Any hope many first-time home buyers had of receiving an $8,000 tax credit died along with the  jobs bill that was threatened with a filibuster in the senate last week by 40 Senate Republicans and one Democrat. Bill H.R. 4213 went down by a vote of 57 – 41 in the Senate, failing to reach the 60 votes required to end a filibuster. This effectively killed an amendment to the jobs bill that would have extended the first time homebuyer’s tax credit from its June 30th deadline to September 30th, for any pending sales now under contract. It also killed the extension of unemployment benefits, although lawmakers will probably revive that piece of the bill and attach it to another bill.

Thousands of houses contracted as “short sales” (where the buyer is selling the house for less than what he or she paid for it) and first time home buyer sales will likely fall apart, and no doubt the end of this tax credit will dampen any real estate recovery.  Writes the Associate Press:

The death of the measure meant that more than 200,000 people a week would lose their jobless benefits because they would be unable to reapply for additional tiers of benefits enacted since 2008. People seeking the popular homebuyer tax credit would be denied a paperwork extension approved by the Senate last week. And state and local governments would lose subsidies on bonds they issue to finance infrastructure projects.

If you aren’t buying a home, why should you care? Because the collapse of the housing bubble triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression (and it’s a depression to you if you’re out of a job)! Economists believe the best chance the economy has of turning around is for the real estate market to not only stabilize, but for housing prices to rise. And collapsed home sales mean more houses on the market and lower selling prices.

Here at MiCash we know Greendot Money Paks are a great way to load money to a prepaid card. Yet, scam artists are also getting money out of unsuspecting folks by asking them to share a MoneyPak activation number as a way to “pay” for something that is simply a scam.

Adding money to your MiCash Card using a MoneyPak is easy and convenient. However, once you put your hard earned cash on a MoneyPak you’ll want to guard the  14-digit activation number like cash. In fact, you’ll want to call MoneyPak’s toll free customer service line, or go online at moneypak.com to move the MoneyPak’s funds to your prepaid card soon as you can.

This article describes how the Arizona Better Business Bureau has examined how phony websites are cheating people this way, much like they have used untraceable MoneyGram and Western Union wire transfers to run their their frauds.

BBB says the public should be very cautious when using a Green Dot MoneyPak to pay an unfamiliar company or individual.  Anyone who requires an upfront payment with a Green Dot MoneyPak is very possibly operating a scam.

The article offers several examples of how people have been scammed.

A senior airman at Scott Air Force Base near Shiloh, Ill., lost $1,000 last month when paying for a treadmill with a Green Dot MoneyPak.  “I was taken,” he said…  He said he found an ad on Craigslist for the treadmill, and the contact referred him to the site.  The site looked “very professional,” and he said he used a Green Dot MoneyPak to pay the $1,000 cost, as directed by the company. When he did not receive the treadmill, he contacted BBB.

… A man from Columbia, Mo., said he discovered a Playstation game system on a Yahoo shopping site and was directed to make payment to the company, Tech Gear Upgrade, using a Green Dot MoneyPak.  “I thought it was weird that they didn’t take Visa or Mastercard,” he said.  He never received the game system and has given up hope of collecting his $180.

It’s safer to purchases things online with a prepaid card or credit card. And regardless you should be very wary about purchasing anything from individuals or companies you don’t know, if you have to pay up front before receiving your merchandise.  If you share your MoneyPak activation number to a scammer by typing it into a web form or sending it in an email, or saying it over the phone, a within moments they can take use that activation number to drain the MoneyPak of funds and be gone. You or the authorities likely won’t know how to catch them.

The moral of the story? Consider that anyone you don’t know who is online or not in front of you and who wants your MoneyPak activation number, or a wire transfer, may be up to no good.

The first step in reducing monthly expenses is to look at the last three months of your expenses and break it out into categories of spending. You can now use a number of budget tracking websites to help you do this very easily, such as Mint, Wesabe, and JustThrive. These sites let you import financial data from your bank accounts to make things easy.

Next, figure out your main budget categories and where you can cut back spending in each of them.

Cut Necessary Spending You Can Micromanage

The easiest category to chip away at is necessary spending that you control on a purchase by purchase basis. Think grocery shopping. You can easily swap an expensive item (steak) for a cheaper item (ground beef), or cut out items all together (ice cream).  The same thing goes for clothing purchases. To some extent, switching retail environments can help here. For instance, shop at Old Navy instead of the Gap, or for serious saving, shop at garage sales and used clothing stores. Shop at outlet malls instead of trendy malls.

If you commute, consider alternatives, like biking to work, or ride sharing. Or even telecommuting.

