New Climb Credit Union CD Rates

I don’t normally go chasing CD rates all over town, but I happened to stumble across a webpage / ad that had these on it. Typically, credit unions offer “special” rates as a way to compete with other institutions and interest bearing accounts without having to increase their cost of deposits as much by paying everyone higher rates.

These odd-terms are the secret sauce. A 7-month CD renews as a standard term, and standard interest rate 6-month CD. And, of course, current CD account holders will find their 6-month CDs and 12-month CDs rolled over to their corresponding base CD rates of 3.80% and 3.70% respectively. Essentially, the set-it-and-forget types who don’t pay attention to their money or what it is doing will earn the lower rates. Otherwise such specials put the credit union out of balance with income and expenses.

Notice also the fine print on that 4.50% for 25 months CD. Follow that tiny 1 to the bottom of the page and you’ll see that the 4.50% rate only applies to “new money,” as in money that is not already on deposit at the credit union.

Rates like that are designed to bring in funds, not to make the funds already on deposit more expensive. Members tend not to be super happy about the distinction, but it does matter, and since credit unions are not-for-profit organizations, higher expenses in one place have to be offset somewhere else in the form of higher fees, or higher loan rates.

Either way, if you have an account at Climb and have some money laying around that you want to lock up at 4.50% for a while, that’s an option. Otherwise, that 4.0% is a solid enough rate to not bother looking around.

Do keep in mind the Fed will likely raise rates in December, so you might have other options soon enough.

Let’s check out my Rakuten review below for answers.

Rakuten Reviews

The Ebates Rakuten commercials promise cashback for shopping. Does this online website deliver, or is this just a Rakuten scam? I took my own look after a cousin of mine (an extreme couponer) asked, “Is Rakuten safe?” So, without further ado, here is my review of Rakuten.

Update: This Rakuten review is still completely accurate, however, it turns out that Rakuten is an especially good deal around holiday time. The reason is that many retailers have a boosted earnings rate during sales periods like Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. For example, many retailers that usually have just a 2% or 3% cash back rate have rates as high as 11% cash back during Rakuten Black Friday sales. They have an 11% Cash Back for Singles’ Day right now (11/11/23). If you are pulling the trigger on Christmas gifts for yourself, or the family, target retailer’s sales and then stack that with 11% cash back. Unlike in-store offers or coupon codes, with Rakuten you can add up both deals.

This weekend, I earned 11% at Kohl’s, and 11% at Macy’s, as well as 6% on toys from Walmart. There is 15% cash back with Dell Small Business, which could add up very fast. If you bought a $1,000 computer, that’s $150 in cash back with just one purchase. With rates like these, the cash back really does add up quickly. It still won’t pay your monthly electric bill, but I racked up over $100 in cash back just by making the holiday purchases I was going to make anyway.

If you want to turn these 11% cash back deals into gifts but you need some Christmas present ideas, Kohl’s sells nice fuzzy/flannaly pajamas at good prices (especially with 11% cash back). Macy’s sells good, not crazy-priced bedding like sheets and blankets. And, then obviously, if you’re looking to buy a computer, there’s Lenovo and Dell and stuff — you might want to roll the dice on a Good Friday special stacked with a Rakuten special, but that’s a gamble you can decide on.

For me, ShopDisney never puts what I want on sale until all they have left is XS sizes. So, 11% cash back gives me a good deal from the Disney Store on things I want to buy now.

See maximizing Rakuten cash back below for more details.

Rakuten pro tip: If you are going to shop with your phone, the Rakuten app makes it much easier to make sure you are using the proper Rakuten links and getting credit for your cash back.

If you sign up using this link, we both get a bonus cash back payout of $40 that turns your first purchase, plus that 11% rate into a very nice start to earning cash with Rakuten. (Note: The next check comes out in May.)

Does Rakuten really pay cash back? The answer is yes, but it can take more time and isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. If you are thinking of hundreds of dollars in rebates, you are going to have to spend some serious money or catch some of the higher cash back bonus rates.

Can SoFi really save me money?

Rakuten Scam Detector

As always, our first order of business is to sniff around for a possible scam, especially when an offer sounds too good to be true. First up, we check to see if Rakuten is not free and is actually a trick to get you to sign up for something that costs money like those free credit score offers that turn into subscriptions for a monthly service with a hefty fee.

Fortunately, Rakuten gets a passing score here. In order to sign up, you only have to provide an email address. As always, I recommend using a secondary, or shopping-only email address. You will get “periodic shopping-related emails” from Rakuten and their partners when you sign up. That isn’t bad, but you need to know what you are doing.

During all my clicking around, I was never asked for a credit card number. This is another good sign. If they don’t have your bank information or a credit card number, then they don’t have a way to charge you money. Keep it that way. Don’t enter a credit card number while using the site.

Rakuten mails you a physical check, so they don’t need your checking account information either. If someone is asking for your checking info, then you are likely on a scam, lookalike site, or you clicked a scam link in an email. Use this link to be safe.

Having answered is Rakuten a safe website, we need to know how does Rakuten make money?

Is Rakuten Legit?

Unfortunately, many free things online come with terrible software or other clients that must be installed on your computer. The Ask Toolbar is one of the worst (if you have this installed, uninstall it right away). Fortunately, Rakuten doesn’t require you to install anything. The exception to this is if you want to use the company’s mobile app, or a browser extension.

Next up when deciding if something is legitimate, is seeing if you can figure out their angle, or how does Rakuten make money? While it is true that there are hundreds of venture capital backed websites and services banging around Silicon Valley without hope of ever earning a dime, giving away money is a tricky proposition if there is no revenue. As it turns out, Rakuten has a fairly straightforward business model.

