Financial Finagling
So my friends and family have been accusing me of being a skinflint for the effort I’ve gone through in the past few months to make a few bucks:
I ordered $1 distribution quality coins at face value at from the US Mint. They are trying to encourage circulation and you can charge the cost to your credit cards. Remember, these are circulation quality and not the numismatic (collectible) quality coins so don’t try to Ebay them if you value your rating. You can take advantage of this in a few ways:
- It allows you to access money on a credit card that offers 0% APR on purchases. This allows you to bank the coins for interest for the duration (6-12 months)
- You earn credit card rewards points on your purchases
- You can search for error coins in your purchases and potentially find a valuable coin (though this is horrifically boring, I don’t really recommend this)
The bank might look at you funny when you bring in $2,000 worth of coins but that is what their counting machines are for. Just make sure you don’t use a coinstar type machine that charges a fee, the teller should use a commercial machine in the back to sort your coins. I ended up ordering twice, $2,000 to maximize a 0% offer and $2,500 to earn $50 in rewards on my Schwab First Invest card (2% cash reward). I should earn about $70 from my rewards checking account at 4% from the 0% offer.
Discover Card is offering their Teen Current Debit card where you can charge up $2500 to a pre-paid debit card. This charge can be issued on your credit card and earns you full rewards. The down side is that you can only withdraw $500 per day from an ATM and the card costs $5 per month in service charges. Still, if I charge $2500 per month I would come out ahead at $45 using my Schwab First Invest.
Was all this worth the effort? For someone with a full-time job, no. However I am still looking for work so it was an easy way for me to make some cash.
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