﻿Obscure Money Hacks I wish I Started At 20 - [0:00:00]
Quick question. Is there anyone out there that has more than 35
savings accounts? At the risk of sounding a little bit OCD, that's how many I have. And
to be clear, over 25 of those are at one bank. So, why do I have so many checking accounts? Well,
years ago, I read about paying yourself first. The idea is you put a little bit of
money aside for your goals and for your dreams, even if it's a single dollar.
So for me, I had a number of accounts that I created basically for my dream home.
I knew that I wanted to save up for a new vehicle. I started having kids. So, five kids and actually,
I have two accounts for each of them, one for college another one just for general savings.
Now the way it works is I've got a master checking account and that's where all of my
payments go into when I pay myself. And then every single month, I have a small amount that goes into
each of these savings accounts. So, when I say a small amount,
initially it started off like 5 bucks, then I increased it to 25 to 50. It really
depends on the account. Some accounts I'm now putting in over $1,000 a month that, yeah,
are going towards goals that are important to me. And as I kept doing this, the number of accounts
kept increasing. So, I had vacation accounts, I had traveling to Ukraine accounts. You guys know
I'm married to a Ukrainian, we go there pretty much every year except for, you know, this year.
But, we did go last year, thank goodness. And, you know, just other things like vehicle
repairs. All of a sudden, you know, we started getting some animals, so I started making sure
we've actually got money that we put aside for the vet bill that we know is going to pop up.
I realized for my dream home, I needed to first actually buy land, so I created a land account.
We've got multiple emergency accounts. We've got medical bills, tax accounts because I got a
property tax bill now that I've paid off my home. As a result of automating paying myself first,
over a period of eight years, I was able to make substantial progress towards saving for
my dreams. Also, you know, those expenses that oftentimes deplete your accounts or make you go
into credit card debt? I was putting aside money for those, so it wasn't a big deal. It was just
expected, we were already putting that aside. Now, my checking account, I kept it, you know, a
certain balance. And if it ever went above, I had that excess put into these other savings accounts
to accelerate them. And, I was automatically going in and increasing the amount that we were putting
aside as I started to earn more. [Music]
Now, this next obscure money hack is one that most people aren't doing and that's monitoring
the dark web for your financial information. Seriously, the fastest growing crime in America
is identity theft. Every 14 seconds somebody is becoming a victim. And that's why, gents,
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I know one of the worst fears I have is I go into my email and I can't access it and all
of a sudden, I start getting notifications that this account has changed that this account has
changed. That they are somehow into my checking accounts, my savings accounts, my crypto.
And despite, you know, having these in kind of separate islands,
it's a fear if somebody gets access to certain bits of information if I was lazy that they'll
be able to go in and change all this. Well, with Aura, you're able to get
notified quickly that this is starting to happen, so that you can take the
immediate steps to fix the problem. And the way they're doing this is they're
being proactive. They're going out there on the dark web and they're monitoring. They're
looking for your information, your emails, your passwords, your social security number and they
will send you an alert very quickly right to your phone or email as soon as they detect it.
And let's talk about that VPN. Guys, if you're traveling abroad or you're just visiting your
local coffee shop, you may not know that that signal can be intercepted. If you're not familiar
what VPNs are, basically, they provide an encryption tunnel that your information go
through and other people can't penetrate and steal your passwords steal your information.
And on top of all, that they've got anti-virus software that's going to block malware and
viruses before they infect your device. Now you may remember, I've worked with Aura
before and last time, they've found my information on the dark web six times. Well, since then,
they found it again and, again, they notified me whenever a credit card there was suspicious
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Now, some of you guys may be saying with that first hack, well, my bank doesn't do that. Well,
guess what? The next hack is to go look at other banks. I've got seven banks
that I work with. And I’ve looked at a lot more than that. Those are the seven that
I've decided to stick with over the years. Three of them are online virtual banks. Four
of them are, you know, more classic brick and mortar banks. But what I've discovered
is that banks are very different. A lot of people think they're pretty uniform,
but they are so different in the services and the deals that they offer you as a customer.