Ever look into whether Credit Karma is legit?

What Is Rakuten?

Whether you know it or not, many online retailers offer a referral fee or commission to websites that send business their way. The user doesn’t have to do anything. Instead, the person that publishes the website includes a code in the links you click on. That code tells the retailer where you came from.

Amazon is famous for its Amazon Affiliates program which pays a percentage of purchases to website owners that send buyers to the company. Many of these retailers offer a higher payout for those who send higher volumes of customers. Rakuten uses this same model to send customers to dozens of retailers, and then offers part of that referral fee back to its users. They keep the rest of the commission and that is the profit.

Rakuten Catch

There are two tricks involved here that may make it look to some like Rakuten is a scam. There really isn’t a Rakuten catch, but it can seem that way. Hopefully, this Rakuten review can make it clear what is happening.

First, the online retailer only gives credit to one website for any sale. So, for example, if you visited my website and clicked this link to shop for finance books at Amazon, it puts a cookie on your computer marking you as “my shopper.” For the next 24 hours, if you buy anything from Amazon, I get credit for that and make some money. (Not a lot. Don’t worry this doesn’t make me rich

Here’s the catch. If you go to Rakuten after you already have been marked as my referral (or someone else’s) then Rakuten would not get credit for your shopping trip. If Rakuten does not get paid a commission, then they would obviously not give you any cash back. Even worse, if you have already been to the shopping site, they may also not count you as a referral.

For example, let’s say you go to Barnes and Noble website to look up some books. Then, you remember that you have Rakuten, so you go to the Rakuten website and click the Barnes and Noble cash back link. Depending upon the agreement between the two companies, that may or may not count as a cashback sale since you were already on bn.com and not actually referred over there.

You can make sure that you get full credit by emptying your shopping cart (if you are logged in), and then starting a Private Browsing or Incognito Browsing session, and then going to Rakuten first, and clicking through. (Private browsing prevents access to the cookies stored on your computer to track you.)

To avoid these problems, Rakuten has certain procedures set up with some of the retailers that avoid this issue. For example, if you manually enter a referral coupon code, then that trumps my earlier automatic cookie that was set on your computer, thus giving Rakuten the commission and your money back. However, if you did not use that coupon code, then no cash back. It’s not a Rakuten issue per se, but it isn’t as clean as you might imagine.

Check out my Acorns review.

One final detail about the fine print. Rakuten debits your account $2.00 if your account is inactive for 12 months. This helps with accounting because they don’t have to keep track of your $1.32 for years while you don’t use the service. But it also means that using Rakuten every few months is necessary to keep your account balance active.

Rakuten In-Store Cash Back

Another interesting feature to get cash back from Rakuten is the in-store cash back shopping option. To get in-store cash back from Rakuten, you go to the Rakuten website and click the in-store cash back link.

When you click that, the cash back offer is linked to your credit card. So, when you go into the store and make a purchase with that credit card, you get cash back from buying in the store with Rakuten once your purchase gets linked.

Unlike some other credit card linking offers, these are not permanent links. So, if you are headed into the Columbia Outlet store and you want in-store cash back, then you need to link your card shortly before that purchase. I like to use the Rakuten app, and link to instore cash back offers when I park in the parking lot. That way, I know the cash-back offer is linked to my card, right before I go in and make a purchase.

Rakuten Browser Extension

Using Rakuten manually requires you to go to Rakuten’s website FIRST, and then go to the merchant you want to shop at in order to ensure you get the cash back you earn. Not everyone has a good enough memory, or maybe some just don’t want to mess around with that extra step. For them, Rakuten has a browser extension.

Install the Rakuten browser extension on your Chrome browser, Apple browser (Safari browser), or Edge browser and it will sit there and automatically monitor your activity on shopping sites. When the extension detects a shopping site that it has a cash back offer for, it will automatically ensure the right code is activated to earn cash back and provide any savings that Rakuten is offering as well.

Rakuten Payout Timing

The other kind of tricky thing is that your cash back is dependent upon the retailer paying Rakuten first; it can take a very long time in some cases, but that isn’t always Rakuten’s fault. Still, most people want to know how long does it take to get my Rakuten check.

How long does it take Rakuten to pay cash back?

It appears that Rakuten has negotiated its own agreements with many large retailers, so they probably get paid a little faster than us regular website owner types. My affiliate payments usually are added up for a whole month. Then, another month goes by before that amount is actually paid, in part so the company can adjust for any returns or fraudulent sales. If the store doesn’t pay Rakuten, Rakuten won’t pay you.

How Long Does It Take for Rakuten Check to Arrive?

Are Rakuten checks real is the first question you are probably asking. Yes, Rakuten checks are real, and regular sized. Those giant cardboard checks are just for show. Rakuten pays out in a similar fashion. Every three months, your purchases are added up, then you get paid a month and a half later. For example, purchases from January 1st through March 31st are counted as one shopping period.

Any cash back you earn during this time is then paid out on May 15th. In other words, if you buy something in January, you won’t see a penny from Rakuten for that purchase until May 15th. There is also a minimum payout amount of $5.01, so you won’t get a check for $3.27.

As for how long does it take for Rakuten check to arrive after they send it, it usually takes me a week to get my Rakuten check after it gets mailed. I’m not sure why it ends up being so slow, but that is just my experience with real Rakuten check mailing times. The post office might determine how long do Rakuten checks take to arrive.

Is Rakuten Worth It Like Ebates Is Worth It?

