Money doesn't actually talk. We do.

My So-Called FiLife: Ari Weinberg

If you haven’t been to Las Vegas recently, get there now! Didn’t you hear, they’re handing out money. Grants at the airport. Franklins at the casinos.

Sadly, it’s not true, unless you are a card sharp. But that delusion alone is what motivates my friend Dave and me for jaunts across the country.

Back to the everyday, there is real free money to be had everywhere you look: cash-back credit cards, high-yield money markets, special offers, coupons, rebates and even good, old-fashioned haggling. I’m not looking for handouts; I’m just heeding advice from my mother. Flush with cash from lifeguarding one summer, I was going to lunch at Bernie’s when my mom offered to pay. I kindly rejected. Here she set me straight: “If someone offers you money, no strings attached, you take it.”

I’ve extrapolated that to institutions and daily life. If the bank across the street consistently offers better rates than your bank, cross the street. See a better rate with another credit card? Switch — it only hurts once. Even my wife has become a proselyte. Recently, she was in our local supermarket and saw an unwitting consumer about to dump nearly $50 in coins in the Coinstar machine, which takes 8.9% of every dollar. Across the street, at Commerce Bank, coin counting is free. She basically handed the guy $4.45. Wouldn’t you take it?

(Coinstar is working towards fixing this discrepancy by charging no fee if you’re willing to accept Amazon or iTunes gift cards instead of cash. In truth, they are simply shifting the fee to their partners, who pay for access. Then again, Commerce Bank is eating the cost as well.)

Cashback cards are the darlings of my wallet. Discover offers 5% cash back on certain merchants throughout the year. This month, it’s service stations and hotels. I just have to remind myself every time I fill up to grab the red, white and blue card. For a while, Citibank’s cashback card offered 5% on groceries, drug stores and gas stations until they cut that rate to 2% several months ago. Now the 5% cards are an endangered species – only American Express still offers one widely, and only after you spend $6500. All such lucrative cards come with their own fine print.

As with any transaction involving money and profit-striving institutions, obfuscation abounds. Now, FiLife – myself included – is here to shine a light.

– Ari Weinberg