[0:05:08] So, one of
the banks I work with has a branch 800 meters from my house. I can walk over there and pull
out cash when I need it. But, when it comes to their online interface,
it really is not that good. They also charge foreign transaction fees, so I don't use them
whenever I’m making purchases abroad. Another bank is really great online,
just amazing customer service. I also like how they're the one that actually has the multiple
savings accounts. But, they are locally based and they really don't have anything when it
comes international. And, again, if I use their cards abroad, they're going to get rejected.
So, I've got another bank that is amazing abroad, but they don't have any physical branches. But,
they're really great if you're just going to simply be scanning checks and sending it to them.
I've got another bank that I love to do all of my business transactions with. That being said,
I've got another one just in case this one we're going to have some issues, I've got a backup
business transaction bank. And I've also got those online banks,
one of them just simply PayPal. I mean, people may not consider them a bank, but I do because,
you know, they move money and they're just great when it comes down to being able to receive funds.
My point here is when you work with multiple banks, you're able to compare apples to apples.
Just the other day, I bought a new vehicle and I needed to get a loan. So,
I just go to all the banks I'm already working with and I say, “I'm buying this new vehicle,
what is the interest rate? What are you going to be able to give me for this loan?” And there was
a huge difference in the banks in what they were able to offer and i went with the best deal.
So, the next uncommon money hack, I want to talk about is getting and increasing the amount of
credit that you have with your existing credit cards and getting those interest rates down.
So, when I went through a bankruptcy, this was well over a decade ago,
it destroyed my credit. I lost all my credit cards and rightfully so, I was a bad spender and that's
why I've got a lot of these systems in place. But, the first card I got was a secured card
for 500 bucks for my local bank. I still have that credit card. But now, I've got $4,000 in
credit with them. It's not secured anymore and the interest rate instead of being like 25%
is now well under I think 7% or 8%. I did this step by step.
And I also I'll talk about why I kept that credit card a little bit later. But, this one I remember
I've just gone back to them probably seven or eight times over the years and it's a small
amount that they increase every time. And the big thing was actually getting it from being secured.
And in case you're not familiar, secured credit cards or you actually have cash with the bank,
it's not really a credit card it's almost like a debit card.
But point being is we changed this and it was like me going back five or seven times. Every
time my credit score would go up a bit higher, I knew that I had a bit of negotiation. Every time
I could show, hey, for two years, I've paid this off every single month. I went in there
and slowly we made those improvements. Now, the cool part here is how this affects
your mindset. When you see this going up, you actually do this with your other credit cards. So,
once my credit score had improved it had been number of years since my bankruptcy,
actually I went and gotten American Express. And I think I had a credit with then of about
$10,000 a credit line. But now, I've increased that to $50,000 over the last few years. And
the reason I did that is, you know, what I hit on, you want to have credit before you need it.
It's not like I'm going out maxing every single month that $50,000 line, but I love that I've
actually got that at my disposal. Once you have that relationship with the card, you show
consistently that you pay it off every single month or that you at least make your payments,
they are willing to, hey, look at your history negotiate with you.
As you see your credit score increases, you're able to go to them and say, “Hey, you know,
I'm at $10,000, can we increase this to $20,000?” And that's a lot easier for a company instead of
just issuing you a brand new card because you're also building time with the card.
And that's another important thing for your credit score in case you don't know
is that the longer you are paying and you are working with a particular account,
the age of your accounts matters a lot. Generally, you want them to be over four to six years.
And while we're talking about credit cards, let's talk about fees. And you see this with
your banking statements as well. So, go through your banking fees and don't be afraid to call
them up and to ask, hey, yes, I understand that you charged me this $17 fee for this, but this
was the first time this happened. Maybe you had an overdraft or maybe you didn't realize that pulling
money out of that particular ATM, they would also charge you, you know, 5 bucks, 10 bucks for that.
Go and simply ask for them to refund. I find a lot of times when it's your first offense,
they will refund it to you. Or you know, it may come down to, hey,
actually, this -- why was I charged with this? I found one credit card was charging me a lot of
foreign transaction fees and it turns out that that was just simply the way it was. They were
not going to negotiate on that, so I moved all of those automated transactions to a different card
did not charge me a foreign transaction fee. And it wasn't a crazy amount. It was like
a total of like 15 bucks for three to four different charges that were happening every
single month. But, I mean, add that up I mean over the period of a year.