Cut Contracted Spending

What is harder is to cut are budget areas where you have contracts in place, like child care, lawn care, phone, cable, etc. Some contracted spending you have to have, like utility bills. The way to cut these, as you no doubt know, is to try and use less energy. Replace light bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescents. Turn of lights when leaving rooms. Wash clothes with cold water instead of hot. Turn down the thermostat. And so on.

Some contracts you can reduce. For example, you can reduce the number of channels you get on a cable or satellite dish to bring down that monthly bill. If you use a lawn care service, or other types of services, ask if there is a lower service level. Maybe you are at the Gold standard level where Bronze will do.  You can also eliminate some contracts all together, like TV and lawn service. Some you may not be able to eliminate, like child care.

One trick is to pay contracted or monthly bills more frequently. You might not save money, but you are less likely to miss a bill payment altogether or bounce a check (which can cost you money). On something like car insurance, where odds are you break up a sixth month bill into monthly bills, you are paying a convenience fee or interest. If you can pay the whole bill in one lump, you will save on those fees.  Finally, it is also possible to negotiate a lower rate all together. Or switch to a new provider with a lower rate. Often, when it comes down to the wire and you threaten to leave a provider to get a lower rate, your current provider manages to find a lower price for you, either by just cutting the price, or adjusting what you get for what you pay.

Find out if you save money by bundling some services such as phone, cable, and Internet. Or car insurance and home owners or renters insurance.

Cut Purely Discretionary Spending

You might be surprised to see when you break out your spending how much of it goes towards Wants instead of Needs.  A want is anything you can live without–and don’t say “I can’t live without my $5 Starbucks Grande Frappucinno every day.  One way to reduce discretionary spending is to simply keep less cash in your wallet. Or avoid whipping out your credit card for spontaneous purchases.

If you really need that vacation this summer–and who doesn’t–plan ahead for ways you can have fun that don’t cost a lot of money. Hike instead of renting expensive equipment like jet skis. Buy snacks or even meals at the grocery store instead eating every meal at restaurants. Or choose a destination where you can stay with friends or family instead of a hotel.

Cut out Savings…Not

We don’t recommend this. In fact, if you make cuts in all other areas and you aren’t saving for your retirement, or school, or other worthy and important goals, shift some of your budget cutting saving into actual savings.

Did you know that your credit score can be a deciding factor on whether your rental application is approved? Often as not, particular with larger apartment management companies, landlords will do a credit check to find out if you present a risk of not paying your rent. Since it cost landlords plenty to try and evict delinquent tenants, it’s understandable why they want to know your credit score.

Not paying your bills on time, missing car payments, mortgage payments or rent can all reduce your FICO credit score. Score too low, and your apartment rental application may be rejected. It’s ironic, because in this economy, with many people losing jobs and losing their house to foreclosure or short sales, a flood of first time renters has hit the market. Second, there are other people who have been in the same apartment for a long time but are now finding themselves forced to move to save money on rent, or because they moved to accept a different job or be closer to family (without moving in with them), and thus are filling out apartment applications, knowing that their score has been reduced.

What To Do If you Have a Low Credit Score

If you find yourself in this situation, here are some things to do:

• Request a free credit report from the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. Under the fair credit reporting act, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months. (See FTC government site). Note: your credit report will not reveal your FICO score, which is what lenders and landlords do see when they get your credit report.
• You can get your FICO score for a modest fee by clicking on the banner below.
• Consider that your credit score is hopefully only one factor a landlord looks at in deciding whether or not to accept your as a tenant.

1. Employment and income level verification
2. References from previous and present landlords
3. Eviction records
4. Credit Report

You may be able to increase your security deposit or pay two or even three months of rent in advance to get into the apartment you want with bad credit.

The momentum to roll out “wave and pay” or “tap and go” credit cards have stalled, as consumer acceptance did not take hold as much as the card companies predicted. Such smart cards include a radio frequency microchip that when waved or tapped against a special card reader device accept payments similar to the traditional method of swiping a credit card’s magnetic strip through a card reader. The method is meant to be quicker and easier for cardholders and merchants.

Restaurants that accept contactless card transactions include McDonald’s, Arby’s and Jack-In-the-Box, according to the Smart Card Alliance. Other merchants include CVS pharmacies, Walgreens, Sheetz gas stations, and 7-11.

These quick payments can be used even for small purchases like a cup of coffee. Cardholders are not required to provide a signature for most purchases under $25. Stores and restaurants even don’t have to provide a receipt for these under $25 purchases, unless the cardholder asks for one.  Large banks like Chase have led the charge for contactless payments with their Blink cards that were first rolled out five years ago.

This technology has not been widely adopted by prepaid cards. But that could change as the prepaid card industry adapts to the emergence of micropayments.