Rakuten is not a scam. It’s been around for a long time, and it does pay out cash back. The catch is that those Rakuten TV commercials make it seem like that mom is collecting a sizable check on a regular basis for just routine online shopping. Remember that Rakuten only pays out four times per year, after a minimum 45-day delay.

Also, it’s easy to be seduced by seemingly large percentages. When you add it up, it takes some serious online shopping to earn much money, and you have to remember to always do it through Rakuten.com

How Does Rakuten Work?

For Amazon, Rakuten shows 4 percent cash back for most items, although certain specialty categories say, “up to 8 percent.” (Always beware of the “up to” part of any offer.) If you bought $200 worth of Christmas present for a freelance writer at Amazon, you would earn $8. If that’s all you end up doing, then those big fat checks from Rakuten are a myth. Even if you buy $200 per month worth of stuff, that’s still only $32 every three months. That’s not nothing, but it hardly, “helps make ends meet,” as the commercial says.

In other words, you’ll need to find either much higher paying offers (see that 12% from eBags?) or spend A LOT of money via Rakuten to ever earn hundreds of dollars. At 12% you have to spend $833.33 to get $100 from Rakuten. So, if you want to earn what those people in the commercials earn, think thousands of dollars in online shopping. At the standard 4% Rakuten rate from Amazon, you’ll have to spend $2,500 to get a $100 payout from Rakuten. “Hundreds of dollars,” would require $5,000 or $10,000 of spending.

In the end, if you buy a lot of things online, and you are consistent about shopping through Rakuten, then you can really earn some cash back and make it worth your while. Otherwise, there is certainly no harm in collecting a little bit of money a couple of times a year, just don’t let those visions of thousand-dollar payouts every month cloud your judgement.

If you want to sign up with Rakuten, use this link to sign up and we’ll both get a cash bonus.

Free Shipping with Rakuten

In addition to cash back, Rakuten often offers coupons to various websites. These coupons sometimes offer free shipping. For websites other than Amazon, free shipping codes can be a great way to save money, especially on low-price, or clearance items, where shipping ends up costing more than the order itself.

Even when Rakuten doesn’t get you free shipping, the cash back can compensate, or pay for the shipping. As a “Disney Adult,” I do this a lot with things I find on sale, or clearance at ShopDisney.com. The Shop Disney website seldom offers free shipping, so I could get stuck paying $10 or more on my orders from the online Disney store. However, on those days when Rakuten offers triple cash back, the amount of cash back I earn more than covers my shipping costs. Sure, I have to wait for my “Big Fat Check,” but in the end, the money balances out on the long-term budget working toward financial independence.

Use Your Cash Back to cover shipping costs at places that don’t offer free shipping.

— A little personal finance tip.

Rakuten Credit Card Cash Back Visa

As part of this Rakuten review, you should know that there is now a Rakuten credit card, officially called the Rakuten Cash Back Visa. With the Rakuten Visa you earn 1% cash back on every purchase. Then, you earn an extra 3% cash back on “qualifying Rakuten purchases.” So, if you earn 10% cash back at Nike, and you use your Rakuten Visa card, then you would earn a total of 13% cash back. It DOES include purchases made in the Rakuten Gift Card Shop as well. There is no annual fee. Right now, you get a $50 cash back bonus with your first purchase.

Unlike a lot of cash back credit cards that give you a statement credit, or a monthly check, or whatever, the Rakuten Visa combines with your normal Rakuten cash back, so you would get the cash back earned on your Rakuten Cash Back Visa card on the four days each year when Rakuten normally sends the “Big Fat Check” payment for typical Rakuten cash back. So, you would get your Visa cash back on May 15, August 15, November 15, and February 15 each year.

The 3% cash back is a good deal. The 1% cash back is not. There are plenty of cards that pay 2% cash back, and then even more cards that earn miles or points that can be redeemed as 2% cash back equivalent. So, the only real reason to get a Rakuten card would be if you do a lot of Rakuten-based shopping. Then, that 3% would really let you clean up. As a card with no annual fee, if it fits your current credit situation, there would be no harm in getting the Rakuten Cash Back Visa and then using your 2% cash back, or miles card for normal purchases, but then always using your Rakuten Visa for Rakuten rebate purchases.

How To Maximize Rakuten Cash Back

Like many cash back programs today, the key to big earnings on Rakuten is to maximize your earnings by taking advantage of promotions and specials.

For example, last month Rakuten offered a $10 cash bonus if you spent more than $10 at any store. Surely out of all the stores that Rakuten offers there is one where you would spend $10 during the month. All you had to do was pick one of your normal retailers and be sure to go through Rakuten to make your purchase, and BAM $10 free. That is on top of your regular cash back.

The other way to maximize your cash back from Rakuten is watching your favorite retailers and looking for special offers.

I buy stuff from time to time from the Disney store at shopDisney.com. The store offers various clearance and sales, and sometimes even free shipping, but good sales are tough to come by. As I type this today, there is a special of 5% cash back at Disney instead of the usual 1% cashback. However, I browse the Rakuten website enough to know that every so often, shop Disney offers 10% cash back, so I’ll wait. After all, I don’t need that floral Stormtrooper t-shirt today.

The best deals come when you can match your Rakuten cash back to a retailer’s existing sale. So, if Disney is offering a pajama sale, and free shipping, and I can also connect that to a 10% cash back from Rakuten, that can add up pretty quickly.

Again, as always with coupons, sales, or cash back, you should only use them to purchase things you were already going to buy. Buying additional stuff, or things you don’t need isn’t really a savings.

So, be smart, get your cash back, and enjoy your savings.

Price is an important consideration, but it should not be the sole basis of a consumer’s decision. The cheapest product may use poor quality materials that quickly break, have the fewest features, or have unreliable customer support. Without comparing offers, the consumer won’t know what their priorities are or what they need to watch for when they replace the product.

