If you’re anything like me, chances are you read about a website in a form of print media (magazine, newspaper, whatever), think “Yes, must check that out,” tear out the pertinent page or write down the URL . . . and then do nothing with it. In a recent spring clean of my office area, I found magazine scraps circa the Bush—younger, not elder, thank goodness—administration tied to events and resources woefully out of date. Which is one of the reasons that I, a print sentimentalist, love writing articles for Web publications.
Last year, I went in-depth into travel websites to help you keep your dollars, Euro, and yen grounded (in print, so I hope your copies aren’t buried underneath backlogs of New Yorkers and Schirmer libretti). But in the spirit of Classical Singer’s digital Web content this summer, we’re going to link you up with some more generalized places to kill 10 minutes and save 10 bucks, offering more practicalities than 15 percent on car insurance or a William Shatner-negotiated hotel fare. In the past I’ve raved about resources like Mint.com, but this goes beyond the general account amalgamation and gets into the nitty-gritty. Read on and get ready to open some new (Web) windows.
Catalog Choice (www.catalogchoice.org)
Here’s what happens: You don’t have a need for new clothes, then the J. Crew catalog comes in the mail and makes its way from your entryway table to your kitchen to your bathroom . . . when, one afternoon, you discover a pea coat that it would be unthinkable not to buy, especially with a sale price of $79.99. That’s why I own a mug that has a built-in compartment for cookies or biscuits. In this sense, it’s a marketer’s dream, but it’s also your fiscal nightmare.
The benefits of Catalog Choice are twofold. Sign up for a free account and you can enter in the offending catalogs as they come in, and the website then liaises with the companies directly to take you off their distribution lists. Moreover, you can do the same with unsolicited credit card offers and other mailings that, when not disposed of properly, can lead to that costly, pesky hades of identity theft. The service is free, but for $20 a year you can also be covered against your information being sold on contact lists from company to company.
BillShrink (www.billshrink.com)
They call it BillShrink for the no-brainer reason that this website is designed to shrink your bills—but I also like to think of it as a therapist for my wireless, credit card, gas, and utilities bills, allowing them to be as highly functioning as possible. And like any good shrink, what sets this site apart from the rest is that it takes into account a number of personal quirks and preferences. Do you pay off your primary credit card in full each month? How much do you charge every 30 days? Where do you most often drive and how much gas do you get when you fill up? They want to know. And they use that information to help.
BillShrink follows through on the results of a 2011 survey performed by their parent company, Truaxis, which showed that 88 percent of people want financial institutions to deliver insights into their purchase behavior and offer actionable financial recommendations. A live feed of savings posted include saving of $288 to $1,560 on phone service and $1,680 on television service, as well as adding an extra $4,022 to credit card rewards.
SmartyPig (www.smartypig.com)
They say that if you want to save up for something, “simply” set aside a certain amount of money each day, week, or month until you’ve accrued the necessary funds. But life has a tendency to get in the way, and that 30 percent of each paycheck you squirrel away for taxes or the jar of $5 bills you’re filling up for a vacation may quickly go to cover an out-of-coverage doctor’s visit or flights out to a last-minute audition. What SmartyPig does is help to solidify your savings goals. Like PayPal, it synchs up with your bank account and will make regular withdrawals based on your selection of amount and frequency—they’ll also make recommendations based on how much you want to save and the deadline to do so—and an initial deposit of $25.
It’s a great way to get out of the “buy now, pay later” mantra of credit cards (and the resulting debt they bring along), but there are some added fringe benefits to this ingenious site. First off, you can make your savings goals and progress public via Twitter and Facebook, which statistically means you have a greater chance of meeting them when you hold yourself accountable to friends and family. On the flip side of that coin, you can also accept contributions from friends and family, à la Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. The interest rates are competitive, it’s FDIC ensured, and if you opt for certain ways of getting the funds reposited to you once you’ve reached your goal, there are incentives for cash back—which means bringing home some extra bacon.
Shoeboxed (www.shoeboxed.com)
I have, courtesy of the Container Store, a receipt file that I fill on a weekly basis. Every February, as I sit going through the same folder entering countless slips of paper and decoding scrawled notes of dinner companions and project expenses for tax season, I vow to put these receipts into Excel on a weekly basis rather than into a fancy folder. And yet, every year, I spend a week getting those crumbled scraps of glossy paper together. Websites like Mint offer some means of alleviating this burden, but don’t necessarily account for cash expenses or other abnormal receipts.
