Madison @ My Dollar Plan found an interesting way to get Free Money From the US Mint. What’s needed is $250-$2,500 in available funds and a rewards credit card. I would not advise you try this if you carry any balance on your cards, as it defeats the purpose. Start here if you need to get out of credit card debt. In fact, I would urge you not to consider this if you also don’t have an emergency account or short term savings account. This is an investment and will take a couple weeks to receive your coins. You might have the CC bill come due before you receive your coins, so be careful! If you want to read further, here’s an interesting way to earn some fun money.

1. Visit the U.S. Mint website and review the details.
2. As of 8/19/08 standard shipping is free.
3. Coins may be purchased as one box for $250 or two boxes for $500.
4. One President per household. It appears you can purchase other Presidents. 5 are currently available.
5. Use a cash back or reward credit card. The U.S. Mint accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express (Amex), and Discover Cards.
6. Once coins arrive, you can use them anywhere you shop. This is U.S. currency and is accepted everywhere. They would make a great gift from the tooth fairy too!
7. If you don’t plan on spending $250 or $2,500 in cash soon, visit your local bank branch and make a deposit. If they give you a hard time, just make several $50 deposits.

What kind of passive income or alternative income will I expect from this transaction? I’m going to use my Blue Cash Rewards from American Express as an example. I have two reward tiers with this Amex card. I earn .05% on purchases up to $6,500 and then 1.5% on everything over that. Two examples show earning potential at .05% and 1.5% below. Be sure to read your credit card reward information carefully and call your company if you have any questions.

1. Purchase $250 in coins @ .05% earns $1.25
2. Purchase $250 in coins @ 1.5% earns $3.75
3. Purchase $500 in coins @ .05% earns $2.50
4. Purchase $500 in coins @ 1.5% earns $3.75
5. Purchase the max $2,500 in coins @ .05% earns $12.50
6. Purchase the max $2,500 in coins @ 1.5% earns $37.50

My conclusion: It may not be worth your time or effort if you are only going to purchase $250 in coins with a 1% reward card. You’ll only be earning $2.50 and may not be worth your time and cover your gas expense to your local bank. It could still be fun and if you were looking to purchase $1 Presidential coins anyway, you still might want to consider it. I do think it would be worth your time and money if you have a higher reward credit card and you can invest $500 or more. It takes just a few minutes to purchase the coins and as long as your bank will take your deposit, you’ll be making $1.25-$37.50 for your efforts. Your credit card reward program may earn you more! Just to be sure you should probably ask your bank manager if you could deposit these coins. I don’t see it being an issue, but they might have a limit to how many $1 coins they like to have on hand. You could probably get around this by making several $50 deposits.

Do you have a reward card that would yield more than 5% in this U.S. Mint example? Please share it with us. Have you ever purchased coins through the U.S. Mint before?

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photo credit: Dano

I have some wonderful memories when I was a child, especially starting Kindergarten when I turned 5. Unfortunately, I also remember at 5 suffering from anaphylaxis shock after eating a cashew nut. I still recall the emergency room episode and the panic from my parents.

Today, many children suffer from food allergies, including nuts, peanut butter, soy, gluten, wheat, strawberries, milk, and dairy. My children have yet to be tested for food allergies as they are still young, but our pediatrician has agreed that we should keep nuts out of the family diet. Since I still suffer from peanut allergies, we just don’t have the need to buy peanut butter or other nuts. I have also experienced anaphylaxis shock as an adult twice, and it reminds me of the caution we need to take with our children and friends children who suffer from food allergies. After consuming a product containing nuts, anaphylaxis shock for me, starts with an itching of my eyes, hives, and throat closure. If not treated quickly, the airway can swell shut.

Food allergies, and especially for me, peanut allergies are a real hazard and can be life threatening. We have taken the steps to notify our daughter’s preschool and friends and family about her allergies, but what else can we do? Our church has been using stickers on the back of children as notification of any allergies, but I thought about creating a permanent reminder. Cafepress has a wonderful solution for parents that are wondering how to better protect children from accidental exposure. I have created several buttons, stickers, and even t-shirts to bring awareness and safety for my children and others, that are concerned about allergies. In many settings the person that you notified about your child’s food allergy, may not be the same person interacting with them.

These buttons, stickers, and shirts can be perfect for parents who want to take the extra precautions with:

Teachers
Babysitters
Preschool
Playdates
Grandparents
Camping trips
Boy Scouts
Girl Scouts
Brownies
Camp
Sleep overs

If you have an idea for a food allergy that I may have missed, please let me know, and I’ll add it to my cafepress store called Daddy Time. Creating buttons, stickers and t-shirts can be a fun way to make some passive income or alternative income. If you already have a Cafepress business, I would love to hear how you are doing.

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photo credit: Mark Sebastian

The wedding we attended this weekend presented an interesting opportunity for a wedding gift: Visa money gift card or a personal check to help fund a savings account. My wife’s cousin is a missionary in Africa and they didn’t have the traditional wedding registry with appliances, dishes, and bedding. They requested cash so that they could buy local items in Africa and save space while flying home. Typically my wife and I would go online and view a friend’s wedding registry for gift ideas. Should we treat this wedding any differently? Would you give them a Visa money gift card or a check?

What is your wedding gift budget? Do you have a set spending limit when purchasing gifts for a wedding? We typically spend $100, and I believe we spent $50 when we were first married. We budget a bit lower for baby showers and spend around $50. This might seem high, but we typically attend a wedding every two years. Our budget for this wedding was $100 and we couldn’t decide what was better: Visa money gift card or cash?

The Visa money gift card has some major drawbacks as a wedding present.

The Visa gift card charges a $4.50 sales charge to fund the card. That’s a 4.5% sales charge! That $100 would cost us $104.50.

