EPISODE 68~ TOP TIP: Beware of Balanced Billing!
If you choose a managed care plan like an HMO or PPO for your healthcare needs, beware of something called “balance billing.” There are a couple different variations. Many managed care plans negotiate discounted prices with their member doctors. Some doctors then turn around and try to bill the patient to make up the difference. They try to bill you for the BALANCE. Balance billing also happens when a managed care health plan goes bankrupt and doesn’t pay at all. In that case, the doctor may try to bill you for the entire amount. Balance billing is actually illegal in many states. If not, it’s usually contractually prohibited. Bottom line: As long as you see a plan doctor for covered services, a co-payment should be your only responsibility.
EPISODE 68 ~ MAKE MORE: Don’t Resent Your Unused Clutter, Rent It Out!
In the sharing economy, it’s possible to tap into your belongings and make money off of them. Nobody knows this better than my next guest. Ryan Cush is one of the founders of Loanables, established in 2006, and he also uses the site regularly to rent out his own stuff. Welcome to Easy Money, Ryan!
First, just in case some folks aren’t familiar, describe what Loanables.com is.
Loanables is a website where people can list things they want to rent out and other people can rent those items instead of buying them. You should rent anything you use less than 3 times per year. Rent for amazing parties, great experiences, to try the latest gadgets, and to get the job done. If you can buy it, you can rent it. We are helping reduce overconsumption by making it as easy to rent as it is to buy.
How did you get the idea for Loanables?
I have been involved in Loanables since the beginning and helped get it going in Austin. It’s always been a hobby. You see all this stuff sitting around the garage not being used and it seemed like such a waste. This was before Air BnB. I just thought someone could use this.
How easy is it to make money via Loanables?
It is super easy. Take a couple of pictures. Put stuff on the site. Get an email or text when they want to use it. You can get cash or check. It only takes a few minutes to meet someone and give them the item.
People listening will wonder: have renters ever damaged any of your belongings?
So far people have taken good care of my stuff. These days I don’t even collect a security deposit. I look at the person and they usually return it cleaner than when I came out. With a fishing boat I had a guy back it into something and he paid to fix the cracked tail light but that is it.
Are you usually a pretty good judge of what will be a popular rental? Or have there been some surprises?
These days the most popular stuff I rent out isn’t what I thought. I rent a pop up canopy ($50/week) takes five minutes and has paid for itself many times over. I rent out animal traps ($5/day-minimum 2 to 30 days) $30 for a week. The first one was always getting rented so I bought a bigger one and it rents all the time. I also rent a couple power tools but haven’t been nearly as popular. I thought that would be the most popular.
What are some of the most lucrative items other people rent out?
Projectors and metal detectors get a lot of play. There was one guy back when I was more involved. He rented out a video projector. Rented it all the time – almost every week and he did really well off of that.
Any crazy stories of things other users have rented out?
There was a lady who rented out her dog and a woman who rented out a horse. One of my neighbors – a high school kid – bought a car top carrier at a garage sale and rented it out as a money maker.
So, how much money would you estimate you’ve made renting stuff out via Loanables?
I don’t keep track . It used to show on the site. My total earnings at the time were several thousand over all time. It’s not enough money to live off but extra gas money and hanging out money. If it is something you use a lot you could use money to buy another. Best part is when an item pays for itself.
OK, let’s share some of your expert tips with people so they can try this themselves. I’ll state the tip and you explain it. First, you say to post a bunch of stuff and see what sticks. Why?
I would say take a little time and post a bunch of stuff and see what sticks. You never know. The thing you think nobody wants is the thing people want.
And, second, you say be sure to take good pictures of your items. Why have you found that to be important?
Important to have pictures so they can see what they are getting.
And, finally, you say start your prices low and then work up from there. What’s the idea there?
Price wise I recommend starting on low end of what you think and if it rents a lot you can raise but that way you can find out what people want.
Link:
Rent out your clutter on: loanables.com
EPISODE 68~ SAVE MORE: How To Save On Car Insurance By Dropping Your Comprehensive & Collision Coverage at a Strategic Point
First, the vocabulary: Collision is the insurance that pays to repair your car if you’re in an accident. Comprehensive is the insurance that pays to repair your car if it’s damaged some other way, like by fire or other natural disasters. Unlike liability insurance, neither of these is required. Of course, you’ll want them while your vehicle is relatively new and valuable. But later, even insurance agents advise that you can save by dropping them. Here’s what the website insurance.com says. Quote: “If the premiums and deductible amount for this portion of your car insurance policy cost more or the same as the worth of your vehicle, it’s time to drop the coverage. For example, if your car is worth $1,000 and your coverage costs $500 a year plus a $500 deductible, you’re not really getting anything for your money.”
Other experts suggest that you should consider nixing collision and comprehensive coverage when your annual premium for those equals more than ten percent of your car’s value. If you cancel these options, instead of fixing your vehicle after it’s mangled, you will just kiss it off and get a new —or new to you— one. Canceling collision and comprehensive can reduce your premium by 30 to 40 percent, according to Autoguide.com.
