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| By Nilus Mattive |
Last week, I gave you some insights on how best to use credit cards … with details on some of the best “freebies” I’ve gotten through various rewards programs over the years.
Well, guess what?
There are other ways to use the financial system to get everything from big cash payments to free cryptocurrencies.
Today, I’ll highlight a few.
Like big credit card sign-up bonuses, most of these techniques revolve around the fact that financial companies are constantly competing for new business.
For example, I just got paid A LOT of money to switch brokerage companies.
I was a big fan of Vanguard for a very long time, especially their shareholder-owned structure and focus on no-hype value investing.
But several recent decisions there — including the introduction of new fees — caused me to start shopping for a new brokerage.
After making some phone calls to companies like Schwab and Fidelity, I started getting offers of bonus money for bringing my accounts over.
Everything from reimbursement of any transfer fees I incurred in the process to straight cash incentives.
Ultimately, I ended up bringing many of the accounts over to Robinhood because the company was running a special offer that handed me a 3% bonus on every dollar I brought over into a traditional and Roth IRA.
Without getting into too much detail, it amounted to MANY thousands in extra cash … all of which was deposited immediately into various tax-sheltered accounts … and will remain there permanently as long as we keep our accounts at Robinhood for five years.
Obviously, only you can decide which particular brokerage makes the most sense for you and your needs at any given time.
But the point is that these types of offers come and go all the time. And in some cases, you don’t even know what’s possible until you call and ask.
It’s the same thing with banks …
You can easily get hundreds of dollars just for opening a new checking or savings account, too.
Over the last several months, I’ve received multiple invitations to open new accounts with various banks.
One from U.S. Bank offered as much as $450 for simply opening a new checking account … making two direct deposits … and using the company’s mobile app or online banking portal.
Haven’t gotten any direct mail or e-mail offers like this? You can find the latest deals on sites like the aforementioned www.nerdwallet.com as well as www.bankrate.com. Or simply do a web search for a term like “bank sign up bonus.”
Last time I entered that into Google, I immediately saw results from Bank of America ($300), Huntington Bank ($600), Wells Fargo ($300), Chase ($300) and Associated Bank ($600).
Sure, it’s a bit of work to fill out the forms and update some of your automatic payment information. But it is entirely possible to cycle through several different offers and make a couple thousand dollars right out of the financial system’s pockets.
There are ways to get free stocks and cryptos, too.
Funny enough, Robinhood gave me a nominal amount of Bitcoin — worth something like $8 — on New Year’s Day.
As a gold member, all I had to do was join a countdown on their app at a certain time. (They also gave away $2.5 million in Dogecoin the night before using the same basic mechanism.)
Robinhood and other trading platforms also regularly run crypto giveaways for people making transactions during certain promotional windows.
In addition, many of the same brokerages offer referral bonuses — including shares of stock or cryptocurrencies — if you bring new customers their way.
And certain crypto projects will give users, investors or beta testers free coins, too.
Plus, there are other programs like shopping rewards.
You probably know about traditional companies like Rakuten and Honey (now owned by PayPal).
These companies earn money for sending shoppers to buy products from partner merchants like eBay, Lowe’s and Staples. Then they provide a portion of that money back to the shopper.
I regularly use their browser extensions to get extra cash back on purchases I make.
But there are also companies like Lolli that provide similar benefits paid out in cryptocurrencies.
And while we’re on the subject, there are also credit cards that pay their rewards in crypto as well — including ones from Venmo and Gemini.
When you put all of this together, it’s easy to see how someone could easily stack all kinds of various rewards programs and financial accounts together to earn thousands of dollars in extra cash, stock, travel bonuses, as well as cryptos.
An ambitious person could even rotate through various programs on an annual basis!
Obviously, only you can decide which programs or tactics make sense for your personal situation. None of the above examples are endorsements or recommendations.
But even using just a few of the techniques I’ve described will probably hand you several quick, easy paydays.
And as far as I’m concerned, it’s almost our duty to collect these windfalls because big financial firms do everything they can to milk us day in and day out.
I look at it as getting extra yield for being a responsible saver and an educated consumer.
Best wishes,
Nilus Mattive
P.S. And if you want to be a responsible saver, educated consumer AND like “freebies,” you’ll want to click here.
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