Estate Planning, Part 1

 My mother died in September, so things have been a bit hectic since. The good news for you all is that I've managed to learn a lot about saving costs when someone dies.

First off, it makes sense to pre-pay your burial expenses. The very simplest burial cost my family well over $15,000. However, you can either invest money in something like a CD to pay for expenses in the future, or pay out over months or years if you prepay.

You are not required to buy a casket from the funeral home. Caskets on Amazon, as of this date, start at about $900, and can be shipped directly to the funeral home, and the funeral home must accept the casket and use it without any further charges to you. A simple casket from our local funeral home cost $2,500.

As you choose where to be buried, understand what fees there may be for the burial. My family paid $2500 just to open and close the grave. We still haven't bought the headstone.

If you choose cremation, what will happen to your ashes? And if you choose to donate your body to science, again, what will happen to the remains? 

Answering these questions and planning ahead of time will make your death much easier on your family. 

Bank Bonuses

 If you have a few thousand dollars lying around, you may be tempted to put it into a high-yield savings account or a CD. Those are great options, but there's an even more profitable way to earn money, and that is by trying out different banks and taking advantage of their bonuses.

For example, I opened an account with Chase bank with $2,100. I had to make 5 debit card purchases the first month and maintain a balance of $2,000. After 10 weeks they rewarded me with a $400 bonus.

It's easy to find bank bonuses using your favorite search engine, but you want to check the money/time ratio using something like Nerdwallet's CD calculator. Don't be suckered in by bonuses that sound great but pay less than the going CD rates.

Also make sure to check all the terms and conditions. To waive fees, you may have to maintain a minimum balance (check to make sure whether it's an average, daily, or monthly balance). Some bonuses require certain kinds of direct deposits, others require you to make a certain number and kind of transactions, and so on. You want to be sure to understand all of them so you qualify for the bonus and don't have to pay the monthly fees.

You will have to keep the account open until the bonus is paid. That may mean tying up $5,000 or more for six months or longer. Of course, were you to put the money into CDs, you would be tying up your money for a similar length of time.

When the bonus is paid, you may wish to close the account. Take note of what you liked and didn't like about the bank, and if you close the account, let them know why. I closed my Chase account because it was a business account and they spelled my name wrong! Also, Chase is supposed to offer free notary service, and when I called the main number, the phone menu told me to call back later!

Don't forget to check credit unions; they may pay bonuses, too, and they may offer better rates or terms and conditions. Credit unions are insured the same way banks are, but by a different entity: the NCUA. The NCUA works just like the FDIC, so your money is safe.

 It took years, but I've finally reached a milestone.

Yes, that's one million points! That $465 has paid for a lot of stuff on Amazon! So if you haven't signed up yet for Microsoft Rewards, why not do it today?

It's not much, but it's something!

I've been quietly plugging away at my passive income, but sometimes I need some cash quickly. I discovered Survey Junkie, where you can get paid immediately after earning just $5.00. How fast does it pay? When you redeem on Survey Junkie, you receive a verification code in email. You paste in the code (make sure there is no trailing space on the end), and as soon as you press "Yes, redeem," you have the cash! I have seen the balance in my PayPal account as fast as I can refresh the page. And there are bonuses. Twice a month, so far, I've had the opportunity to earn an extra $5.00 simply by completing three surveys per day, worth ten points or more each. And every day, they send me a link to a one-minute survey worth ten points, so that leaves just two more surveys to do to get the bonus. So far, I've made almost $800 from mid-November through May, and if I had more time, I could do even more. But when you're ten bucks short on rent, this is a way to get that fast.

Frugality: Your Electric Bill, Part 2

There's an easy way to save on your winter electric bill that doesn't require you to change your lifestyle, and not only that, it will protect you, your family, your pets, your plants, your wood furniture, your musical instruments, and your electronics! It doesn't require a big investment of either time or money.

You've heard, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity!" in the summer. Winter air tends to be much drier than summer air, and it works the same way humidity in the summer does: that is, 70 degrees at 50% humidity is a lot warmer-feeling than 70 degrees at 20% humidity. In addition, with higher humidity, you will lose heat from your air more slowly than with lower humidity, meaning your heater will come on less frequently.

The process is easy: buy a cheap humidity monitor, and keep your indoor relative humidity between 45-55%. You'll cut down on static shocks, protect your delicate respiratory passages, and lose less heat from contraction of wood in your building. In addition, you'll also reduce your fire danger on dry days!

There are several ways you can increase your indoor humidity. The easiest is to buy a humidifier, and you can find one relatively cheaply at garage or moving sales. You can also increase your humidity by cooking, opening the dishwasher and letting the dishes air dry, air-drying your laundry indoors, misting your plants (you were going to do that anyway, right?), setting out shallow pans of water to evaporate, or taking a shower and leaving the bathroom door open (and not running the exhaust fan).

Finally, a Replacement for Listmania!

I created tons of Listmania! lists back in the day to spotlight products on Amazon that I thought were great and went along with articles I was writing. However, we have a family joke that says as soon as we like something, it's doomed, and such was the case for Listmania!

However, Amazon has finally seen the light for us poor affiliates, and has introduced the Idea List. Go to your lists, and you'll see a new idea list tab. Add your products to a list, then go to your idea list page, use the site stripe to get your affiliate code, and you're back in business!

Frugality: Your Electric Bill, Part One

Electricity is necessary. But there's no point in having to pay too much, or use electricity you don't need. We can all do our part to reduce demand, and in the process, save money that we were spending on our electricity bills for other things.

LED bulbs:
Yes, this used to be a major investment ($13-14 per bulb). In fact, I had a financial plan for replacing all my bulbs with LEDs. That is, until I went to the dollar store and discovered they had LED bulbs there for, yes, $1.

For some specialty bulbs (3-way, fluorescent tube replacements) the cost will be more. But for your everyday, ordinary light bulbs, you're talking about reducing that part of your electric bill that goes for lighting by 90%. I used to have timers on my Christmas lights and it was a significant part of my December bill. Now, all my Christmas lights combined cost less than the nightlight I used to have.

Light color matters, too. I know many people complain about the bluish tint of LEDs. First off, they also come in yellowish tints, too (look for a low Kelvin temperature, around 2700). However, you may want to consider a cool white or daylight setting. Why? Because you see better with less light.

And when you're replacing, don't forget about your refrigerator bulbs. I had 2 40-watt bulbs in my fridge, which meant that every time I opened the door, I was not only heating up the interior of the fridge with room air, but I was also putting out 72 watts worth of heat to heat up the food I was trying to keep cold. Now I have 2 4-watt bulbs which give me more light (enough to see how badly I needed to clean the refrigerator).

In fact, I'm now down to just seven bulbs needing to be replaced. Four are specialty bulbs, and the others I just haven't quite gotten to yet and I don't use often.