Don’t Get Distracted by Dogecoin — 7 Legit Ways to Boost Your Net Worth

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Okay, we’ll admit it: We’re not really into Bitcoin or Dogecoin or Ethereum or whatever. We don’t care what Elon Musk tweeted today.

We’re just as interested in cryptocurrency as we are the Cryptkeeper or Krypto the Superdog.

Go ahead, call us old-fashioned. We just like regular money, that’s all. The kind that folds. The kind you can use to buy a Big Mac or a plane ticket or a new pair of shoes.

Oh, and our landlord and our power company and our car insurance company? Turns out they like regular money too, and they expect us to pay them with it. Every single month.

So, go ahead and track the ups and downs of Bitcoin or Dogecoin, if that’s your thing. That’s cool, it’s a free country. But for us, that kind of sideshow is just a distraction from the real work: Making better financial decisions and growing our money — our real money.

Here are seven legit ways to boost your net worth:

1. See if You Can Get More Money From This Company

Can your debit card handle Dogecoin? Who cares?

Here’s the deal: If you’re not using Aspiration’s debit card, you’re missing out on extra cash. Aspiration gives you up to 5% back every time you swipe.

Need to buy groceries? Extra cash.

Need to fill up the tank? Bam. Even more extra cash.

You were going to buy these things anyway — why not get this extra money in the process?

Enter your email address here, and link your bank account to see how much extra cash you can get with your free Aspiration account. And don’t worry. Your money is FDIC insured and under a military-grade encryption. That’s nerd talk for “this is totally safe.”

2. Stop Paying Your Credit Card Company

Blah blah blah Bitcoins blah blah. It doesn’t matter.

In the real world, what matters is that credit card debt is the most expensive kind of debt, and your credit card company is just getting rich by ripping you off with high interest rates. But a website called AmOne can help you fight back.

If you owe your credit card companies $50,000 or less, AmOne will match you with a low-interest loan you can use to pay off every single one of your balances.

The benefit? You’ll be left with one bill to pay each month. And because personal loans have lower interest rates (AmOne rates start at 2.49% APR), you’ll get out of debt that much faster. Plus: No credit card payment this month.

AmOne keeps your information confidential and secure, which is probably why after 20 years in business, it still has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.

It takes two minutes to see if you qualify for up to $50,000 online. You do need to give AmOne a real phone number in order to qualify, but don’t worry — they won’t spam you with phone calls.

3. Knock $540/Year From Your Car Insurance in Minutes

When it comes to the amount of normal, regular money you have in your pocket, cutting necessary expenses can make a huge difference.

So when’s the last time you checked car insurance prices? Is the answer “never”?

You should shop your options every six months or so — it could save you some serious money. Let’s be real, though. It’s probably not the first thing you think about when you wake up. But it doesn’t have to be.

A website called Insure.com makes it super easy to compare car insurance prices. All you have to do is enter your ZIP code and your age, and it’ll show you your options.

Using Insure.com, people have saved an average of $540 a year.

Yup. That could be $500 back in your pocket just for taking a few minutes to look at your options.

4. Start Investing for the Future

Investing is how you build generational wealth. If you feel like you don’t have enough money to start investing, you’re not alone. But guess what? You really don’t need that much — and you can even get free stocks (worth up to $200!) if you know where to look.

Whether you’ve got $5, $100 or $800 to spare, you can start investing with Robinhood.

Yeah, you’ve probably heard of Robinhood. Both investing beginners and pros love it because it doesn’t charge commission fees, and you can buy and sell stocks for free — no limits. Plus, it’s super easy to use.

What’s best? When you download the app and fund your account (it takes no more than a few minutes), Robinhood drops a share of free stock into your account. It’s random, though, so that stock could be worth anywhere from $2.50 to $200 — a nice boost to help you build your investments.

5. Get Paid Every Time You Buy Groceries

Grocery shopping is getting more and more expensive as prices go up. Shouldn’t you have something to show for it? Besides food, I mean.

A free app called Fetch Rewards will reward you with gift cards just for buying toilet paper and more than 250 other items at the grocery store.

Here’s how it works: After you’ve downloaded the app, just take a picture of your receipt showing you purchased an item from one of the brands listed in Fetch. For your efforts, you’ll earn gift cards to places like Amazon or Walmart.

You can download the free Fetch Rewards app here to start getting free gift cards. Over a million people already have, so they must be onto something…

6. Make Sure You’re Not Overpaying

Here’s another way to improve your cash flow: Stop overpaying for things.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you got an alert when you’re shopping online at Target and are about to overpay? That’s what this free service does.

Just add it to your browser for free, and before you check out, it’ll check other websites, including Walmart, eBay and others to see if your item is available for cheaper. Plus, you can get coupon codes, set up price-drop alerts and even see the item’s price history.

Let’s say you’re shopping for a new TV, and you assume you’ve found the best price. Here’s when you’ll get a pop up letting you know if that exact TV is available elsewhere for cheaper. If there are any available coupon codes, they’ll also automatically be applied to your order.

In the last year, this has saved people $160 million.

You can get started in just a few clicks to see if you’re overpaying online.

7. Add $225 to Your Wallet Just for Watching the News

It’s been a historic time for news, and we’re all constantly refreshing for the latest updates. You probably know more than one news-junkie who fancies themselves an expert in respiratory illness or a political mastermind.

And research companies want to pay you to keep watching. You could add up to $225 a month to your pocket by signing up for a free account with InboxDollars. They’ll present you with short news clips to choose from every day, then ask you a few questions about them.

You just have to answer honestly, and InboxDollars will continue to pay you every month. This might sound too good to be true, but it’s already paid its users more than $56 million.

It takes about one minute to sign up, and start getting paid to watch the news.

So, go ahead. Buy your Bitcoins and your Dogecoins. Keep refreshing Twitter to see if Elon Musk said anything insane about them today.

Us? We’ll stick with real money, thank you.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He likes regular money.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.