I finally received my check! It took several e-mails harassing customer support, but I finally got my check from CashMyPhone. I received it this week after the check having been ‘issued’ on May 5th. They tried to give me the run around, but I had all of my e-mails handy. I also quickly pointed out that if you search “cashmyphone” on Google, this blog is the #6 entry.

Would I recommend CashMyPhone in the end? It depends. Are you going to be really ticked if you send off an old phone and never say payment for it? Then it might be a bit risky. However, they do pay the best it seems. And I did get my money in the end.

The response, straight from the e-mail:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your interest in CashMyPhone.com as your used cell phone(s) recycling service. According to our record, we have issued your check, but haven’t sent it yet. It usually takes a few days to mail the check out after the “Issued Date” due to we mail them by batch. We will mail the chek tomorrow. If you didn’t receive the check by the end of next week, please contact us.

Thanks for your patience. If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. Have a nice day!

Sincerely,

Customer Service
CashMyPhone.com

Note the typo of check. I’m thinking more and more this is a one or two man operation. I’ll let you know when I do finally get my check. This process has taken about two months.

Overview
Keep the Change: Goes with Bank of America’s check card. They put the change from every purchase into a savings account. The first three months they match your change 100%, the next 9 months they match 5%. Example: You go to the grocery store and spend $45.74. BoA deposits 26 cents into the account ($46.00-45.74), plus whatever match you are eligible for. To sign up, you must have a checking and savings account with BoA. The savings account has a minimum deposit of $100. The catch here is the savings account only pays 0.20% APY as of 5/1/07. Each of the accounts could have additional fees. You are limited in the amount of match you can receive at $250 per year.

One card: AMEX deposits 1% of eligible purchases into a savings account that pays 5.00% APY. After your first purchase, AMEX deposits $50 in the account to get you started. The first year is fee-free. After that, you pay a $35 annual fee. Then you have your typical credit card risks. Getting hit with a late fee or even paying interest will negate the effects of this card.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation where a person spends $6,000 spaced out evenly over six months. Your average change you receive is 50 cents from every purchase, and you make 50 purchases each month.

With your Bank of America check card, this is what your savings would look like:

…and with the One Card:

As you can see, the Bank of America card is the winner in terms of money it allows you to save. However, this is based off of multiple transactions with an average “keep the change” of 50 cents. The interest on the savings account is terrible as well. The One Card is better in terms of savings rate, but then you’ll get hit with a $35 annual fee the second year.

The accounts look very similar if you lower the number of transactions to 25, and the average change back to only 25 cents:

The one card looks better in this light, as it isn’t based on the number of transactions, but how much money you spend. You also are not relying on having a high amount of ‘change’ from each transaction.

Keep the Change
Pros: Opportunity to get to keep a lot of change if you make a lot of purchases with totals in the $x.01 to $x.25 range. Pick up a cup of coffee every morning that costs you $4.01? You’ll get 99 cents back, plus that 100% match the first few months. Also good for those who make a ton of transactions each month.
Cons: Incredibly low APY of 0.2% on the savings account. If your transactions usually end in the $x.75 to $x.99 range, you won’t make a lot back with that extra change. Requires a lot of transactions each month to get true benefit, which encourages spending. Is a debit/check card — if stolen or lost, you might not get your money back.

One Card
Pros: Same percent back, no matter what you spend, or how many transactions you have each month. Strong savings APY of 5.0% trumps the Bank of America savings account. Credit card benefits – if lost or stolen, the amount you owe is usually limited to $50.
Cons: If you don’t spend a lot (good for you), you don’t earn as much back. Annual fee of $35 kicks in the 2nd year which will negate some of the benefit. Is a credit card – interest and other charges could dig into your benefit.

Conclusion: Neither of these cards are worth having, in my opinion. The BoA card requires a lot of transactions and the ability to somehow force your purchases to get you a lot of change back. The AMEX card is slightly better thanks to the savings account APY, but then the annual fee kicks in.

You can find a better deal with other credit cards. Get a cash back card like the AMEX Blue Cash (I have one) and earn better cash back (1.5-5%, depending on the tier). Take that money you get back and save it yourself in an online savings account like ING.

I have uploaded the Excel file if anyone is interested in playing with the numbers. Let me know if this is useful!

J.D. over at GetRichSlowly loves goals.

But how do you know what a good goal is?

I learned what a proper goal consists of in college in a management class. Goals must be SMART. Smart stands for:

You can also make goals too wordy with all of the SMART criteria, so don’t write a novel.