My friend Jacqueline used to drive a fast, loud, older car that she loved. Her boyfriend had a somewhat aged vehicle too. It was hard for Jackie to admit that it wouldn’t be worth repairing her old rocket. But, I admit I bugged her about it and when she finally got around to canceling the collision and comprehensive coverage on her vehicle and her beau’s, she quickly changed her mind. Here’s the math.
Cancelling Collision and Comprehensive
Average annual premium for Jackie’s two-car family: $3,744
Policy without collision and comprehensive $2,434
BIG SAVINGS = $1,310
That’s enough savings that you can start a fund toward your next car!
EPISODE 68~ FIND YOURS: Unclaimed Money With Music Royalties From ASCAP
According to Wikipedia, “ASCAP is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization that protects its members’ musical copyrights by monitoring public performances of their music, whether via a broadcast or live performance, and compensating them accordingly.”
It’s easy to see how ASCAP royalties could go missing since a musician has no way of knowing when somebody might decide to perform his or her work.
I scoured the ASCAP website and even the group’s bylaws to figure out what happens when royalties go unclaimed. Normally ASCAP just sends you a check, but if it can’t find you, what then? Turns out, the group keeps unclaimed royalties in-house for a year, in a special account segregated from its normal operating accounts. During that time, ASCAP members can proactively log into their accounts to see what’s there. I will link you to the page to do that.
After 3 years, ASCAP turns unclaimed royalties over to the state where the musician was last known to live. In fact, I checked MissingMoney.com for ASCAP listings, since MissingMoney has listings for 40 of the 50 states, and I found lots and lots of listings.
SO, if you are a musician or the rightful heir of a musician who published music available to the public, you should do a quick check. First, go to the ASCAP site and log in to check directly. Then, if there’s nothing there, search all of the states where you or your loved one live or lived. You can do that at MissingMoney.com or unclaimed.org. As always, that’s .org. Many more resources for musicians and other performers coming up in the next few podcasts.
Links:
Login in to ASCAP and see if unclaimed money is in a special account for you: www.ascap.com/member-access#login
Search for your unclaimed money: missingmoney.com
Find your unclaimed property: www.unclaimed.org
EPISODE 67~ EASY MONEY PODCAST
EPISODE 67~ TOP TIP: What’s Better Than Free? Free Chocolate.
I used to host a You Tube show called “Free For All” about cool, quality goods and services you could get for free. My favorite, by far, was the Godiva chocolate freebie, so I’d like to share it with you here. Just join Godiva’s rewards club and you will get a special birthday treat, free shipping, invitations to chocolate tastings, AND a free chocolate truffle every month. Just stop into a Godiva store to pick it up. Wow, I sound like a commercial, but really I’m more of a chocaholic and just thought this was cool. I will link you to the Godiva Rewards program from EasyMoneyShow.com/67.
LINK: Join Godiva’s membership club, for all sorts of freebies here: www.godiva.com/get-chocolate-rewards
EPISODE 67 ~ MAKE MORE: The Power of Making More Through Self Efficacy!
Don’t worry, I had no clue what that was either. Self efficacy is your own belief in your ability to succeed at certain things or in certain situations. My daughter has a little tchotchke on her shelf that says “Believe in Yourself.” It’s that, but more specific.
Anyway, a new study shows self efficacy regarding your finances is a better indicator of financial health and wealth than just about anything else, including your socioeconomic background, your race and your gender. The researchers studied thousands of college students for a decade and found that those who are “good with money” are good more because of their confident mindset than anything else!
At first, as you might expect, students were most influenced by how their parents handled money and what they taught them about money. But as the researchers continued to follow the students into their 20s, they discovered that the ones who did best with money were those who believed that they could. They did need to know the basics for this confidence to help, so I’m a big believer in financial literacy classes.
Now here’s the REAL kicker: the students with the highest financial self efficacy also tended to make the most money! This is good stuff, so let’s dig a little deeper into what financial self efficacy might look like. It means that a person, especially a young person, IDENTIFIES as being good with money and able to be disciplined and make good financial decisions. They SEE themselves that way.
Now, in studies like this it’s always hard to tell causation. Did the financial self efficacy lead to the higher income? Or did the higher income lead to the financial self efficacy and confidence? The researchers argued that it cut both ways. The only time when financial self efficacy didn’t help much was when the young people were so saddled with debt, like student loans or credit cards and made so little that they couldn’t see their way out.
So can you CULTIVATE financial self efficacy? Yep. It’s just like riding a bike. If you learn the skills and then practice, you will be confident in your abilities in the area of biking. Ditto the financial field. Learn and practice and you will be confident and savvy with your money. The real takeaway for me is that we need to be mindful about the entire process of learning how to handle money confidently. It shouldn’t happy by accident or on the fly. Learn to make good decisions about money and practice this in your early career and you will MAKE more.
Link:
Take a look at Aplus’s study at self efficacy regarding your finances:
www.aplushappiness.org/current-findings/
EPISODE 67~ SAVE MORE: Learn How to Cut The Cost & Lower Your Chances Of Being Ripped Off While Moving
It’s called “Hybrid Moving” and it is our featured “save more” segment of this podcast. In hybrid moving, you rent a moving truck yourself, and hire movers by the hour to load and unload it.
