Prefer to watch? Here's the quick video version of today's issue.
Dad Joke
Job interviewer: “So what would you say is your biggest weakness?”
Me: “Honesty.”
Interviewer: “I don’t think honesty is a weakness.”
Me: “I don’t care what you think.”
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
The refund that doesn’t ask
For years the safest rule for money that shows up out of nowhere was simple. Ignore it. Starting today, that rule can cost some people real money.
Amazon starts sending a new round of Prime refunds today, and the FTC says nobody has to do a thing to get one. No claim. No form. No reply to a notice. This round goes to people who used between 11 and 20 Prime benefits in a year and weren’t paid in the earlier rounds, and the most anyone can get went from $51 to $200.
Here’s the part that matters. The money comes by PayPal, Venmo, or a check in the mail, and the FTC’s refund page says the payments expire 60 days after they’re issued. A lot of us have been trained, correctly, to delete any email or text that says money is waiting. This time the real one looks a lot like the fake one, and the real one has a clock on it.
KSL reported last night that scammers may follow these refunds, with fake emails asking people to click to claim. That’s real. But it’s not the whole story. The quieter risk runs the other way: the real payment, deleted as a scam.
So the test isn’t how the message looks. It’s what it asks for. The FTC says it isn’t contacting anyone about these refunds, and that nobody from Amazon will ever ask for money to get you one. A real payment asks you to accept it. A fake one asks for a password, a fee, a card number, or a phone call.
The same goes for the $500 Obamacare refund checks the White House says start going out this month to nearly 1 million people in 30 states. A check nobody asked for is exactly the kind of thing a stranger calls to “help” with.
Somebody you love deletes every “you’ve got money” message on sight. Usually that’s a great habit. I’d forward this to them today, because the FTC says an Amazon refund left unaccepted expires 60 days after it’s issued, and the real one never asks for anything but a yes.
And I bet I know how most people, including myself, will spend that refund. On Amazon.
The account that pays you almost nothing
Most of us grew up thinking a savings account meant our money was growing a little, even if slowly. For a lot of people it quietly stopped meaning that, and nobody sent a letter.
The FDIC’s national rate table puts the average savings account at 0.37% and interest checking at 0.07%, against 3.63% on a comparable Treasury. On $10,000, that’s the difference between about $37 a year and about $363.
Here’s why that matters more than it looks. The money sitting in savings is usually the emergency fund, the cushion between a bad week and a credit card. With prices still rising, a cushion earning 0.37% buys a little less every year it sits there.
A safety net that earns nothing still catches you. It just catches you a little lower every year. Not every insured savings account pays the average, and the gap between the one you were handed and one that actually pays is usually a short online application at another bank.
I wrote about where an emergency fund should live, and why I’d keep one even while paying off debt.
Also on the site since yesterday
If any of this was new to you, somebody you know hasn’t heard it either. It’s free at yourmoneyactually.com, and I don’t sell the list. The places I actually use for my own money, and what I get out of telling you, are on one page where they’ll always be.
Nothing here is advice for your specific situation. It’s what I’d tell a friend over coffee, and I’d tell the same friend that the details of their own life outrank anything I’ve written here.
One more thing. Not every bit of money in your life is out to get you. Some of it is just waiting for somebody to say yes, and some of it is sitting in a quiet corner earning less than it could. Finding either one doesn’t take a windfall or a new plan. It takes one honest look. I’ll be back tomorrow.
— Steve