No, Most Americans Aren't Totally Broke

Over on The Simple Dollar someone asked about an article on CNN with the headline of "6 in 10 Americans don't have $500 in savings"     The QA exchange on that was someone asking if that is real and Trent saying he believes it.

I don't believe that 60% of Americans don't have $500.

It seems that we're told by the press over and over that most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck or don't have $1000 or $500 or $X in the bank or similar things.    I've generally accepted this in stride as most people probably do.

But here's the big problem with that claim.    Its based on a survey from Bankrate that asked people how they'd handle an emergency bill.   But I can't find any real details on how the question was asked.   If they just asked "how would you pay for a $500 -1000 emergency expense?" and the answers were just a list of items like savings, credit card, cut spending, etc. then you'll get some wrong results there.   I personally would use a credit card and I'd answer that way.   The article then assumes (wrongly) that I don't have $500 in savings.   But I use credit cards for most everything to get my bonus points.

Survey of Consumer Finances of 2013 has a lot of data on personal finances.    They say specifically how many people have checking and savings accounts and what the mean and median balances are.   93.2% of people have accounts and the median balance was $4100.   That means that 46% of people have over $4100.   This specific data directly refused the idea that 60% (6 in 10) of people don't have $500 in savings.

I'm sure that there are is an unfortunately high amount of people in the nation who don't have $500 available.    But its not 60%.


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10% CashBack for Walmart at Ebates

Ebates currently has 10% cashback on purchases at Walmart.

Good way to get an extra 10% off of whatever you buy at Walmart.

I think this is just a daily double cashback deal so it may be gone by tomorrow.


Standard Ebates blurb: To get cash back from Ebates you need to be signed up with Ebates.  Then simply go to Ebates to get the referral to the store before you do your shopping.  I also get a referral bonus if you use my links to sign up with Ebates.  


--This article may contain referral links which pay this site a commission for purchases made at the sites.

Gold Investments Have Done Poorly Lately

Around the recession we heard a lot about gold as an investment.   I'm not hearing that much about it lately.

Here's why:

click for full size, source: Yahoo Finance

Gold has lost over 20% of its value in the past 5 years while the stock market is up over 75% in that same time.

If you'd bought gold almost anytime in the past 8 years you'd be losing money on it versus simply putting your money in a bank account.    If you'd bought gold between 1995 and 2005 you'd have been lucky to beat a savings account.      If you were lucky you bought sometime before 2005 and sold around 2010.   This isn't the kind of pattern for an investment that you'd want.  It takes extreme luck to do any better than beating a simple bank account.

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500 Amazon Coins ($5 value) for $1 at HumbleBundle

The current E3 digital ticket game bundle on HumbleBundle has 500 Amazon coins included at the $1 purchase level.  500 coins would cost you $4.90 to buy at Amazon so this is basically $5 worth of app purchases.    You can get the bundle for as little as $1.   Of course you can pay more if you want to donate to the charity in question too.    There are some video game items too but it looks like "digital content" or downloadable content more than full games.

Note :  Make sure you've got a good use for Amazon coins.    Their app store doesn't have everything and theres plenty of free alternatives.    Some of the games I like aren't on Amazon at all.  


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