The Visa money gift card has an expiration date and must be used before this date. An expiration date on money is not fair for consumers. How can you give a cash gift with this restriction? I have had 3 cash gift cards that have gone unused and expired worthless. I realize it was my own fault, but I actually forgot I had them. They sat in my wallet, and expired. Lesson learned, spend them immediately on groceries, gas, and necessities first. I would hate to give a Visa money gift card and have it expire worthless for them.

The Visa money gift card has a fee if the card is lost or stolen. You must register your card first, and then charged a replacement fee for the lost card. This Visa gift card had a $5.00 replacement fee.

Why should we give them the gift of cash?

They could deposit the check in a savings account or any investment account. It is 100% liquid and has no fees or expiration dates. Better yet, they could start an emergency account and set aside funds for unexpected expenses. This could be a great start to a young marrieds family budget. Save up that first $1,000 and then move on to establish a short-term savings account. Would you buy a Visa money gift card or a cash gift for a wedding present? Have you ever written a personal note in your wedding gift card encouraging them to utilize the funds for a savings account?

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photo credit: skyseeker

Two years ago my parents offered to give my wife and I a timeshare vacation club through Vacation International. We had dreams of traveling to Hawaii and laying on the beach doing nothing. The reality, we’ve yet to take a timeshare vacation and when we do travel, it’s for family weddings or conferences. This year my wife has a conference in Anaheim and the family is tagging along and going to Disneyland. Another factor, we have two small children and I don’t see us traveling all the way to Hawaii. If they could swim and snorkel, that would be different.

I’m frugal on many items, but will spend money on quality items that can have years of service. I had no problem spending $14,000 two years ago on a used 2002 Toyota Prius. My rationale was that this car had a fantastic resale value, gas mileage, and low maintenance, and great for carpooling. In fact, I could sell it for almost the same price I paid in 2006 as I have the HOV stickers for driving with one driver in a carpool lane. Another interesting California law! What I don’t like is paying for a service I don’t utilize. Paying for an expensive phone plan, when you don’t use all the minutes. Paying for a gym membership, and never visit the gym all year. And now, paying $906 when our family doesn’t utilize the timeshare.

We are just throwing away money, and it’s making me sick. I’ve started to do some research to see what options we have to sell the timeshare. I was told by Vacation Internationale not to pay anyone up front to list the timeshare for us. There are scam companies that will sell your timeshare for an upfront fee. You should never pay $200 or $500 to have someone list your timeshare. I’ve contacted several legit companies, but haven’t heard back, and the next payment is due in one week.

We do have several options available:

1. Allow friends and family to utilize the timeshare. But how can you charge family and friends to use a timeshare? We would just be giving away a two week free vacation.

2. Try and sell two weeks on ebay? I don’t even know if this is an option. What if they trash the timeshare and we are left with the cleaning bill.

3. Trade with another timeshare. We might use a timeshare if it were closer to home and didn’t have to fly. Airfare for a family of 4 would be at least $1,000. If we went to Hawaii it could be close to $2,000.

I appreciate the gift that we received from our parents, but a timeshare vacation club might not be the right asset for a young family with two kids. Can we justify spending $906 or more a year on a timeshare we don’t use? I don’t think so. I would rather use that money to pay down our mortgage or save more money for our kids 529 account. I would love to hear your feedback if you own a timeshare or ever thought about buying one.

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Last night, my wife and I were watching TV and came across a show on TLC about the Jeub family called “Kids by the dozen”. You may remember a show about the Duggar family that has made news with having 17 kids. I remember watching a couple episodes and was taken back by the size of the house they were building for the family. I believe the husband was a real estate developer and the boys helped build the house. Very impressive to be able to organize and motivate the kids to help build a house.

The Jeub Family has a large family as well with 14 kids. I was most impressed and challenged by the frugal lifestyle they lived and devotion to home schooling. They also have older children as leaders, I guess you really have to rely on the older children to help organize the younger children and form a buddy system to get tasks done. I had to stop and replay our DVR when I heard the Jeub’s family income was less than $40,000 a year. I realize they don’t live in New York city or San Francisco, but $40k? This is an inspiring family that challenged my thinking on so many topics. I had to stop the program and ask my wife the following question. How can you raise 14 kids on less than $40k a year? What about emergency accounts, dental bills, braces, vacations, college savings, and retirement? She just laughed at me.

The Jeub’s also spend about $100-$150 a week on groceries for 14 children. I know many friends that spend more than $150 on a family of 4. The Jeub’s really made me challenge some of my thoughts about spending on kids and luxuries of ours. For instance, birthday parties. Would you ever combine your kids birthday parties to save money? I have it set in my head that our kids deserve a special day to celebrate. Do they?

But really, how would you do it? I realize you have to live a frugal lifestyle with 14 children, but doesn’t this make you think hard about priorities for your family. I’m sure the Jeub’s are excellent teachers and that the kids could attend college through scholarships. And I do realize, college is not the end all, and be all for everyone. What about braces? So many questions were going through my mind. How do you tell your kids that braces are not in the budget? I know, I know, you just tell them “braces are not in the budget”.

I really enjoyed watching one of the Jeub daughters working with her dad in the family business. What a wonderful lesson that will teach her and allow her to understand what her dad does for the family income. The Jeub’s clearly have a love for children and a strong faith in God that keeps them focused. Watching the beautiful scenery in Colorado made me daydream to move my family out of the Bay Area and into the country. Maybe once I reach my goal of having multiple passive income streams, we could move our family to the country. The Jeub’s clearly include the family on shopping and finances and probably teach invaluable lessons on personal finance through homeschooling. If you have an opportunity, I would recommend you watch the show about the Jeub Family, and challenge the way you think about your family financial goals.

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