Here are some examples of goals first in non-SMART wording, and then in a SMART variation. Let’s assume we are setting the goals from today, March 28, 2007.

1a. Get out of debt.
1b. Reduce credit card debt from $10,000 to $9,000 by June 1, 2007.

Analysis: The first version is very broad, and has no specifics at all. The SMART version is specific — reducing the debt by $1,000. It is measurable: dollars are measurable. You can track what your current debt is. Attainable and Realistic: This goal would stretch you. $500 per month for two months to reduce the debt. Attainable, not easy, but also not out of reach (such as eliminating all $10,000 in two months). Finally, it is timely: there is a specific date that the goal must be reached by.

Combine all of these together and you could track your progress towards June 1st, what the balance on the debt is, and what progress you have made.

2a. Get a job.
2b. Find employment as a financial analyst with a Fortune 500 company by August 1, 2007.

Again, the first goal is too broad and not specific at all. There is no timeline or criteria. The second goal is very specific — a specific job, at a specific type of company (you could go more into detail if this were your goal, say a Fortune 500 company in the banking industry). Whether or not it is attainable and realistic kind of depends on the person setting the goal. Do you currently work at a burger joint with no college education? Or do you have a finance degree from a four year university? It is also timely, with a specific date.

The best thing about goals is that you can break them down into smaller goals. Let’s use the two goals above.

Goal #1 could be broken down from reducing the debt by $1,000 in two months to a monthly, or weekly goal. Sub-goals would be reduce credit card debt by $500 by May 1, 2007, or reduce credit card debt by $125 each week. Tasks can be developed from these goals — setting up automatic payments to the credit card based on the goals.

Goal #2 is a little more difficult to break down, but here are some options. Sub-goals could be writing a resume, having resume critiqued by a career center, doing company research to target a company, etc.
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But you have other options too! Specifically tailored sites to sell your cell. Let’s take a look — are they similarly priced?

I looked at the following sites:

Also to note, Cellphone Tradeins requires you to input:

Each site, of course, is a little different. For the most part they are the same. You input the make and model, occasionally the provider you used it through. Add the condition and what accessories you have, and you are presented with a price. I’ll test with the Motorola E815, my new phone the LG VX8600, and my terribly old phone the LG VX4500. We’ll see if it matters how old the phone is.

The results are below:

A mixed bag of results! I was surprised that two of the five sites did not list my newest phone, the LG VX8600.

As you can see, the oldest phone did not have much variation in the price you could receive. One site didn’t even list it as an option — most likely from its age.

The E815 did not have a ton of variation, except for CellForCash. $11? Are they serious? That’s $1 more than the price I would receive for the VX4500 from CashMyPhone. And they are offering $48 for a brand new $200 cell phone? No thanks.

Judging from this small test, CellForCash looks like an absolute rip off. The cash you would receive for your cell there is 1/3 or 1/4 of what you could get elsewhere. SimplySellular may take your phone for nearly nothing if it is really old. Your mileage may differ.

Overall, the winners look like Cellphone Tradeins and CashMyPhone. CashMyPhone had an edge in the amount of money I would receive, but remember this is a small test of three phones. SellYourCell and SimplySellular may be decent options depending on the phone you are selling.

I also checked eBay for E815 prices and saw a few phones with bids at $46, $56, $59, $37.50 all with 12+ hours of bidding left. That would be another option if you take eBay (and PayPal) fees into consideration.

Conclusion:
It looks like I’ll be selling my two older phones to CashMyPhone. The only price I pay is shipping. 30 days after they receive my phones, I will get a check in the mail. I might make a tad bit more money on eBay, but there is also the risk I would make less. With CashMyPhone I know the exact amount I should be getting after shipping.

Updated: I ended up using Cash My Phone for a combined total of $55. Shipping cost me something like $3. My phones have been received and I should get my check in about 30 days.

Updates!: One, two, three, and four. Did I ever get my cash? Read on and find out!

So it’s your birthday and your great Aunt Ester gave you such a kind gift: a gift card to your least favorite store. [Pottery Barn Kids] (enter your own store in) just isn’t your thing. You appreciate the thought, but…

Or, perhaps you’ve got a sudden financial crisis, change of heart, whatever it may be… you need the cash on that card and not whatever it can buy you. Why not try selling it online?

Examples of “Sell Your Gift Card” Services:
Certificate Swap

Card Avenue

SwapAGift

Plastic Jungle

eBay.

Which service is best?

