A blog by Jacob
Posted in Reviewson Jun 25, 2018
Recently I reviewed the Discover Cashback Checking account, which gives 1% cash back on debit card purchases. While this account is good for those who spend a lot directly from a checking account, it is not the best place to keep large amounts of money. For that, you could consider the Discover Savings account, which currently provides 1.65% interest. If you have $10,000 in the account, it would pay you almost $14 per month in interest. And the rate has been steadily increasing over the last year, so I would expect the return to get even better.
There is no minimum balance, and no monthly fees.
If you have a Discover Checking account, you can transfer money between accounts instantaneously. Otherwise, you can link to other external checking accounts, but transfers can take a few days.
One of the limitations of a savings account is that you can only make 6 withdrawals per month. You must also be 18 or older to open an account.
I recommend keeping a couple of months of spending money in a checking account, with several months of spending money in a high-interest savings account. Beyond that, you could consider keeping additional money in low-risk investments or CDs.
Other comparable high-interest savings accounts are provided by American Express, Citi Bank, CIT Bank, and Ally. I wrote about Discover’s savings account because I’m most familiar with it, but I don’t know that it offers much more than these alternatives. As with all of my financial reviews, I recommend you do your own research and understand the full terms before opening an account.
Posted in Reviewson Jun 21, 2018
While Discover is mostly known as a credit card company, they also offer some basic banking products (and you don’t have to have their credit card to use them). One of their best products is their Cashback Checking accounts. The highlight of this account is that you get 1% cash back on all debit card transactions. This is a good way to get cash back if you can’t qualify for a cashback credit card, or don’t want a credit card, or shop frequently at stores (Winco Grocery) that only accept debit cards.
Some other highlights of this account:
Accounts can only be opened by those 18 years or older.
A drawback is that there are no local branches, so if you’re the type of person who wants to walk into a bank frequently, this may not be for you. But you can easily link this account to external accounts so that you can transfer money around as needed.
As with all of my recommendations, I recommend you do your own research and understand the full terms before opening an account.
Posted in Reviewson Jun 20, 2018
Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting about several financial products that may be of interest. I’m primarily doing this because I want to be able to help my friends and readers make extra money each year. I don’t want to be pushy about this, which is why I’m posting this information in a take-it-or-leave-it way on a blog.
I’ll be posting reviews about banking accounts, credit cards, investment services, and coupon and rebate programs.
If there are any products where I might earn a referral fee, I’ll clearly state that.
Now let me say a few words about credit cards in general:
Posted in Businesson Apr 10, 2017
Dear United Airlines,
The Internet has video of you dragging a paying customer kicking and screaming off your plane. It is quite embarrassing for you. The old PR means of dealing with this kind of embarrasment–downplay it and it will blow over in a few weeks–won’t work, just as it didn’t work for Target last year with its bathroom debacle. It cost Target millions and will cause you much more if you fail to address the new age of Internet-mob-rules public relations.
Here are some options you may consider and how they might work out for you:
Apologize and never do it again. You might have your ego bruised for the few weeks it would take for this to all blow over. Be careful, because a half apology, one where you only apologize for the Internet’s response, will only make it worse. Try something like “We apologize to the passenger, everyone else on the flight, and all of our customers. It should not have happened. We promise that we will never do it again.”
Blame the police. There is a lot of distrust of the police, so you may be able to shift the blame, but it could backfire if The Internet thinks you are simply trying to avoid taking responsibility. Your message would be one like, “We called in the Port Police to de-escalate the situation, but unfortunately it wasn’t resolved in a manner consistent with our customer commitment. We are working with the Police authorities to ensure their responses are more appropriate in the future.”
Convince the Internet that the unruly passenger is the one at fault. So basically, your millions of customers probably think that if they are sitting in a seat that they paid for, that they shouldn’t be forced out of their seat. Sure you might have some legal stuff that proves otherwise, but that won’t stop your millions of customers from thinking that. So you could blame the customer, suggest that he was at fault for not obeying instructions or following the rules. And good luck convincing The Internet of that. Yeah, you might think it noble to stand up for your company or your employees, and you will find yourself certainly having to do that when the entire Internet inflicts boycott wrath on your financials.
For the last decade or so, we’ve heard about the sky rocketing costs of hosting the Olympic games. This conversation will continue in Rio as the country spends $20 billion dollars to host the Olympics, while 20% of the population lives in the slums. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer cities even want to play host: Only two cities even bid to host the 2022 Games: Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China. Clearly, something should be done to reduce the burden or increase the benefit of being Olympic Host.
Here is my idea: split it up. Instead of one city playing host, let three or four cities (or nations) play host. For example, let Greece host the aquatic events, Rome host gymnastics, Munich host track and field, with the remaining sports divided up and played in those regions. Existing facilities can be used where possible, and the combined travel accommodations would allow more spectators to travel and watch.
The Olympics are great because the symbolize a peaceful unity of peoples from around the world. Allowing several nations to host a single Olympic games would only improve the message of international cooperation.
The biggest challenges would be the presentation of the Opening and Closing ceremonies. Having all the athletes from all the countries come together in one location presents a powerful image. Do you think they could just do a big Skype video conference?
Posted in Businesson Jun 23, 2016
When a business has to let go of an employee, they often give a sum of money and assistance to the employee to help them while they find a new job.
While severance is nice, most businesses don’t exist to be nice, they exist to make money. And business make money by retaining their most profitable employees. So while it sounds backwards, offering severance is a retention policy.
The goal of severance is to make it good enough that employees know that they won’t financially suffer if the company lets them go. Suppose a company offered a full year of severance (not widely done, but good enough for this example). If I am enjoying my job, then I can focus on doing a good job knowing that I can postpone any job searches until I need to.
A company who doesn’t offer sufficient severance is not discouraging their employees from looking elsewhere. Especially when business gets bad, employees actively consider the possibility of being left jobless and financially struggling. Without a safety net, these employees will preemptively look for more security in changing jobs to a more secure company.
I recently moved my server to Linode, which offers IPv6 addresses. So this blog is now IPv6 enabled. Hopefully you can’t see any difference and don’t even know if you are accessing it via IPv6 or IPv4.
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