mymoneyblog.com

What is My Money Blog?

My Money Blog is a personal finance and investing blog that mixes everyday money-saving deals with deeper analysis of financial products and business practices. Its front page shows short, dated posts, so it reads more like a frequently updated journal than a structured course.

What it typically covers

• Deals and discounts: Time-limited offers such as a grocery app promo code or a streaming subscription discount, often with a brief explanation of how to claim them.
• Cash-back and credit card strategy: Rotating category bonuses, for example cards paying 5% back on restaurants, groceries or utilities during a specific quarter.
• Consumer protection and warnings: Investigations into misleading business models, such as a settlement over multilevel marketing practices and what it means for people considering joining one.
• Investing and retirement: Longer-run topics implied by the site's "Spend, Earn, Invest, Retire" sections.

Who it suits

A useful next step: if you are evaluating a side hustle or a "business opportunity," read the site's write-up of the Amway settlement before committing money. Its core lesson is practical — check whether recruits or outside customers generate the revenue, and whether you are expected to buy training or inventory yourself. If most participants lose money, that is the relevant number, not the income promised in the pitch.

How can I use My Money Blog to find current cash back credit card offers?

My Money Blog tracks limited-time cash back promotions alongside its broader personal-finance coverage, so the fastest route is to scan its recent headlines for a card-specific post rather than browsing the whole site. A page in its feed, for example, is titled "5% Cash Back Cards: Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Utilities – October through December 2026," which is exactly the rotating-category format you want. Read that kind of post for the qualifying categories, the activation requirement and the quarterly window; skip posts about grocery app coupons or mobile-phone deals, which are unrelated to card rewards.

A practical routine

• Check the headline list first. Card offers are usually named by category and quarter, so they stand out from deal posts.
• Open the post and confirm the offer is still live before you apply or activate, since quarterly bonuses expire.
• Note whether the bonus requires activation each quarter. Many issuer programs do, and a missed activation forfeits the higher rate.
• Compare against your existing cards before adding a new one. A 5% category beats a flat 2% card only on spending that actually fits the category cap.
• Treat the site as a lead source, then verify terms on the issuer's own page, because rates and caps change.

Whose experience this is

The Amway settlement write-up on the same site is the author's own analysis of the FTC and Washington State case, not a card offer. It is a useful reminder of the blog's editorial slant: skeptical, numeric and focused on what a deal costs you in time or risk. That lens applies to card posts too — expect the author to flag annual fees, spending caps and break-even math rather than simply praising a bonus.

For a concrete example: if you spend $400 a month on groceries, a 5% grocery category returns about $20 monthly, or $60 over a quarter, and only if the cap covers that spend. If the cap is $1,500 per quarter, you are fine; if it is $500, the extra spend earns the base rate.

Next step

Set a calendar reminder for the first week of each quarter, open the site's recent posts, and check whether a new category card post has appeared. If you want a second source for comparison, official issuer pages and aggregators such as NerdWallet list current card terms directly.

What does My Money Blog say about the risks of joining an MLM like Amway?

My Money Blog's post on the Amway settlement treats MLM participation as a likely money-losing proposition for the average recruit, not a side hustle. Drawing on the FTC and Washington State settlement, it argues the business model is built around recruiting new distributors rather than selling products to outside customers.

The specific risks it highlights

• Most participants lose money. The post states that the majority of Amway "Independent Business Owners" spent more on products and paid training materials than they ever earned back.
• Income comes from recruitment, not retail. The largest commissions reportedly flowed from signing up new IBOs who then bought products, rather than from selling to genuine customers.
• Self-purchases dressed up as sales. According to the post, the settlement describes Amway and affiliates instructing IBOs to report product sales that never happened, creating the appearance of real retail revenue.
• Training materials as a revenue source. Paid seminars and proprietary training, often pitched as necessary for success, were a significant income stream for those few who profited.
• The comparison test. The post contrasts MLM participation with gig work like DoorDash: at least there you are paid for your time, whereas most MLM recruits ended up worse off than if they had done nothing.

How to use this

If someone pitches you an MLM, ask two questions before anything else: what share of participants earn more than they spend, and how much of the payout depends on recruiting versus selling to people outside the network. Vague answers, or pressure to buy starter inventory and training, are the warning signs this post describes. For broader consumer-protection context, the FTC at Federal Trade Commission publishes guidance on business opportunity and pyramid scheme claims.

How does My Money Blog help me decide between delivery apps and grocery store apps for savings?

My Money Blog helps mainly by example rather than by a dedicated comparison framework: it surfaces specific, time-limited offers from both delivery and store apps, then lets you judge whether each one is worth acting on. The clearest illustration in the page evidence is a Whole Foods app promotion — $10 off $50 with promo code APP10, valid on both pick-up and delivery — which shows the site's typical angle: a concrete discount, the channel it applies to, and the conditions attached.

What that means for your decision

The useful distinction isn't "delivery app versus grocery app" in the abstract. It's which channel gives you the better net outcome after fees, markups and your own time.

