Best of Blogs for Week of February 28th

Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources for the past week

PlanetMoney gives us Four Decades Of Taxes And Spending, In 2 Graphs

They also tell us 74,476 Reasons You Should Always Get The Bigger Pizza

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Credit Card Rewards for 2013 = $817

In 2013 we made $817.70 in rewards and bonuses from our card cards.  
 
Our main credit card has been the American Express TrueEarnings card through Costco.       Most of the rewards and spending was through that Amex card.   However the Amex card barely earned over 1% overall and our better rewards where through promotional 5% deals and a $200 signup bonus with a new Chase card.   I've been trying to watch for and better use the 5% promotional rebates with our cards.    We used our Citibank and Discover cards some mostly to take advantage of 5% deals.  I also got that new Chase card and we used it some both to meet the minimum purchase requirement to earn the $200 sign up bonus and to take advantage of their 5% deals.

Here is how our rewards were earned per card :

American Express :$439.21
1-3% cash back on various purchase categories.  Mostly 1%
+$25 credit from a Amazon.com promotion
Citibank : $25.57
Mostly 1% bonus but also $1.84 from 5% bonus at Home Depot
Discover Card : $80.43
Almost all 5% bonus for online shopping in Q4.
Chase Freedom : 27,249 points = $272.49 cash
I got a $200 sign up bonus and the rest was primarily shopping at Amazon for the 5% bonus.


The amount we earned was pretty good in total.   I'm happy with $817 in extra money for sure.   However I am sure we can increase this through use of other cards.    I've been considering getting the Amex card through Fidelity which pays 2% into a Fidelity account.   That would nearly double the $439 + $25 we earned on our Amex Costco and Citibank cards since that was mostly all 1% spending.   I've also decided to watch for and sign up for more promotional deals like that $200 bonus from the Chase card.   I figure it would be no problem to sign up for 1-2 new cards a year just to cash in sign up bonuses.   My credit score is over 800 and can easily withstand a hard pull once in a while.


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What Percent of People Historically Receive a Refund versus Owe Taxes

Most people get a refund on their taxes in any given year.    Generally speaking around 80% of people filing taxes get a refund.

I found the historical IRS tax data going back to 1950 showing who gets refunds versus who owes taxes.

Here's a chart of the trend from 1950 to 2011 from the current IRS data set :

I am sure there are various things that drive the longer term trends.    IRS tax withholding processes have undoubtedly evolved over the decades.   Things like more dual income households may impact it as well.    The introduction of earned income tax credits may have increased refund rates as well.

The green line indicates people who get neither a refund nor owe money.  I'm assuming thats mostly for people who had no money withheld but owed nothing.   Maybe people like retirees on social security and minimal other income.

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There Will Be NO Student Loan Bailout

No.  Its not going to happen.   Stop expecting it.   Whatever you do .... DON'T make financial plans around it.   There is not going to be a student loan bailout.   I thought this story had died out months ago but just recently I saw someone still talking about the prospect for a bailout of student loan debts. 

The government isn't going to just write off over $1.2 Trillion in debts because some people would benefit.  There are many people who do struggle to repay student loans, this is true.   But most people are certainly willing and financially able to pay their loans back.     In either case we can't expect free money to come from the government any time soon.   Honestly a student loan bailout is just a misguided pipe dream.


The bigger reason that there isn't going to be a bailout is that we've already had bailouts.    For people struggling with their student loan debts there are already government programs to help them and get at least partial forgiveness of the debts.

There is the new Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan  which has 20 year forgiveness.   Which is added to the existing Income-Based Repayment Plan (IBR) which includes 25 year forgiveness plan.   And if you go into public service then there is the  Public Service Loan Forgiveness  which has 10 year loan forgiveness.    These programs aren't simple blanket loan forgiveness for the entire nation as some people delusionally expect but they are certainly a very big helping hand for those who really need it.


I know that student loans are a burden to many people who have high debt levels and lower paying jobs.  But thats what the income based and pay as you earn repayment plans are setup to help with.   Now unfortunately those plans do not work with private lenders and many of the people in the worst situations are burdened with high private loan debts.  I don't expect any major changes or aid for people with large private loan debts.    Personally I think it would be a good step if they would force private lenders to all offer a income based system at least.  As it is you can't get rid of student loans in bankruptcy so you're stuck with the private loans for life, and I don't see what harm income based system would do there.

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