With markets on a rollercoaster ride, nearly everyone is watching their personal finances more closely.
But whether you are an investor living in the middle of a trade war, a worker nearing retirement, or a young professional just getting started – there are habits that’ll help you save and grow your hard-earned money.
Here are some of my helpful finance hacks:
Loyalty pays
I sign up for every single customer loyalty program that I am offered. It doesn’t matter what retailer or sector. But the key to capitalizing on loyalty programs is to spend the points immediately!
There is a temptation to save loyalty points for a large purchase, but that’s what the brands want you to do because inflation of points is absurd.
For an exercise, look at what you can afford with airline points today and then check again in 12 months. The value will have dropped like a rock.
I redeem points for whatever is available – or matter what it is.
An investor like me sees a coming gold rush. But I won’t be mining the rocks. I’m investing in the picks and shovels.
Often, you can use points to buy goods and services on Amazon.
Remember, loyalty points are worthless if you let them sit around. A sharp consumer, you can save about two and a half percent of your monthly costs with this method.
Re-negotiate… everything!
You must negotiate all your bills – from household subscriptions to cable bills.
Every time one of my subscription fees increases, I call the company to haggle.
I say to them, ‘Listen, I just saw this increase in the cost of the service. Unfortunately, I can no longer remain with you at this price, so I’m taking my business elsewhere.’
Then – and this is key – I say I’d like to speak to your ‘retention officer,’ who is the person responsible for keeping existing customers.
They will say, ‘Oh, please don’t leave. What do you want?’ I tell them that I’ve been a loyal customer for years and to keep me as one of theirs, I need four free months, and I want my old deal back.
They’ll say they can’t do four months, but they can offer one. I’ll settle for two.
I’ve met every retention officer in every cable service at every subscription business around.
At this point, I’m essentially a retention officer trainer! I show them the ropes.
Never trust, always verify
People think banks, financial institutions, or credit card companies don’t make mistakes.
That’s not the case.
Mistakes happen every day and funnily enough, the errors never seem to work out in the customer’s favor.
For 20 years, I have reconciled every one of my financial holdings every month on every account. Everything is now online, so there’s no excuse not to check.
I recently found a $2.5 million error in a position of a stock that I should have received in my bank account out of escrow, but it wasn’t there. So, I called the bank compliance officer. It took about a month, but the issue was finally resolved.
One thing for the average American to look out for is unexplained fees on your bank statements. Very often, if you see a charge for a transfer payment or a wire fee, you can call up the bank and have it reversed – simply by pointing it out.
Also, pay close attention to your credit card payments. Every charge on every credit card is available online daily and there are tools designed to help manage your accounts.
You can set limits on card spending, which trigger a text alert if a large or peculiar charge goes through.
Balancing act
To keep my finances from spinning out of control, I generate a pie chart of my net worth each month.
If the chart shows I have more than a 20 percent commitment in any one sector (and no more than a five percent stake in any single stock), I diversify away from it and put the money into something else.
Most investment services globally now link to a financial dashboard that allows you to download a Mark-to-Market (MTM). This is an accounting tool that measures assets and liabilities based on their actual market value at that precise moment.
If you use an MTM, you get a real-time snapshot of your financial worth at the end of every day. So, you can aggregate your positions, see what went up, see what went down.
People think banks, financial institutions, or credit card companies don’t make mistakes. That’s not the case. Mistakes happen every day and funnily enough, the errors never seem to work out in the customer’s favor.
Invest in health
A lot of people don’t consider this when they’re thinking about their finances, but being unnecessarily sick is one of life’s biggest avoidable costs.
Of course, the good fortune of good health isn’t entirely within our control, but there are things we can do to skew the odds in our favor. I take care of myself and my household.
I go grocery shopping probably twice a week. In Miami, where I live, I’ll sometimes use Instacart, other times, I’ll take a walk to the local grocery store.
And when it comes to health, my golden rule is simple – don’t buy any products with cane sugar in them. It’s absolute poison.
We have way too much sugar in the North American diet. I always look at the labels and packaging to know how many teaspoons of sugar are in any given product.
It might shock you to know that the average loaf of white bread in America has at least four teaspoons of sugar in it. Try eating four teaspoons of sugar – disgusting.
We have sugar in everything – ‘healthy’ fruit juices made from concentrate, low fat yogurts, cereals, tomato sauce… check the labels and go for the low-sugar option or do what I do and avoid all that crap.
Anything that comes at the expense of your health is too high a price to pay.