Prepaid Debit Card Reviews, Complaints, Etc

Tag: Christmas and holiday season

  • 6 reasons to buy the teacher a prepaid gift card

    6 reasons to buy the teacher a prepaid gift card

    By Donna Freedman

    Teachers get a lot of gifts in December. Some are formulaic: “No. 1 Teacher” coffee mugs, say, or plaques shaped like apples. Some are heartfelt: photos, handmade crafts, cookies decorated by sticky young hands.

    Trouble is, teachers have way too many mugs, plaques, scarves/neckties, candles, pencil jars and picture frames. See, they’re teaching 20 or more kids per year and such gifts add up – or, rather, they pile up until teacher donates them to the charity thrift shop.

    One thing many educators say they’d love to get is a letter from a student (or his parents) thanking him or her for making a difference. This costs nothing but time, and it’s a lovely gesture.  A holiday gift is a nice gesture, too. But in the current mindset of “Experiences, Not Stuff,” why not give a prepaid gift card? Here’s why.

    1. It’s payback. Chances are your child’s teacher is spending his or her own money on the classroom. According to a 2013 survey from the National School Supply and Equipment Association, teachers shell out an average of $485 per year on stuff for their students – and 10 percent of them spent $1,000 or more. Yikes!

    2. It’s flexible. Sure, you could buy a specific gift card to a bookstore or educational supply shop – but a prepaid card gives the teacher a lot of leeway. She can use it at the hardware store to buy items for the science fair displays, or at the supermarket to buy ingredients for punch and cookies on Valentine’s Day.

    Technically she could use it on something for herself. Don’t count on it, though: The Curse of the Teacher leads many instructors to view all gifts in terms of how they might benefit the classroom. (See “$485 a year,” above.)

    3. It’s non-offensive. That candle and holder you bought at a friend’s home party is pretty, but the teacher may have limited room for tchotchkes. (She may also dislike candles.) A gift certificate to The Body Shop might never get used because strong fragrances trigger her asthma. Or suppose you offer a mani-pedi gift certificate only to realize later that you have never, ever seen this teacher wear nail polish; for all you know, she took it as a criticism of her appearance.

    4. It’s non-caloric. Teachers get a lot of homemade treats as well as gift cards to the doughnut shop or the frozen yogurt place. But you don’t know whether he or she is is on a diet, or has health issues that preclude treats.

    5. It’s non-caffeinated. Starbucks cards have become the coin of the realm lately. I even know a dentist who hands them out to patients kept waiting too long. However, not everyone drinks coffee or even tea.
    Besides, your child’s teacher may have one of those diet/health issues and the card wouldn’t be a good fit.

    6. It’s not a coffee mug! Teachers don’t need more of these. Really. Please.

     
    Guest Author Donna Freedman contributed this article. Donna Freedman writes about personal finance for Money Talks News and other websites and magazines, and blogs at DonnaFreedman.com. This article was revised and jointly written by Curtis Arnold and posted on the Huffington Post here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/curtis-arnold/low-fee-prepaid-gift-cards_b_6336082.html

  • How To Keep Holiday Spending Joyful

    How To Keep Holiday Spending Joyful

    Prepaid debit cards can help you stick to your budget.

    by Shane Tripcony

    It seems to happen earlier and earlier each year. Even before the little ones don their witch and ghost outfits to go out trolling for candy on Halloween night – let alone before anyone has planned out their Thanksgiving Day feast – many stores around the country already are decorated with evergreen wreathes and plastic Santas.

    To be sure, this makes absolute sense for retailers, many of whom rely on the holiday shopping season to account for as much as 50 percent of their annual revenue. In other words, it’s just good business to try and stretch the duration of the holiday shopping season as long as possible, even if it does occasionally also stretch credulity.

    But what might be good for storeowners is not necessarily in the best interest of all of us shoppers. Which is why so many personal finance pros urge us to make a detailed holiday shopping budget and stick to it. The first part is easy. Indeed, according to a recent survey by Capital One Bank, fully three-quarters of all Americans say they are likely to come up with some sort of holiday spending budget this year. But the same study also hints at the reality of what usually happens: Almost half of those who say they’ll budget for the new sweaters and Xbox games they plan to buy aren’t confident that they’ll actually stick to their best-laid plans.

    But it is possible to be both generous for the holidays while simultaneously ensuring that you don’t wake up with a financial hangover in the New Year. Step one is to do exactly what personal finance experts have been urging holiday season after holiday season and actually make a budget. Only you can determine what makes sense given your current financial situation and expenses. The consulting firm Accenture pegs the amount U.S. consumers are likely to spend this year on gifts at $646, an increase from $582 last year.

    Whatever you decide that number should be, step two is to take that amount and load it onto a low-fee prepaid debit card. Doing so – and being disciplined about using only that one card for your shopping and not adding more money to it once it is depleted – will ensure that you stick to your budget, even when your holiday spirit is threatening to overwhelm your best financial interests. Why not just use a gift card? That could make sense if you decide that you want to do all of your shopping at just one store. The beauty of dedicating a prepaid debit card to all of your holiday shopping is that it gives you the flexibility to make purchases wherever Visa and MasterCard are accepted, which is basically everywhere.

    Just as we here at BestPrepaidDebitCards.com urge you to select cards with low fees for day-to-day use, the same imperative applies for holiday cards. You still want to select a card – like Serve from American Express or Chase Liquid – that doesn’t hit you with many fees. There’s no need to be a Scrooge this holiday season. Just get a little budgeting help with a prepaid debit card to ensure the good cheer lasts into 2014.

Prepaid Debit Card Reviews, Complaints, Etc