One customer may prioritize customer service while another customer may seek specific product materials. This results in consumers jumping from brand to brand or product to product without really knowing what they actually want. These consumer behaviors create confusion and impact the competition between businesses.

Collectively, this creates a lot of waste because those purchases are tossed in the trash or shelved, and companies with solid business practices and good products can quickly get lost and close. By comparing different products, including offers from more expensive competitors, the customer can understand what they need and get exactly what they are looking for.

To best support customers, the core value businesses should deliver is transparency. FACTS UP FRONT and Consumer Transparency Week are both advanced by the Consumer Brands Association, https://consumerbrandsassociation.org/consumer-transparency/. A company provides the greatest level of customer service when it’s clear, honest, and upright about its product use, quality, and price. Transparency helps the buyer be a good customer who understands what they are buying and why they are buying it. Transparency isn’t about the best price but rather making sure the customer can get the best price possible for the best product possible for their circumstances, priorities, and situation over time. Communicating in an ethical manner is important, but so is their commitment to having a relationship with the consumer.

This type of transparency can be easily seen with Conex Boxes and their website, https://conexboxes.com/. The Conex Boxes homepage contains common questions and answers to those questions to help customers make an informed choice.

The website clearly lays out all the pros and cons of renting versus buying a storage container. This kind of information that is quickly accessible on the front page gives the customer a clear view of exactly what they are buying and why they are buying it. This feature allows them to compare prices across websites and understand what the best product is for them based on their priorities.

By helping the customer know what questions they should be asking, Conex Boxes is helping a customer identify their circumstances, priorities, and situation over time. When the right solution, the company has provided proper and high-quality product options for customers. Conex Boxes also recognizes that there are times when they are not the right solution for the customer. 

Communicating this builds trust with the customer and reinforces Conex’s message that it is reliable, secure, and wants to protect not only what the customer wants to ship but the customer themselves.

1. South Carolina
2. Idaho
3. North Carolina
4. Texas
5. Utah

There are a lot of ways to spin these numbers politically, but mathematically it is interesting to see Idaho so far up the list. That doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of people moved to Idaho because there were that many people there to start with compared to other states on the list. That is, Idaho got second place by increasing by just 28,861 people.

Compare that to South Carolina and North Carolina which came in with 79,958 and 145,907 people respectively, basically two or three times as many people. In other words, way more northerners wandered down to the Carolinas than Californians wandered over to Idaho.

Texas, of course, takes a lot of people to get a little percentage of growth. 391,243 people, more than the three states above it combined resulted in just 1.25% population increase.

That’s the other thing mathematically interestings. The growth percentages are so close together that they are meaningless without at least two decimal places, suggesting that despite crowing a “fastest,” the reality is that the differences were not large.

• South Carolina 1.46%
• North Carolina 1.32%
• Texas 1.25%

Tiny States Big Growth (Percentage wise)

Little Delaware grew by just 9,829, laughable even by Idaho’s standards, but that counts for 0.94% growth.

Vermont shrank 0.29% by losing 1,858 people. You could put all of them in a local high school, here in Colorado, not even a 5A one.

California lost four times as many (9,000) but that moved the needle just 0.02% down for the big state on the left.

Colorado, by the way, grew by 24,059 people an increase of just 0.4%.

People love to crow about red or blue this or that, but they’ll have to take a seat. Of the eight states that declined in population, four or five, depending upon how you count were red, making four or five blue.

So What?

What difference does this make to your financial situation?

Not much. This isn’t the same world as last century. So much of what we do crosses state lines, that those shoes may have come from a warehouse four states away after starting in a factory across the ocean. People move around a lot too. What is missing from these stats are the increasing number of snowbirds, or snowbird adjent, people out there who own, share, or consistently rent another home in another state.

What is starting to matter is which states have modernized the minimum wage. It turns out that the people who keep insisting that only a small amount of people earn minimum wage don’t have to be right. The wages of people above minimum wage tend to drift up to keep a similar distance between minimum wage and standard office worker drone wage.

That’s why you’ll have a hard time finding a professional job in Colorado that earns less than around $20 an hour. Even some McDonald’s offer $20 an hour to new employees, according to the big banners hanging off the side of their building. And, while housing costs are rising quickly in Colorado, they were before too.

It turns out that inflation is really more of a national construct, with exceptions for certain very expensive markets like NYC and Hawaii. Which makes sense, again when you look at how easy it is to be national for thing. Amazon alone ensures that what you pay with your $20/hr in Colorado costs the same as what you pay with your $9/hr in Alabama. Time will tell if this creates any new structural shifts.

In the meantime, South Carolina is #1! Brag it up, baby.

To avoid penalties, most Americans will need to file either their tax return or an request for extension by April 15 this year.

Tax Extension 2026

The IRS grants an automatic, no questions asked, extension to any filer who requests one by April 15 using Form 4868. Filing for a tax extension moves the due date for your taxes to October 15th.

However, there is a catch. If you OWE money on your taxes — that is, if you are not getting a refund — the amount you owe is still due on April 15. Filing an extension does not give you extra time to pay, only extra time to file.

What happens if I don’t file my taxes on time?

How does this work? On Form 4868, you’ll see a place to estimate how much taxes you are going to owe in 2026, for your 2025tax return. You have to make a payment for this amount along with your extension form. If you overestimate how much you owe, you’ll get a refund when you do file, just like if you paid too much in and filed on April 15. If you underestimate, the amount you owe, then you will owe interest, and possibly penalties on the amount you did not pay on April 15.

