Wasted Money or How to Save Money

[Hay Dude]

Anyone use “Zelle”?

 

[paulsharvey]

Anyone use “Zelle”?

No, our bank doesn't use that or Plad; which is kinda a pain when doing home fiancing or vehicle stuff. My understanding is they are merging with another CU, and once that is done, Zelle will be available

 

[ponytug]

Anyone use “Zelle”?

One of our financial institutions used to offer Zelle, and discontinued it due to fraud issues, not further specified.

Personally, given the risks, I'm not wild about it.

https://cybernews.com/identity-theft-protection/zelle-scams/

All the best, Peter

 

[71bronco]

My daughter pays me her cell phone bill which is on our family plan thru zelle. No problems for 2years now

 

[ultrarunner]

Renters now mostly pay with Zelle in property I manage.

It was not my idea but few have checking accounts and buying money orders isn’t their thing.

I said I will stop if fees are imposed.

 

[RSKY]

We use credit cards for everything. We are going to a Sam's Club today and most of what we buy will be paid for with Sam's cash we have earned mainly thru gas purchases. Sam's card gives 5% back on fuel up to $2500 a year. Restaurant meals get you 3% back, Sam's purchases 2% back, everything else 1% back. For nearly everything else I still use the Fidelity card which give 2% straight into my main IRA. Online we use Discover. For some reason I get the impression that Discover is safer for online purchases. We keep up with the quarterly changes in what Discover returns 5% on and change accordingly. When you are retired and on a fixed income this is something that you need to keep up with.

I have cut the number of store cards down from six to three. When they quit giving discounts I dropped them. Lowes gives 5% back, and the wife uses two store cards that give back a percentage or some other perk that makes them worthwhile. When grands get a little bigger these too will probably get dropped.

ALSO, and the main point about using credit cards, we pay off the cards every month and never carry a balance. On the tenth of each month I sit down and pay them off online from a checking account. A quick scan of each account and I can be finished in just a few minutes. Well, takes longer because I also check investment accounts at the same time.

RSKY

 

[not2old]

RSKY glad you saw the light. The secret to using credit cards is to pay them in full every month. The credit card companies still make money from the merchants but not from you. You profit from their cash back schemes if you avoid their outrageous interest rates. We charge all of our stuff to a card associated with Krogers. Each quarter we get > $100 back that is used to shop at Krogers. Food is good, especially when it's free.

My annual cash back runs from $400.00 to over $800.00 now that I'm retired. I used a credit card when possible buying materials for my business and the cash back my last year of work was over $3000.00

 

[WinterDeere]

Anyone use “Zelle”?

Yes. I have a few monthly recurring bills (personal, not business) that I pay through Zelle. It works, in principle. No issues. I access it through my online banking interface. It's admittedly a little crude and clunky, porting Zelle thru online banking, but I've never had any problem with it.

I prefer it in some ways to Paypal or Venmo, both of which have been more prone to hacking. I actually had my bank set up a separate savings account to which I linked PayPal and Venmo, so that they can never link thru to my primary checking. I'll just dump $2k - $4k at a time into that separate savings account, for use with PayPal and Venmo, protecting my primary accounts from any hacks on these services.

 

[WinterDeere]

This whole thread is about saving money on unnecessary expenses, which speaks to my own inner deamons. I'm always looking to save everywhere I can, sometimes to counterproductive levels.

My wife has taught me over the years to think less about savings, and focus more on earnings. Every hour spent on savings might be replaced by a similar time investment in earning twice as much. It runs against my nature, throwing away any money, but when the time that would've been spent on that can be devoted to earning more...