[0:10:01] And that's the way to look at this
is that's 20 bucks every single month for a year, that would have been 240 bucks.
Go with that philosophy, it becomes a game almost those small, you know, leaks are going to sink
a great ship. I think that was what? Benjamin Franklin said that? So, approach it that way.
And, I love going through my -- my statements both for my credit cards and for my banking statements
looking for little things that I can argue on. I've become that weird person who likes to call up
and argue about this and try to get that 5 to 10 to 15 bucks back.
It's not about, you know, I know my time is very valuable,
but for me, it almost becomes entertainment and a game to be able to see if I can get that back.
And, I hold that to people on my team, especially if they're managing that credit card that, hey,
you need to be going after every single penny. And, I may have said this earlier, but one
thing that I try to stick with is go to where you are best treated. So, again,
if you're working with numerous banks you've got numerous credit cards, actually, look at
the ones that you're using, which -- which one has rewards that actually you make good use of.
I've got one that, you know, it's great if I go out to a lot of restaurants, I get,
you know, get like three times the points on it, but I rarely ever use it. So instead,
I go with the one that actually gives me Marriott points because I do travel a lot with my family.
And it's really nice when we are able to just simply use hotel points and be able to stay
at all these hotels around the world. So, I found that that is the card that
I’m going to predominantly have most of my, you know, payments going through because I’m building
up those points, which I'll actually use. So, always think, hey, wherever you are best treated,
make sure to give them your business. That being said, make sure to look at this
every year because anyone that was getting airline points years ago, you know that it
just seems to get worse and worse when it comes the airlines. And you've got to, yeah,
what was great, you know, just, you know, a few years ago isn't necessarily good now.
Next up, let's talk about insurance. This is one that a lot of people don't think about because
you don't need it on a daily basis. You rarely use insurance and when you do,
you want it to cover you, right? So, make sure that you are not going with the bare minimums.
A lot of times when companies sign you up, especially if they've got you in with
a low price guarantee, you want to look at what you're covered for. I know when it comes to
vehicle insurance, I have maxed out pretty much. I -- I get way beyond what my state requires.
And the reason being is when you start going out there and you look at this, you realize
that I’m taking a huge risk, especially if you own your own home if you actually have assets
that can be taken away from you, you want to make sure it doesn't cost a whole lot. It does
not raise your insurance that much to all of a sudden start having a lot more coverage.
To make sure that you've got coverage in case you hit somebody that's uninsured. What would happen
if your vehicle were to hit, you know, three Mercedes and I don't know, three Teslas all at
the same time and you are responsible for that. Do you also have umbrella coverage? This is
something most people don't even think about, but umbrella coverage, it covers a lot of the -- the
holes. And if you've got your own business, if you're working from home, if you're a contractor,
do you have business insurance? I’ve got that now in my office. But,
I’ve also got, you know, coverage for, you know, this channel as well because you start
thinking of all the risks that you've got out there. You just start to have children,
you have other people maybe you get married, you have people that are dependent on you.
Maybe you're -- somebody comes to live with you that you're taking care of,
all of a sudden you realize, hey, I want to make sure that I’ve got life insurance. So,
you start looking at all these things. And it's important that you don't skimp here. And it's
something, again, that we don't think about until something happens to us and then it's too late.
And I'm not trying to over complicate things here, but I am saying
if you make it a game, this can be really fun. Did you know your credit cards? A lot of them,
you want to actually check with your credit card. Whenever you go out and you purchase a camera,
you purchase that iPhone, yes, it comes with a one-year warrant. But, if you used a particular
card maybe in American Express, did you know it doubles the length of that warranty? So,
American Express now is covering this for you. If you're renting a car, your own car insurance
should cover you. You shouldn't have to buy that extra insurance. When it comes
to travel insurance, anytime you buy, you know, that now they're getting you,
hey, pay an extra 30 something 40 something bucks and we'll cover it. Well, guess what?