For most people, it is in their best interest to pay too much and get a refund when the filing is finally ready than to get whacked with interest charges. In other words, you need to get a pretty close estimate.

For this reason, an extension often works best for folks who are already pretty sure of how the income portion of their taxes works, and are still in the process of adding in deductions, which would reduce your overall taxes. In this way, there is little chance of underpaying.

Still Time to Contribute

The April 15 date is also the deadline to make “late” contributions to things like IRA accounts or HSA accounts for 2025. Note that even if you file an extension, you do not get additional time to contribute to an IRA or HSA for 2025. Those are still due on April 15.

Xcel Energy And The Rate Choice

Xcel Energy is a for-profit corporation, like most big American companies. You can buy shares of Xcel stock if you choose. Xcel’s ticker symbol is XEL. It trades on the NASDAQ even though they got a three letter stock symbol. As I type this, the stock closed at $80.40 a share. I don’t know if that’s higher or lower. I don’t have any Xcel stock.

Unlike most American companies, Xcel Energy trades it’s near monopoly in the areas it serves for oversight by regulators who keep Xcel from doing what most American companies seem to do these days. Run, a rational business charging a fair, but profitable price for a good service supplied by competent, skilled workers that the company treats decently. Until they bring in a Wall Street MBA CEO who doesn’t care about customers, the service, or the workers. All he or she cares about is the share price and doing whatever it takes to make it go up. If he ruins the company, he needn’t worry. He will still get millions of dollars in a buyout before a simpering board or directors sells the still profitable, still solid business to private equity, who load it with debt, charge it millions for management fees and then spin it back out to the terminally stupid who have somehow not figured out yet that everything private equity touches dies.

But, today, Xcel Energy is a profitable company. Any excesses are reigned in by regulators who, while not perfect, do not allow the company to openly pull a scam on its citizens. Still, there are plenty of people, even on my street, who are convinced that Xcel Energy is screwing them over with smart meters and using those to charge them way more money than they ever did with their dumb meters. The reality is not so dramatic.

Yes, the smart meters allow Xcel to better track your energy usage, and it keeps them from having to spend money to have someone come out and read your meter, but that’s about all it does. It also lets you use an app to monitor your electricity usage in real-time. It can be an eye-opener to sit and watch what happens to your usage when the air conditioner kicks on or the dryer stops. If you’re like me, you can wander around the house turning things on and off to see how much electricity they use.

If you insist on keeping your old meter, they will let you and charge you the same flat rate for your electricity as they do the people with smart meters who choose the flat rate for their electricity. There is no plot. You can pick which one you want. You can’t flip back and forth willy-nilly. They don’t want people gaming the system, plus it makes your billing more complicated that you and they can probably handle.

Xcel Energy Rate Change for Winter

The Time of Use (TOU) pricing, or Peak Pricing if you prefer, isn’t new, although some people were only recently given the choice. You can only use TOU pricing if you have a smart meter, otherwise Xcel can’t tell when you are using the energy, only that it has been used. In a typical display of poor mathing, some people insist that the flat rate is cheaper. Unless you have uncommon circumstances, that probably isn’t true.

Xcel asking for (regulators) and getting yet another change in the way they charge for TOU is pretty much proof that the former TOU was a better deal for you. If Xcel was overly benefiting from tricking most people into TOU pricing, why would they want to change it?

Still, a new rate plan is a new chance for people to be suspicious. So, is it better? I suppose that depends on when you are home and what you do when you are there.

Choose Your Xcel Rates

The peak hours and the rates charged during that time are only part of the story. The new rates represent a cut in the rate, and the peak hours are shorter. But, the most important fact has nothing to do with those.

In winter, the average house in Colorado uses way less electricity than in the summer. The reason? Air conditioning. You don’t run your air conditioner in the winter. You still have to manage the temperature in your home, which most of us do with our furnace. And, for most of us, that furnace runs on natural gas. So your utility bill in the winter represents the cost of the gas more than the cost of electricity.

Be that as it may, in Winter your peak electricity rate is $0.18331 per kWh. Your off-peak rate is $0.06792. The peak hours are now 5:00pm to 9:00pm. There is no mid-peak anymore.

If you choose the flat rate, you pay $0.08570 per kWh all the time, 24/7.

Which Rate is Cheaper TOU or Flat Rate?

At first glance, it might look like the flat rate is obviously the better deal. It’s only two cents more than the off-peak rate, and you never have to pay the peak rate, which is more than double the flat rate. However, when it comes to money, you always want to check the math.

First, just four out of 24 hours are peak rate. In other words, 20 hours per day, you pay two cents less than the flat rate. Granted, 5pm to 9pm is when most people are home, and if you work during the day, it might be when you use the most of your electricity. The question is, how much is most?

Before we get to that question, let’s throw in the fact that weekends are always the low rate. There is no peak rate charges on the weekend. If you do work sort of regular 8-5 hours M-F that means that you could be in your home using electricity not only from 5-9, but from those 8 hours that you would normally be at work as well. Throw in some kids that are also home on the weekend, and you spend a lot more hours in off-peak time than you do in peak time.

If we do some math, for 148 out of 168 hours, you pay off-peak rate.

So, then which rate is cheapest?

It still depends upon how and when you use your electricity. For example, if you are busy most evenings so the only appliances you really use are the stove, the microwave, the TV and the lights, but you can’t get around to things like laundry, running the dishwasher, and baking until the weekend, then that TOU is going to end up being cheaper.

