discovered through uber. I only use it for uber rides and at restaurants. I have enough rewards points to get a $25 Amazon gift card at least once a month. Last month it was $50.

This is such a great tip.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#174

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #142

astura wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advise Dave Ramsey and Mr. Money Mustache give are really only applicable once you already did the hard part and built a steady career. Their advice isn't going to help someone who works at McDonalds with several kids with several deadbeat baby daddies and no family support get out of poverty, nevermind build wealth. The fact that most of Mr. Money Mustache's readers (who answer surveys) are engineers really rein…

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-5000... https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-5000...

[deleted]

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#175

Post by Jach » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

lozaning wrote: post #83

sixhobbits wrote: post #57

Funny how some of it seems like good common sense and then you get > Some men have a foolish habit of telling their business secrets. If they make money they like to tell their neighbors how it was done. Nothing is gained by this, and ofttimes much is lost. Say nothing about your profits, your hopes, your expectations, your intentions. And this should apply to letters as well as to conversation. Goethe makes Mephisto…

"Those who know dont tell and those that tell dont know" - something an uncle used to tell me as a little kid.

It's from the Tao Te Ching: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jhmd,jc,rh/sectio...

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#176

Post by hnzix » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #167

dr_dshiv wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands, credit cards aren't widely accepted because the local debit card system has no transaction fee. Without 3% card fees, the consumer prices are lower, so the whole country saves extra money.

I was in NL a few days ago. The taxi driver asked me to change me €5 extra for a €10 ride. Of course I declined and paid what was in the meter. Stealing is not ethical. If they don't want to use cards then they should remove their VISA/MC stickers and we will use other ride services (or a tram!)

€5 seems high, but it's fairly common in eg Australia for smaller merchants (corner shops etc) to charge a card processing fee if your transaction is below a minimum threshold, usually $10.

The driver was probably trying to cover the transaction fee, it's not like most taxi drivers are raking in the big bucks.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#177

Post by telchar » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #172

the_jpg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm against this practice because of two things: First, you are selling a little bit of your privacy, the bank you know all your purchase patterns and even though this seems not to be abused it creates a precedent that I do not like. Secondly, every time that you buy things with your credit card the bank change the business a small fee, so in a way you are making the 'rich' more richer and the 'poor' more poorer. I b…

> every time that you buy things with your credit card the bank change the business a small fee, so in a way you are making the 'rich' more richer and the 'poor' more poorer. I used to work for a small "mom n pop" style computer store, and did the cash drops most days. My understanding was that the cash handling fees were roughly the same as the card fees. Arguably card processing was cheaper for us,and less error pr…

That's technically tax evasion, not avoidance. The former is illegal.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#178

Post by newnewpdro » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #109

One modern trick to earn a tiny bit of extra money: Use credit cards for buying/paying anything at all, never use debit cards or cash: Credit cards usually pay a small reward point for spends which can often be redeemed as a cash discount later, and also since the expenses go to the credit card, the cash in the savings account stay untouched till the day you make the credit card bill payment, which will keep earning…

The moment someone starts telling me to optimize for keeping my money in a savings account a little longer for the interest as financial advice I stop listening.

Maybe it's just my country (USA), but savings accounts are easily the worst place I have ever kept significant sums of money. They yield basically nothing for the depositor.

You can easily beat savings accounts just by trading a single tech stock with minimal exposure. Dumb strategies like riding the climb in the day or two approaching an anticipated earnings call and selling before the actual call to avoid risk will already net you a few percent per call. If you did that once per quarter, you can achieve +10% in a year without having any special skills or knowledge while barely even exposing yourself to the market, leaving your money as liquid cash in the brokerage account the rest of the time will still destroy any savings account I've seen.

Savings accounts are useful for isolating your funds from your checking account as a self-control measure. Once you're beyond struggling to save money at all and fully grown up, the utility is basically nil.

They're obsolete in a world with services like E-Trade offering a checking account w/debit card that refunds ATM fees and a linked brokerage account serving as both isolation from your checking account with the ability to trade online using those funds.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#179

Post by residentfoam » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 11:03 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #109

One modern trick to earn a tiny bit of extra money: Use credit cards for buying/paying anything at all, never use debit cards or cash: Credit cards usually pay a small reward point for spends which can often be redeemed as a cash discount later, and also since the expenses go to the credit card, the cash in the savings account stay untouched till the day you make the credit card bill payment, which will keep earning…

Yes, but this comes with a caveat: keep an eye on your credit card spend and make sure that you never consistently spend more than 2/3 of your credit line, otherwise your credit score will be negatively impacted. In the US market they push you to use credit cards as much as possible, so for instance if you have a credit line of 5000$ you would expect to be able to spend up to that amount with no problem (as long as you pay it back) but I then found out about the 2/3 magic spend threshold oO

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#180

Post by kerouanton » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 11:10 PM UTC

Thanks for the link, it's a nice discovery. fourmilab.ch is a real website for hackers, lots of interesting things. Also, I didn't know its author, John Walker, creator of AutoDesk AutoCAD was living in Switzerland and still so interested in topics such as astronomy, C64, science fiction, Kerbal Space Program and more nerdy things.