My guest is Ryan Charles of HireAHelper.com, a site where you can find those hourly movers. Welcome to Easy Money, Ryan.
OK, so who are the helpers on HireAHelper?
Most of the service providers who advertise on HireAHelper do loading and unloading jobs for a living. Many are professional labor-only moving companies that specialize in load and unload services. Others are full-service moving companies willing to send their workers out on labor-only moving jobs. Some are individuals who aren’t necessarily professional movers, but who can provide labor.
Since some of them aren’t pros, I wonder if they’re more likely to damage your belongings?
Actually, according to the American Moving and Storage Association, the full-service moving industry has a damage claim rate of about 40 percent – meaning 4 out of every 10 consumers file a damage claim. Hybrid moving has a damage claim rate of less than 3 percent.
If something does go wrong, what sort of protection do people have when they hire a mover through your site?
Helpers will have their insurance credentials clearly listed in their profile. When it comes to insuring your goods, there is complimentary Standard Repair Coverage available when you place your order through HireAHelper which covers $.60/lb up to $10k. If you hire a service provider with an avg review of 4.5 or better there is also Full Value coverage available for purchase from MovingInsurance.com. Rates start at $12 per $1000 in coverage.
People can also look for mover-helpers with good reviews, right?
If you booked them through HireAHelper, you’ll be able to leave a review. On HireAHelper.com the reviews you see are unfiltered, real reviews from people who booked their moving labor on this website. When selecting a Helper one of the most important things to look for is if they get good reviews from their past customers. But many helpers can also provide background checked workers.
Of course, probably the best protection of all is that hybrid movers never drive off with your stuff, so they can’t hold all your worldly possessions hostage. Is that part of the thinking behind this new way of moving?
Exactly. This form of moving is “scam-proof”. The U.S. Federal Government reports that 36 million people move every year, and one in 10 will report that their moving company is holding their furniture “hostage” for suddenly higher service fees. By controlling the transport of your own items, you also protect yourself from the most common scam in the moving industry.
So the same crew that loads your belongings, doesn’t necessarily unload it?
That depends if it is a local or long distance move. If the Helper’s service area includes your loading and unloading locations, you can hire them to unload your truck too. This works great for local moves! Keep in mind that the helpers do stay on the clock when driving between your loading and unloading locations. If your load and unload addresses are more than 50 miles apart, you’ll probably want to hire two separate helpers for the load and the unload.
How does a customer pay his or her helpers?
Part of the reason helpers like advertising on HireAHelper is that we verify their customer’s payment info. That way they know you are serious about hiring them and have the funds to pay them. So, to place a reservation with your Helper, we ask for a major credit card. Helpers never receive your credit card information. HireAHelper acts as an escrow service for you, the customer, then sends your payment to your Helper when you tell us the job is complete.
How does HireAHelper make its money?
Helper’s pay HireAHelper a commission on every completed order. SO there is no further cost to you beyond what you were quoted.
OK, so now the big question: How much money could I save by booking my move through hire a helper instead of a traditional moving company?
By self-managing the transport and letting hired laborers do all the heavy lifting, you drastically reduce the cost of moving. A full-service move normally costing $2,600 could be done for $900 using the hybrid approach.
LINKS:
Find helpers to hire hourly when your moving:
EPISODE 67~ FIND YOURS: How to Find Lost Royalties From Music You Wrote and Others Licensed!
I was inspired to look into this after interviewing my friend Tamara on last week’s show about her late beau John who left behind more than $5000 in unclaimed money thanks to his successful music career. So for the next few weeks I’ll cover unclaimed royalties for musicians, actors and other performers.
Let’s start with BMI, which stands for Broadcast Music Inc. It is one of the groups that represent composers and songwriters. Some are famous like Patti Labelle and Michael Jackson. Others are almost unheard of like my old boyfriend the penniless musician. Regardless, if one of those people writes a song and registers it with BMI and then somebody else records it or performs it publicly for money, the performer is supposed to pay the composer a royalty for the use of the music. BMI tracks public performances for more than 13 million works, and collects and distributes licensing revenues for those performances as royalties to more than 800,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers it represents.
In 2017, according to Variety, BMI collected more than $1.13 billion in licensing fees and distributed just $1.023 billion in royalties, so you can see that there’s a big gap there and that gap represents unclaimed money! SO, Are you a composer? Or did somebody in your family write music as far back as the 1930s when BMI was formed?
Fortuately, BMI provides a web page regarding uncashed royalty checks. The group says first it attempts to send its members a letter when a royalty check has sat for a long time uncashed. Then, if that yields nothing, BMI just maintains the money and the records until it hears from the rightful owner or heir.
You can email BMI or write a snail mail letter to inquire about uncashed royalty checks. And I will link you to the contact info you need to do this from EasyMoneyShow.com/67.
LINK:
Find your uncashed BMI royalty checks: www.bmi.com/creators/detail/uncashed_royalty_checks