If everyone in your house is gone from 8-5 until you all come crushing back into the house where you obviously run the dishwasher every night at like 8pm, and you’re constantly doing laundry that you can’t wait until after 9pm to do because you have to wash and dry before you go to bed, then maybe flat rate might be cheaper, but even then it can be close unless you all disappear on the weekends or your kids are in travel sports, and you’re always on your way to somewhere in Nebraska or Kansas on the weekends.

There is a comparison too on the Xcel website, but they don’t show you the math, so it’s easy to think maybe they’re fudging the numbers. Fortunately, it’s easy to do your own comparison. Grab your bill. Your actual bill with your real, not projected energy use. You’ll have to wait until you get your November bill because the October one used different times.

Once you have it, all you have to do is find your “Usage Units” for On-Peak and multiply that number by $0.18331. Then find your Off-Peak and multiply those by $0.06792. Add them together. That is the part of your electric bill that is based on you and your usage. All those other numbers are fees and taxes and stuff that you are going to pay the same for either way. Now, take the total number of Usage Units for both categories and multiply them by $0.08570.

Weird, huh?

Chances are the numbers are pretty close but cheaper with TOU. If not, consider if you can move some of your usage outside of the 5-9pm hours. Remember, it’s not your lights, TVs, and computers that use up lots of electricity. It’s your oven, dishwasher, and washer and dryer. The refrigerator uses a bunch too, but that’s going to happen one way or another so it really isn’t worth worrying about. If not, you can look into switching back. For our family, I was surprised at how clear-cut it was that TOU was better.

Have You Gotten an Electric Car Yet?

If you have an electric car, then TOU is the hands down, no-brainer choice for you. You want that lowest rate possible for when you are charging your car. Then, just set your charger to only run between 9:00pm and 5:0pm (the hours that are NOT 5-9pm) and your car will always charge at the cheapest rate.

You can charge 60 kWh, or about 70% of our Nissan Ariya battery, for $4. That’s way cheaper than buying gas! Plus, your car is faster and quieter than pretty much any gas car out there. It’s almost like a cheat code. I sometimes think that it’s actually kind best for those of us with EVs if everybody else still thinks they should have gas cars. I guess, “Thanks oil industry. Doing us a solid here.”

In conclusion (I hate when people say that), it probably won’t matter too much for the winter which rate you choose. Maybe that’s why Xcel is kind of flippant on that card. They don’t care what you pick either. Come summer, when electricity is the major part of your utility bill, it’s probably worth checking again.

No Tax on Car Loan Interest

No tax on car loan interest is dumb. There was never any tax on car loan interest. Car loan interest is an expense, not income. So, you don’t pay tax on car loan interest already. Even if you did pay taxes on car loan interest, a deduction for that wouldn’t be “no tax” it would be less tax. So, now that we’ve dispensed with the marketing, let’s do this.

How To Deduct Car Loan Interest

Trump pumps out the headlines, congressmen write up the bills so it comes close to what Trump said. Actually, congressional staffers experienced in writing legislation write the bills, or so we hope.

In this case, no tax on car loan interest comes with some important limitations.

• A maximum deduction of $10,000
• Must be a loan for purchasing a new car
  • You can deduct interest after refinancing a new car loan as long as you don’t make the loan for more than it was before.
• Loan has to be started in 2025
• It has to be a qualified vehicle.

What is a Qualified Vehicle for Deductible Car Interest?

People are always complaining about how long the tax code is. It’s not long because of the taxes. It’s long because of having to spell everything out exactly so that someone doesn’t find a loophole and exploit it. So, the short version is that it has to be a car that was assembled in the United States. That leaves a lot of wiggle room, so there are some spelled out points and definitions.

• Has to have a gross vehicle weight of less than 14,000 pounds. That’s all the normal cars, but it keeps someone from deducting some big job site truck or 18-wheeler and saying it’s “a car.”
• It has to be a personal vehicle. There’s further definition here, but the IRS can be a little bit loose here because it essentially means you have to say that it is not a business vehicle, which means you can’t deduct things like mileage or maintenance as a business expense. Slick.
• Final assembly in the US is defined for car manufactures. You don’t really have to worry about it. It says on the window sticker and title where the car was assembled. If you want, there is a VIN lookup you can use to find out if you have the VIN and not the information somehow.

Car Loan Deduction Income Limitations

One of the ways you can get the CBO to say your new tax deduction costs less (and therefore adds less to the deficit) is by limiting how long it lasts or limiting how much income you can have to get the deduction. In this case, they went with income limitations.

• Your income has to be lower than $100,000 for filing indivual
• Your income has to be lower than $200,000 for filing jointly

Important to note, the “income” in this case is your adjusted gross income or AGI. You can find it on line 11 of your Form 1040.

To refresh your memory, your AGI is your salary, pensions, capital gains, and business income, minus the things on Part II of Schedule 1 Adjustments to Income. You get these things even if you do not itemize your income tax deductions. So, as always, as a high-income taxpayer you want to max out the subtractions you get here. In this case, you want them to get you under $100,000 as a single filer or $200,000 as a married filing joint filer.

These subtractions are often referred to as as above the line deductions. The line, being the AGI line at 11. They occur before you take either the standard deduction or itemized deductions.

The most common deductions are HSA accounts, IRA deductions, student loan interest deductions, and self-employed deductions for retirement and health insurance contributions. (Technically your small business deductions are above the line too, but they are folded into your income from the business instead).

How Will You Know How Much Interest You Can Deduct?

Oh, goodie. Another tax form. Yep, the law requires your lender to send you a form to report the interest you pay on your car loan. No details yet, but expect it to be something like the 1098 you get from your mortgage company.

Old People!