Let’s use the examples of a $25, $50, $100, and $500 gift card (hey, who knows, maybe your friends chipped in together to get you the $500). Let’s also assume you do not list for the maximum amount, as you are trying to get a faster sale. We’ll list at 25% off.

I also decided not to include PlasticJungle because it looks really new, almost like a template, and currently the site is not monetized… not sure how it would survive over a long period of time.

Here’s a chart for how it works out. All the math is below.

If we do a little bit more math, we can figure out where the point of switching from Card Avenue to SwapAGift is. (3.99 – 0.50)/.0395 = $88.35. If you believe your gift card is going to sell for more than $88.35, switch to SwapAGift.

Result: Card Avenue is your choice below $88.35, SwapAGift is if it is above $88.35.

The Catch: Card Avenue lists your card in an auction format. There is no guarantee your card will sell for more than $88.35, and you cannot set a reserve price. The chart and spreadsheet above are going off of the final sale price, assuming they are all the same. If you think your gift card might fall into the ‘grey area’ where it may or may not sell (if auctioned) above that amount, you might try listing it on SwapAGift at a guaranteed higher price (like $90). If it sells, you guarantee you are still getting the best deal, plus you got a small % more money for your card.

Also, there are other fees to consider such as PayPal, and the cost of sending the gift card to your buyer (envelope + 39 cent stamp). However, if you consider PayPal and these factors into every buy/sell situation, the results should be the same. (I haven’t done that math, however. Feel free to prove me wrong.)

A final factor to consider is the amount of traffic each site gets, or its popularity. It may be less expensive to list on one site, but you may get a faster sale from another.

Other Options: If you don’t want to risk your card not selling for what you’d like it to, or you don’t want to pay a fee you could try:

The math follows.

$25
Certificate Swap: can’t list for more than $23.50 (3% = $24.45, so $1.50 off is less), but with our 25% discount you list and sell at $20. Fee would be: $1.50.
Card Avenue: if you just did an auction, fees would be: $0.50 + 0.79 = $1.29
SwapAGift: $3.99 flat fee.
eBay: $.60 to list, 5.25% of sale price: $1.65

$50
Certificate Swap: can’t list for more than $48.50. Sell at $37.50. Fee would be: $2.81
Card Avenue: if you just did an auction, fees would be: $0.50 + 1.48 = $1.98
SwapAGift: $3.99 flat fee.
eBay: $1.20 to list, 5.25% of sale price: $1.65 + (5.25% of first $25 = $1.31) + (3.25% of remaining = $0.41) = $3.37

$100
Certificate Swap: can’t list for more than $97.00, but with our 25% discount you list and sell at $75. Fee would be: $5.63
Card Avenue: if you just did an auction, fees would be: $0.50 + 2.96 = $2.46
SwapAGift: $3.99 flat fee.
eBay: $2.40 to list + (5.25% of first $25 = $1.31) + (3.25% of remaining = $1.63) = $5.34

$250
Certificate Swap: can’t list for more than $242.50, but with our 25% discount you list and sell at $187.50. Fee would be: $14.06.
Card Avenue: if you just did an auction, fees would be: $0.50 + 7.41 = $7.91
SwapAGift: $3.99 flat fee.
eBay: $2.40 to list + (5.25% of first $25 = $1.31) + (3.25% of remaining = $5.28) = $8.99

$500
Certificate Swap: can’t list for more than $485.00, but with our 25% discount you list and sell at $375. Fee would be: $28.13
Card Avenue: if you just did an auction, fees would be: $0.50 + 14.81 = $15.31
SwapAGift: $3.99 flat fee.
eBay: $3.60 to list + (5.25% of first $25 = $1.31) + (3.25% of remaining = $11.38) = $16.29

Now before all you people with technology oozing out of your pores (read: if you ever installed Linux on a PDA, you’re a top 100 digg-er, you hacked into T-Mobile to read Secret Service e-mails, etc.) , I understand you have the know how to rip a flash or shockwave game off of a website for your own personal use behind a proxy at work. However, not everyone is as technologically blessed as you.

So I was intrigued by the e-mail I was reading (yes, on Outlook — for shame). It had no body text. Then I noticed three lovely attachments at the top:
Pacman.xls, Golf.xls, and Tetris.xls.

Three games that play within Microsoft Excel worksheets. Brilliant.

Update: You may want to rename the files something less obvious than ‘pacman.xls’, since the beginning of filenames are visible on your Start bar, even with Excel minimized.