- How to Hack Your Mortgage Into A High Interest Savings Account by Money Metagame. Nice in depth article that I’m sure will be of help to some people.
- Gift of College gift cards appearing in more stores by Frequent Miler. Having them hit Best Buy stores will be huge for a lot of readers.
- Reader Adam received this offer for $25 cash back for spending $500 on PenFed card. They received the same offer last month but didn’t complete it.
OMG, no!
Using a house as a checking/savings account is a terrible idea. Sure, it looks good on paper but the problem is the line of credit is NOT guaranteed, the bank can close your HELOC at any time they feel like it. If they decide to do that then you “lose” all your money you have tied up in your mortgage and are unable to remove any equity from your property, that’s assuming you have any equity at all. This happened to people en mass in 2008-2009. The worst part of this is that is the bank is most likely to close your HELOC when you need it most, during a recession. A Reddit user told a story about a customer they had who did just this, the value of his house dropped during the financial crisis, and his HELOC was closed. Guy was absolutely devastated.
In regards to the Gift of College GCs, there’s a great guide on reddit (below). Personally, the 1.1% fee to purchase online seems reasonable, since i’ve paid more for MS in a pinch (but obviously that’s subjective).
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/640mgv/guide_to_paying_student_loans_with_credit_cards/
Thanks for the share!
Can you elaborate on the Best Buy comment?
You may be able to buy them with best buy GC I would think
so possibly 1-1.5% off + 5x INK best buy > gift of college > pay student loans – the ~1% fee.
Dividend also has them as a quarterly 5% category for those that didn’t/can’t/won’t max out on drug stores.
US Bank Cash+ seems to have 5% at electronics stores as an option as well.
I believe buying any gift cards at Best Buy with a Best Buy GC is highly YMMV
Easy to get 5% at best buy