Congress loves throwing in an extra deduction for older taxpayers. In this case, if you are 65 or older, you can claim an additional $6,000 deduction for your car interest. Each oldster can claim their own bonus, so it’s an extra $12,000 for a married couple.

The bonus deduction starts phasing out lower at $75,000 for single filers and $150,000 for joint.

What Kind of Car Is This?

Just for fun, you might wonder what it would take to max out the old car interest deduction. The important thing to remember here is that this is an “overall” deduction. You don’t get an additional deduction for more cars, but you can spread your limit out over multiple cars, which is good, because you would have to buy a $300,0000 car at 5% over 5 years to get anywhere close to the $16,000 an older married couple could deduct.

That said, a couple of $100,000 car loans (5%, 5 years) would come close to that $10,000 number.

I didn’t read enough to see if the limits are indexed to inflation, but if not, those limits are for the future not for today.

Bottom Line

To sum up, buy a car assembled in America, and deduct the interest up to $10,000 per year when you make less than $100,000 or $200,000 depending on if you are married or not.

And, if you’re wondering, it sucks compared to a flat out $7,500 CREDIT not deduction for electric vehicles. But, if you’re going to hate technology, science, and the future, this is the best you can do.

Enjoy.

Remember, you get the deduction based upon CONTRIBUTIONS, and your contributions do NOT have to be made before your expenses are incurred.

In other words, if you go to the doctor and get a $180 bill, you can (EVEN AFTER) contribute $180 to your HSA account. Pay the $180 doctor bill (maybe using a rewards credit card), and THEN reimburse yourself the $180 expense.

This is the best way to deduct medical expenses if you qualify. Otherwise, remember that you can only deduct medical expenses that are 10% above your adjusted gross income. With an HSA account, every contribution is deductible, regardless of when you use the money to pay medical bills.

Also, any medical bills you pay with your HSA cannot be deducted as medical expenses. Also, HSA paid expenses do not count toward the 7.5% floor needed to deduct medical expenses.

Remember, the contribution is deductible, not the expense. Contribute money for every qualified medical expense you have, and the net effect is the same as deducting all of your medical expenses. Remember, unlike a FSA, you can carry over money in an HSA for as long as you like.

See my do it yourself guide to freelance taxes.

About the Author

Brian is a former Certified Financial Planner and financial advisor. He writes for the Finance Gourmet and other financial publications. The material provided on this website is for informational use only and is not intended for financial or tax advice. ArcticLlama, LLC, FinanceGourmet.com, and Brian Nelson, assume no liability for any loss or damage resulting from one’s reliance on the material provided. Please also note that such material is not updated regularly and that some of the information may not therefore be current. Consult with your own tax professional when making decisions regarding your tax situation.

What Is JEPQ?

JEPQ is an exchange traded fund, or ETF managed by JPMorgan. The fund, more or less, seeks to mimic the ever-growing popularity of selling covered calls to generate income while still holding your stocks to become rich and famous from their capital appreciation. To do this, it starts with a fund comprised of stocks to roughly approximate the Nasdaq 100, and then it sells covered-calls (and equity-linked notes, which are institutional sized covered calls) on those stocks to generate income.

If everything goes according to plan, the fund will generate income and hold those stocks as well. The best of both worlds. When things don’t go according to plan, stocks rise rapidly taking out said covered-calls and making them money losing exchanges of pennies for multiple dollars of share price increases. Fortunately, those things are hidden silently within the fund so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about that.

In the end, you get

(JPEQ returned) 9.81% for the twelve months ended June 30,2025. The S&P 500 returned 15.16% and the Nasdaq-100 returned 16.10%.

Bummer, Ted.

JPEQ Review Time

As an investment, you could probably do a lot worse than JPEQ. As a port of a well-diversified, long-term portfolio you probably have better options.

Where JPEQ can be worthwhile is that sort of mid-term spot, or I suppose, if you want to generate income that’s less irritating that what a savings account might kick out and more turnkey than managing your own bond portfolio. If you’re wondering why such a mid ETF generates such buzz, the answer is this:

Nobody listens to that past performance is not a predictor of future results thing. JPEQ was on fire in 2023, and it had a hell of a calendar year 2024 as well.

In 2025? Well….

As was foretold by everyone who wasn’t a JEPQ zealot, and the prospectus, and investment knowledge, selling covered calls to generate income isn’t always the best way to make money. Sometimes, you sell a covered call at 28 on a stock at 25 and the stock blows up to 33 and keeps going, and… you missed out because your shares got called away at 28. This is particularly tricky when you have a President who just wakes up sometimes and decides to blurt out whatever market moving talk popped into his head that morning.

The January to April period was particularly bad. There’s been something of a comeback through the rest of the year, but while JEPQ is heading toward breakeven, the rest of the market is setting records and all-time highs and stuff. That chart above is going to look pretty rough when S&P 500 is up 10% or 15% and JEPQ is up 3% or 4%. Forget the NASDAQ.

JEPQ for Income

Of course, the point (sort of) of JEPQ is earning income along with your returns. Assuming you aren’t reinvesting your dividends, JEPQ kicks out monthly dividends.

If you don’t want to pull out your calculator, that’s $4.52768.

So, while your 100 shares of JEPQ you bought on January 2, 2025 is basically break even here in September, you did earn $452.77 in dividends. But, don’t forget if you take those dividends in cash, you don’t get the “total return” number you see on all those graphs telling you this is a brilliant idea.

Look, I’m not here to bring down FinTwit or anybody’s idea of a good investment. JEPQ can be a part of a solid investment strategy. But, if you are managing a fairly sizable portfolio, you probably don’t have the extra capital to be putting in JEPQ.

