Upromise Mastercard Review Overview The Upromise Mastercard is a cash back rewards credit card offered by Barclays Bank US in partnership with the UPromise rewards portal (Upromise’s sister companies include popular sites like Swagbucks, MyPoints, and MyGiftCardsPlus). I’ve personally had a Upromise Mastercard for a number of years and have held on to it because it has a strong combination of cash back rewards and premium perks, without a pesky annual fee. So this Upromise Mastercard review is from an actual user (cardholder). As a general rule of thumb in the credit card world, the greater a ..read more

The CFPB Announces a New Credit Card Late Fee Cap of $8 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced a final rule that they are capping credit card late fees at $8 for most credit cards (down from the current average of $32) – as part of a broader government-wide effort to curb corporate “junk fees” for consumers. The move is projected to save Americans $14 billion. This sounds great, on the surface, but there are some potential risks for consumers that aren’t disciplined in following the best practices with credit cards. I’ll get into the why, but let’s first The post CFPB Rule Caps ..read more

Groupon is offering BJ’s Wholesale Club membership discounts of $35 off of the purchase of a new annual “Club” membership (normally $55) with auto-renewal – leaving a cost of $20 for membership. Those who claim the offer are also eligible for a bonus $20 reward after making a $60 purchase within 30 days of membership enrollment. This offer is available on new BJ’s Wholesale Club memberships. Read on for more details on eligibility, terms, and how to get this BJ’s Wholesale Club membership deal offer. BJ’s Wholesale Membership Discount Offer Details: BJ’s Wholesale Membership Offer Link: BJ’s W ..read more

A time-sensitive heads up to readers who are locked in to TurboTax for their tax filing needs – TurboTax is offering up to an additional 20% off discount (affiliate link discount) that ends Wednesday, Feb 14, 2024 on top of their already lowest price of the tax season “early bird” pricing that ends Feb 29, 2024. In other words, this is the cheapest you’re going to be able to get TurboTax this tax season – so I’d recommend grabbing this price while you can. More details on the discount promo and TurboTax’s new 2024 pricing structure below. TurboTax Discount Promo Details: The post TurboTax ..read more

Those who watch financial news closely may have seen the exciting news that the IRS has launched a new tax prep pilot called IRS Direct File for taxpayers. I’ve had a number of readers ask for my opinion on IRS Direct File, with some wondering whether it would be worth their time and effort. So, I did some research and wanted to share an IRS Direct File review with everyone on what I found and cover pilot eligibility, launch date, how to participate in the pilot, state participation, income/credit/deduction limitations, pros, cons, and tax prep alternatives. What is IRS Direct The post IRS Dir ..read more

I Bond Update: I Decided to Sell my I Bonds I wanted to provide an update to readers on my current assessment of U.S. Treasury I bonds. As long-time followers might know, I had been a fan of these popular inflation-protected savings bonds in recent years, particularly as their rates jumped far ahead of market rates for other low-risk government-insured investments (e.g. money market funds, saving accounts, and CDs). In fact, I had purchased $10,000 in new I bond issues each of the last 3 years. However, I bond variable rates have been trending downward as inflation has declined which The post ..read more

Intuit Announces they are Shutting Down Mint I was sad to see the recent news that Intuit will soon be shutting down the iconic personal finance management app, Mint. In its press release, Intuit promises that it will be integrating some of Mint’s features into another one of its popular apps, Credit Karma, but not all Mint features will survive the switch. For disappointed Mint users, nothing in that press release really documents the true reasons for Mint’s shutdown, so I’ll give a little history on the two companies (as a former Mint insider, user, and fintech space observer) and The post T ..read more

Groupon is offering a bonus $40 Costco Digital Shop Card deal on new annual Costco memberships (costs $60) by 12/31/23. This offer is available to those who have not yet had Costco membership or their membership expired 18+ months ago (not member renewals). Costco almost never offers membership discount promotions or deals like this – so this is an excellent offer if you’re eligible. I have seen similar $30 Shop Card bonus offers for limited periods of time in the past on Groupon, but a $40 bonus beats that. Read on for full details on eligibility and where to get The post Costco Membership De ..read more

Capital One Shopping, a popular shopping portal site, is offering a very generous (and easy) promotion for new referred users that probably won’t stick around for long: $150 in rewards for $10+ in spend! In fact, this is the best shopping portal welcome offer that I’ve seen by a large amount. The typical Capital One Shopping welcome bonus offer is usually $30 on $10 spend – which is also a great deal, but this is 5X that amount. A similar Rakuten portal referral bonus promo typically results in a $30 bonus on $30 in purchases for comparison (and I’d also The post Capital One Shopping: $150 Ref ..read more

This article has been updated for the 2023 and 2024 tax years. The IRS has released its 2024 standard deduction amounts. Each year, the IRS adjusts standard deduction amounts for inflation (similar to its tax rate brackets, maximum 401K and maximum IRA contribution levels, etc.). With recent inflation levels, there are some noteworthy inflation adjustment increases over the 2023 standard deductions for taxpayers. Most readers are still primarily focused on 2023 tax returns, so we’ll detail both the 2023 standard deduction and 2024 standard deduction amounts in this article. What is a Standard ..read more