What Shoeboxed does is take all of your receipts—physical (you send them in like a Netflix return) or digital—and arrange them, even automating them, into effective expense reports. They’ll even do the same for goods like business cards if that’s your thing. If you’re on top of your game, you may not necessarily want to shell out the baseline fee of $9.95 per month (which covers up to 250 scans and leaves you to foot the bill for shipping; more comprehensive plans run between $29.95 and $49.95). However, if you find that this is one way you don’t want to spend your time, it can be a lifesaver.
SavvyMoney (www.savvymoney.com)
As someone who has seen the damage wreaked by easy-solution debt consolidation firms, I’m wary of websites that boast a “faster, cheaper, easier way to pay off debt.” But SavvyMoney, while making that exact claim, does so with a plan so logical it would make Mr. Spock nod in approval. The management service aggregates your account balances, interest rates, and due dates for credit cards, student loans, and mortgage and car payments, along with recommended payments and amounts already paid in your current cycle.
You then name how much you can reasonably afford to put toward your collective debt each month and are in turn given a SmartPay Plan that compares payoff options that could leave you, on average, eradicating your debt five years sooner than you would paying month-to-month whatever cash you have on hand. In a way, it functions as a sort of My Fitness Pal or Weight Watchers for your debt, and the website also offers keen savings articles on its homepage.
AwardWallet (www.awardwallet.com)
In the past, I’ve said that if you’re going to go down the long and winding road of credit cards, do so with a provider that matches your needs so that the more you do spend, the more you earn. (If you’re at a point at which you travel frequently as a singer and don’t have a card with air miles, we need to have a “come-to-Jesus” talk.) Whether you have one card or three, not tracking your awards programs renders the inherent perks moot. But it’s also where credit card companies cash in: those free perks or cash back that you don’t take goes back into their pockets.
Like many of the personal assistant sort of services offered by the websites named here, AwardWallet aims to help users make use of the estimated 10 trillion frequent-flier miles (roughly 20 percent of the total pool). They also keep on top of other loyalty programs and monitor various reward expirations that allow you to take advantage of what comes in return for annual fees and interest rates. While the benefit is primarily for budget travel, it extends into the various ways you can make your credit card work for you.
Buxfer (www.buxfer.com)
On par with Mint, Buxfer is primarily a money management system that leaves all of your accounts in one place. And, like Mint, it divides your spending among categories like dining, movies, utilities, and auto maintenance while suggesting a breakdown of your monthly income among these categories, and setting limits for monthly financial output. It also plots out your bill due dates and helps plan for the future with daily balances juxtaposed against projected income and scheduled spending to give you a reasonable idea of where you’ll be at fiscally in coming months and years.
What Buxfer has over its competition, however, is that it accounts for the fact that you may be at a stage in your life in which you’re sharing expenses with others. Whether it’s splitting rent with roommates, dividing IRA contributions with your spouse, or going in on a trip with two or three accomplices in tow, Buxfer allows the expenses to be divvied up and tracked so that one of you isn’t playing the heavy and hitting your cohorts up like a mafioso. A basic plan is free, but you can upgrade to services that run either $4 or $5 a month for services like balance projections and unlimited lists of accounts, budgets, and bill reminders.
Coda: The GrouponKingsGiltSocialLiving Vortex
It seems the new thing these days is the idea of offering a daily mailing list advertising deals to subscribers, made especially famous in the realm of Groupon and LivingSocial. I could spend a whole column just discussing these guys, but here’s the inherent issue with these daily deals and why it’s best to exercise caution: every other website detailed here is selling you a service that you need.
But what these services do, at least 90 percent of the time, is sell you stuff you didn’t know you needed. I especially take issue with the high-end services like Gilt and Kings because their prices are generally still way overpriced (though I did make one purchase from Gilt when they had a sale on Spanx, and I’m not ashamed to admit that in print). But with the Groupons and LivingSocials of the world, you’re sold things in an effort on the websites’ and their partners’ parts to take advantage of the city you live in: weekend getaways upstate, local pub crawls, theater tickets, and spa packages.
I still think they’re useful to sign up for in case of that one day when there’s a pertinent offer for a house cleaning or the holy grail of coupons along the lines of $10 for $20 at Amazon.com. But it’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of the moment and end up with a bunch of vouchers that serve no real benefit. Always read the fine print (that hotel voucher for Travelocity may be good only if you’re booking more than three days) and check out the offering party on Yelp (which has saved me from a few disastrous dental situations). And always, as the Grail knight tells Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade, “Choose wisely.”