The Health Savings Account Theory

The idea behind a Health Savings Account, or HSA, is a little bit like a 401k account, or even a 529 college savings plan account. You save money for future expenses like college or retirement, but in the case of an HSA, you are saving for medical expenses. Like with a 401k plan, or an IRA, you get a tax deduction benefit for making contributions. Also, like the other accounts, your money grows inside the account tax free. And, finally, like a Roth IRA, or a 529, you withdrawals for approved expenses are also tax free.

So, theoretically, assuming the world around you proceeded in an orderly and predictable manner, and your budget contained plenty of room for all appropriate spending and savings, then you would contribute regularly to your HSA account, and invest that money, so it could grow over time, into a big reserve that is available to you when you have medical issues down the road. If you are familiar with studying physics, you may remember that in basic physics all the equations work, as long as you are on a frictionless plane, in a vacuum. This is kind of the same thing, for medical finances.

If this doesn’t sound exactly like your life, don’t worry; most people don’t live like that either.

What makes the HSA very different than those other retirement and education accounts is timing. Your child is 10 years old now, they will go to college in eight years. You have no reason to use any of the 529 money between now and then. Likewise, you are 20 years from retirement, so there is no reason to withdraw any money from your IRA or 401k either. Yes, things could change, maybe Junior gets into college a year early, or maybe things go your way and you retire in 15 years, but either way, there is a built in time frame to those accounts. In fact, if you did try and withdraw any of that money sooner, there may be stiff tax consequences.

Medical expenses, however, are not like that. You might need to go the doctor next month, or even tomorrow. In fact, there is a very good chance that you’ll need to withdraw and use money from your HSA account at least once in the next 12 to 24 months. That makes using an HSA unusual for most people.

Using HSA Reality

So, how should you use your HSA in reality?

First, you have to setup an HSA account. Everything starts when you OPEN your HSA account. If you open your HSA on June 1st, and you have medical expenses on June 2nd, you can use HSA money. But, if you open your HSA on June 1st after visiting the doctor on May 31, you can’t use HSA funds for that May visit. So, the most important thing is to open your Health Savings Account as soon as you qualify for it, even if you don’t put any money in it right away!

Second, you have to put money into the HSA. Typically, you can either setup some sort of salary reduction, where money from your paycheck gets directly put into the HSA, or you can link a checking account and transfer money into the HSA, either on a regular basis, or as needed.

Here is where it gets a bit confusing. Many HSA accounts come with a debit card that you can use to pay for your medical expenses. This is great, and it helps with record keeping, however you do not have to use that debit card at all. It is only for convenience. You can actually pay your expenses any way you like — check, credit card, cash — and then reimburse yourself from the HSA account.

What throws people off is that while using the debit card is just like a checking account debit card (you have to have sufficient funds), that functionality has nothing to do with the tax advantages. The tax benefits come solely from the contributions you make to the account. In other words, you get a tax deduction for every dollar you put it, up to the HSA contribution maximum for the year. This is the only thing that matters on your Form 1040, is how much money you put in. You don’t report the money coming out.

How To Withdraw From Your HSA

You do not report the money you withdraw from an HSA to the IRS. And, unlike a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) the company that holds your HSA account won’t require any sort of receipt, or proof, either. You will only need proof if you are audited. Otherwise, no one need cares.

So, how do you actually use your HSA?

The easiest way is to just use your HSA debit card to pay your medical bills, but it isn’t the only way, or even the best way, depending upon your circumstances.

The other way is to pay your bills some other way, and then reimburse yourself. So, perhaps you write a check or use some MasterCard or Visa that you get credit card airline miles or rewards points for. To reimburse yourself, you can either withdraw the money from an ATM using the debit card, or send the money directly to your linked checking account. Your HSA may also provide you checks which you can write to yourself. As long as the total amounts match up over the year, it doesn’t matter how you put the money in and out.

In a lot of ways, this can end up looking like legalized money laundering.

For example, let’s say you open your HSA account on March 1st. On March 5th, you go to the doctor. On March 20th you get a bill for $95. You pay the $95 by mailing in a check. Then, on March 30th, you get paid and $100 comes out of your paycheck into your HSA. On April 5th, you use your HSA debit card to take out $95, and you go to the movies. — That’s all fine. You deduct the $100 contribution, and since there was an allowable $95 medical expense, there are no taxes or penalties on the withdrawal, even though the money didn’t go directly to the doctor.

It can get even stranger. Imagine you have an HSA account open. It has a balance of $50. You fall and go to the emergency room on March 10th. The bill comes to $1300. On March 15th you use your connected checking account to transfer $1300 into your HSA. You wait a few days for the transfer to complete, and then you pay the $1300 bill by calling the billing department and giving them your debit card number over the phone. — That’s fine too. Again, the contribution is what matters. You get to deduct $1300 for making a contribution during the year. It is irrelevant that the contribution was made after the medical expense was incurred. And, the withdrawal is tax-free because you had $1300 in eligible medical expenses, even though they occurred before the contribution was made.

You cannot, however, reimburse yourself for any expense that occurs before your HSA is open, even if you are eligible for an HSA, so open your account, right away.

The key thing to remember is that the money you put IN is your tax deduction. The money you take out does not affect your taxes, so long as it is less than or equal to your medical expenses. You must keep the receipts to prove the amount of the expenses in case you are audited, but no one will ask for them until then.

So, to maximize your deduction, make sure every medical expense you have is either paid from, or reimbursed by, your HSA account, even if you have to put money in after the expense is incurred to do so. Do that, and you’ll maximize your deduction for HSA contributions, which is much better than only getting to write off whatever medical expenses you have above the 10% medical costs deduction.