2 New Apple Products That Could Save You Money
Apple held its annual spring event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Monday, March 25th. Two of their new products are particularly interesting from a personal finance perspective and could save you some money.
Apple held its annual spring event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Monday, March 25th. Two of their new products are particularly interesting from a personal finance perspective and could save you some money.
Apple News+
I am an apple snob and stockholder.
We have too many apple devices in our household.
Apple News+ is a new service that allows you access to a large number of magazines and newspapers, as well as their standard news content. This comes at a set monthly subscription rate of $10/month. At first blush this seemed like an interesting deal for $120/year. I’m skeptical of monthly subscriptions but I love magazines, and I get my news mostly from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. So I figured I would run a quick audit in our house to see how much we spend on annual new/magazine subscriptions. I used magazines.com to determine pricing.
GQ - $20/year
Bon Appetite - $20/year
Fortune - $20/year
The Economist - $95/year
ESPN the Mag - $30/year
WSJ - $467/year
A total of $652 in reading material!
Holy crap … I was slightly horrified to realize that total. The vast majority of my reading is on a screen, so News+ seems like a bit of a no brainer for our family. Do you know how much you are spending on this category? Add it up!
Apple Card
I am generally opposed to credit cards as a means to pay for your typical monthly expenses. I prefer to spend out of my checking account, so that I know exactly what I have available. And it forces me not to over spend. When I really want to nail down my monthly discretionary spending, I like to load my weekly cash on the Cash app card. I also think that cash back rewards and sky miles bonus points are gimmicks meant to entice your lizard brain to spend more.
If you decide that you need a credit card, if you travel at all, you will, or that you can control your spending urges, and want to get the cash back rewards. Apples Card is a pretty cool product.
It is tightly tied to your apple wallet
it gives daily 2% cash back rewards
it allows you to control your payment options
it provides some visibility into you budgeting/category spending
it gives you a physical version, made of titanium
there are no annual charges
So all in all the new card (which is not yet available), looks like an interesting product. I am curious to see how things play out when it is available. I like the easy integration with the wallet. And I like visibility it provides for your spending.
*Note that there are currently cards available that offer a nice cash back option. So you don’t have to wait for this card to get cash back.