You probably already have that coverage with the credit card you're using to purchase this.
Now, you want to verify. Not every credit card has this, but there are many of them
especially if you have a higher end credit card with a very reputable company, you'll
find that they will give you travel insurance. That your car – your -- your rental car, you are
covered not only by your insurance with your own vehicle, but the insurance that comes with that
credit card that you made the purchase with. Now, these next tips are actually
really practical. I think you can use them pretty much every day. Whenever you go into
a store and you buy something, play the game of trying to guess the amount that
everything in your cart is going to cost. I've actually I do this with my kids and they
try to guess amounts. And you will not believe how many times you are overcharged at checkout,
sometimes undercharged as well. So it's actually kind of fun for me to point out
that you didn't charge me for this because I try to be, you know, an honorable person.
[0:15:00] But, just the other day,
I'm at my local feed store. I've got chickens and we got animals. So, I'm picking up all
this food and I know, I mean, the amount could not have been more than $70 and it
was 87 bucks. I'm like, “What's going on here?” And the guy didn't catch anything. He actually
had to reset it and, of course, it was well under 70 bucks. I knew what it had. I mean,
he had charts. Somehow something else had gotten on there, he charged me twice.
He didn't see it until he went through and redid it, but I knew the numbers in my head.
Also, whenever, you know, obviously you can't do this when you -- you're doing maybe – well,
some of you guys probably can when you've got 100, 200 things in your checkout, which I sometimes do
when I go to certain stores buying lots of food. But, I do go through and I will look at the
receipt before I leave. And I am that person, I'm sorry if you're behind me that I spend 30 seconds,
45 seconds quickly looking at everything. And when I'm putting things in the checkout,
I like to put them together in groups that way I can see if I bought six milks,
which I do because I've got 11 people in my house and we go through that in a week and
a lot of older boys, they just love that milk. Point being is I can see that I should be paying
for six milks not 42 avocados, which happened to me awhile back. And avocados are expensive
here in the United States like 1.52 bucks each. I was like, “What in the world is going on? I
knew I'd only gotten six of them, not 42.” And, yes, people make these mistakes and
if you're not paying attention you can walk right out of that store and then it becomes an
issue when it was just one thing you were overcharged for for like five bucks. You
don't want to go back in, but when you're right there, you can quickly point that out
and they can make the correction right there. And I talked earlier about going through
statements, but, again, those banking statements are key because you're going to notice
why do I keep getting charged for this? So, I noticed I was getting charged
by Boomerang and you may be familiar if you've got kids. This is one of those channels that
somehow I was subscribed to it on Amazon and I was subscribed to it through one of my credit cards.
I was getting double charged and it turns out my kids love it and for some reason we weren't able
to log in one day and I also remember doing this. I re-subscribed thinking that I was subscribing
the first time using their direct service. And I was basically double subscribed and I realized,
well, that we hadn't even watched anything here for like two to three months. So,
if you like the movie, The Purge, do this with your credit card and your banking statements.
You want to go through, do it realistically once every six months. I go through and I'm like,
“Oh, my gosh, like why have we been paying for this subscription service?”
We've got one, I mean, I thought I was smart. During the winter, we get a lot of really bad
weather here. So, I've got three vehicles now, I did a subscription car wash. And we're going
through and we were using it almost every day. In the winter, your car gets covered in grime and
salt and it was just good for the vehicles. But now, it's warm it's summertime,
we're only going through that car wash maybe two to three times a month. So, I need to unsubscribe
from this because it doesn't make sense. And, remember, you can always re-subscribe. They
love to have you come back. And, yeah, it's just find a way, yeah, get off of those subscriptions.
And what video to watch next? Well, how about this time that my identity was stolen? This is actually
pretty recent. We had a guy out there, who was claiming to be Antonio Centeno and was, yeah,
actually contacting companies, stealing things. And it ruined my online reputation, which I still
don't think it's fully recovered. But, I talk about that story right here, guys. And I thought
it was pretty interesting. You, yeah, check it out, guys. It's a good video and that's it.
Take care. And, yes, when you magic -- when you click this, you will magically be transported to
another video. It's cool how that happens. [0:18:37] End of audio