• Store app, pick-up: usually the lowest friction. You skip delivery fees and driver tips, and store-app pricing tends to match in-store shelf prices more closely than delivery marketplaces do.
• Store app, delivery: convenient, but check whether the discount applies to delivery orders and whether service or delivery fees eat the $10.
• Third-party delivery marketplace: often the widest restaurant and convenience selection, but menu prices are frequently marked up and fees stack up. A $10 coupon can be erased by a markup you'd never see in a store app.

A simple way to decide: calculate the all-in cost for the same basket in each app, then subtract the promo. If the store app's pick-up total is lower, the coupon is a bonus rather than the reason to choose it.

A practical reader scenario

Suppose you need $55 of groceries. In the Whole Foods app, pick-up with APP10 brings it to about $45 with no tip. In a delivery marketplace, the same items might list higher and add a delivery fee plus tip, so even with a comparable coupon you could land above $45. The store app wins on cost; the marketplace wins only if you genuinely can't or won't go.

Where the site's broader coverage fits

My Money Blog also tracks recurring rewards rather than one-off coupons — for instance, rotating 5% cash-back categories covering restaurants, grocery stores and utilities. That matters more than any single promo, because a card earning 5% at grocery stores changes the math on every trip, not just one. If you're optimizing regularly, pick the card category first, then layer a store-app coupon on top.

Next step

Before your next order, open both the store's own app and your usual delivery app, build the same basket, and compare the final checkout total — not the subtotal. Then check whether one of your cards currently earns a bonus in that category. For ongoing deal tracking, My Money Blog is worth reading alongside a dedicated coupon or cash-back comparison site, since its strength is flagging individual offers with their terms rather than ranking apps head-to-head.

What lessons does My Money Blog draw from the Amway FTC settlement for side hustles?

My Money Blog treats the Amway case as a cautionary tale about side hustles whose economics depend on recruiting participants rather than selling to real customers. The central lesson drawn: if most people who join end up spending more on products and training than they earn back, the "opportunity" is a transfer of money from newcomers, not a business.

The specific warning signs it highlights

• Recruitment is the real product. The post notes that the biggest commissions come from signing up new "Independent Business Owners," not from retail sales to outside customers — so growth requires an ever-widening base of new participants.
• Self-purchases dressed up as sales. According to the post's account of the settlement, Amway and affiliates instructed IBOs to report product sales that never happened, creating the impression of genuine retail demand.
• Mandatory-feeling training costs. Proprietary training materials and seminars were pitched as required for success and became a major revenue source for those few who profited — a cost borne by everyone else.
• The baseline comparison. The post's blunt framing: most IBOs would have been better off doing nothing, and at least gig work like delivery pays you for your time.

How to apply this to any side hustle

Before joining, ask where the money actually comes from. If your income depends mainly on enrolling other people — or on buying inventory or training yourself — you are the customer, not the business owner. Compare the all-in cost (starter kits, monthly minimums, courses, conferences) against realistic earnings for a typical participant, not the top performer. And check whether the company's revenue is disclosed as retail sales to outsiders or as purchases by its own distributors.

A useful test: could you make the same money selling the product to strangers who have no interest in joining? If not, the model is the warning sign.

For broader personal-finance context, see My Money Blog and regulator guidance from the Federal Trade Commission.

How can I use My Money Blog to evaluate mobile plan deals like US Mobile?

Use My Money Blog as a deal-tracking and fine-print filter, not as a standalone review site. Its strength for something like US Mobile is that it collects current promotions in one place and then explains the conditions that determine whether the headline offer is actually good. You still need to verify the offer on the carrier's own site before switching.

H3 What the page actually gives you The site is organized around spending, earning, investing and retiring, with a running feed of time-sensitive offers. The US Mobile item on the page sits alongside similar posts such as cash-back card rotations and app-based grocery discounts, which tells you the blog treats carrier promos as one more rotating deal to evaluate. For a US Mobile question, the useful parts are the deal mechanics — trade-in credits, referral credits, promotional periods — rather than a broad verdict on the carrier.

H3 A practical way to use it

1. Find the current US Mobile post and note the exact promotion, eligibility window and any device or trade-in requirement.
2. Read the surrounding posts on the same page for context: cash-back categories and recurring discount patterns show how the blog thinks about short-term offers versus ongoing value.
3. Cross-check the offer against US Mobile's own terms and coverage information, since a blog post cannot confirm whether a promotion still applies to your line or location.
4. Compare the promotional value against your normal monthly cost. A trade-in credit spread over many months is different from an immediate discount.

H3 Where it helps and where it does not The blog is most useful if you already know which carrier you want and need to judge whether a promotion is worth acting on now. It is less useful if you are choosing a carrier from scratch, because plan comparisons depend on your data usage, coverage and device situation. The Amway settlement post on the same page is a reminder of the blog's general stance: read the terms, check who actually profits, and be skeptical of offers that depend on recruiting or on assumptions you cannot verify.

H3 Next step Before acting on any US Mobile promotion, open the carrier's official page and confirm the current terms. For broader deal-tracking habits, you can also compare how other finance sites frame the same offers, for example NerdWallet or The Points Guy.