Interestingly, the technology now seems to be headed into the mobile phone market. The same microchip can be embedded in a mobile phone, eliminating the card altogether. (But how will the lack of the MasterCard or Visa brand mark be interpreted by consumers?)   What the mobile phone brings is the power to communicate via text messaging transactional data anywhere. This opens up a wealth of applications. But will consumers feel these transactions are adequately secure? (We’ll explain how this works in another post.)

The Washington Post reports that most government benefits payments will be made by direct deposit by 2013 in a cost savings move.

Americans who enroll for benefits payments on or after March 1, 2011 will receive them by direct deposit or be enrolled in the government’s Direct Express Debit MasterCard program if they do not provide bank account information. Beneficiaries now receiving payments will switch to direct deposit or the debit card by March 1, 2013, after agencies inform them of the changes, according to the proposed rule change set for publication in Monday’s Federal Register. About one million Americans already receive benefit payments through the Direct Express card, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Officials argue that direct deposits or the debit cards ensure the safe, quick delivery of funds…”

The government will save millions of dollars with this move. The unbanked who previously spent money and time cashing government checks will also benefit.

Isn’t it time you considered FREE direct deposit to a prepaid card?

Using prepaid cards to gamble on offshore Internet gambling websites is not allowed under new U.S. legal rules that went into effect June 1, 2010. It is now up to banks and prepaid card companies to enforce the law, known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The law is specifies that card issuers must police “illegal online gambling” transactions, but the Off Shore Gaming Association points out that the government has not provided clear guidance about what that exactly means.

It is important to keep in mind that the UIGEA was not written to go after any player sending money offshore or receiving payouts from gaming companies. Instead, it enforces steep penalties on financial institutions for allowing ‘illegal Internet gambling’ transactions to occur.

Some further background from Wikipedia.

With as many as 1 in 4 American families remaining unbanked or “underbanked” there remains strong demand for alternatives to traditional checking accounts or credit cards. Prepaid cards are increasingly an option for many consumers and employers.

A recent article in the International Business Times underscored the growing acceptance of prepaid cards as a payment method for consumers of all types.

Demand for prepaid debit cards is expected to soar, with as much as $118.5 billion to be loaded into the cards in the United States by 2012, up from $8.7 billion in 2008, according to research firm Mercator Advisory Group.

“These cards can be used anywhere just like a debit card and you can reload them, so it’s becoming more common, and consumers love the convenience,” Signal Hill analyst Mayank Tandon said.

Also driving this growth is the fact that more employers like Wal Mart are eliminating paychecks and instead requiring employees to set up direct deposit to a checking account or if they don’t have a checking account, accepting their pay on a prepaid payroll card.

MasterCard and Visa continue to grow their debit networks. In all, it looks like bright days ahead for prepaid cards, and more options for prepaid cardholders.

College student credit cards? What to consider. This presentation from Micash offers helpful tips if you are a student considering getting your first credit card.

Small business owners and the self employed too often run into cash flow problems. This not only adds stress to their lives, but puts them at greater financial risk and can limit their success. Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar blog puts it simply:

If you don’t bill efficiently, you’re not going to be bringing cash in. If you’re not bringing cash in, you’re not going to be making a profit or paying your bills.

What happens, Hamm explains, is that you must still cover your costs (or risk being late in paying your own bills) if you don’t bill as soon as you can, so that you get payed sooner rather than later. Getting paid right away puts cash in your pocket which can help you sleep at night, and help you better manage your business.

This same principal applies to getting paid and paying household expenses. If you don’t deposit your earnings right away, you are extending the period of time where you don’t have that cash available to cover your expenses. You risk being overdrawn with every purchase. You may worry more about your spending, or misjudge your available funds, because in your mind you may think you’ve “got a whole paycheck” sitting there. One way to increase efficiency is to have your pay directly deposited to your bank account, or if you have a prepaid card, to your card account.

On the other end, you are more efficient with your cash flow when you pay bills as they come in rather than letting them pile up and paying them all at once.  This is because you will have a better sense of how much money you have available to spend, and you are spreading out the bill paying to align with how your money flows in, most likely weekly or twice a month. If you pay all your bills at once, it’s like the snake that tried to swallow the egg–a big bulge passing through the system. You are more likely to spend money you didn’t need to spend earlier in the month and then finding your bank account running on fumes after you’ve paid all the bills–or worse, left some bills unpaid because you didn’t have the funds.

For the hourly worker that has opportunities for overtime, you can gauge whether you need to take overtime or not, if you have been efficient in both getting paid and paying your bills, as you streamlined how your cash flows through your daily life.