Gyroscopic Investing

So what does everyone think?  Worth the hassles or not?

https://www.mangomoney.com/

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$3 Monthly Subscription Fee? Nah.[/size]


https://www.mangomoney.com/simple-fees

Not worth it.

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/invest ... e-details/

It looks like it is only for the first $5,000 and the only way to get the money out is with their prepaid debit card.

If it was at least $10,000 I might consider it.

There is another account just like the Mango one (I think I mentioned it on this forum a few years back but I checked a few weeks ago and it's still available) just like this called the Union Plus prepaid VISA; I think it is still for only $5,000 though (and requires a direct deposit).

if you just want 5.00% (actually 5.09%) on an FDIC insured account that's good on up to $20K (and is guaranteed to be at 5.09% until at least 12-31-2015) open a checking account with Consumers CU. They do a hard credit pull to open the account but since they do the credit pull anyhow, go ahead and kill two birds with one stone and apply for their 3-2-1 Cash Back Rebate VISA when you open an account with them.

Once you have the checking account and the VISA, you will earn 3.09% just by getting e-statements and doing at least 12 debit card transactions (as credit/signature transactions) per month and having a one direct deposit (or alternatively, having one ACH debit, or pay one bill using their online billpay). The 5.09% comes in when you use the credit card (not the debit card...you still have to do the twelve transactions on that one but they don't have to total to anywhere near $1000; they can be for as little as you want so long as you do at least twelve) to make at least $1000 in purchases per month. If you don't actually buy $1000 of stuff per month (or if you just don't want to "waste" $1K of purchases that could be put on something like a Citi Double Cash or CSP or Freedom or Amex for the rewards) then just go to your local grocery store and by two $500 prepaid visa debit gift cards. These will code as "purchases" for a total of $1011.90 (each card costs $5.95 plus the $500 added to the card) and thus will get you the 5.09% on your $20K.

OK, now take the prepaid VISA debit gift cards, set a PIN on them, and go to Walmart or any other store (most grocery stores will do this at their Western Union counter if they have one) that lets you buy money orders with a PIN-enabled debit card. Buy a money order for just enough to cash out the cards plus the cost of the money order (so if the money order fee was $0.69, then you'd buy a money order for $999.31) and then deposit it into your bank account and then ACH the money to Consumers to pay the credit card bill. Rinse and repeat next month.

At this point you're probably looking at what I just typed and thinking that it makes no sense since you'd end up losing $5.95 on each gift card plus the cost of the money order which would almost offset any additional interest you'd gain on your $20K above the 3.09%. Yeah, well....you'd be right except for the fact that the "3-2-1" on the Visa credit card refers to the fact that they pay (as a statement credit) 3% cash back on grocery store purchases, 2% for gas station purchases, and 1% for everything else; as such, you actually make $30.36 back (because $1011.90 x 0.03 = $30.36)  as a statement credit which offsets (and then some) the cost of each VISA gift card and the money order fee.

if you don't want to do the "buying Visa GCs at the grocery store" thing, then you can still earn 4.09% per month by doing 12 VISA credit card transactions in addition to the 12 debit card transactions...and there's no minimum size limit on the transactions so pumping one or two cents worth of gas at the pay-at-the-pump qualifies (hint: use the pay-at-the-pump gas pumps at Walmart, Kroger, or a corporate owned--not franchisee owned--Shell station and you can do all twelve at once; most other gas stations limit you to one or two transactions per card number per 24 hours).

MangoMan wrote: Three words:

Too much trouble.

(IMHO)

Really?....It takes me less than 20 minutes per month to do everything I mentioned above (well, except going to the bank to deposit the MOs...but since I typically have to go to the bank at least once a month or more anyhow, that isn't an extra trip and no more time or effort is spent than if I didn't have to deposit them).