A: The service is very new. It was started in April of 2024.

A: Because the program is still in its infancy, unfortunately, there are no testimonials available just yet, but that may be forthcoming very shortly.

A: Kelseyville, California, about ninety miles north-northeast of San Francisco, as the proverbial crow flies.

A: No, SDF is not a nonprofit, and it’s also not “too good to be true.” It is absolutely legitimate. The service is free to the client in that there will never be any monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual bill for the client’s enrollment in the program, and it will never cost the client anything to take advantage of the services offered by their SDF Financial Advocate. The way that the old adage “nothing in life is truly free” applies to this particular scenario is that, technically speaking, clients are paying SDF half of all the introductory bank bonuses that their Financial Advocate is able to obtain on their behalf; but because these are bonuses that (in all likelihood) the clients would not be receiving if they were not enrolled in the program, the service is effectively making its money off of the banks, not the clients; and, consequently, the service is essentially “free” to the client.

A: Don’t worry, you’re not out of touch with the latest street lingo. It’s a brand new English word, not even in the dictionary yet. A “tempaccount” is a short-term bank account that is open for approximately three-to-six months, for the sole purpose of obtaining an introductory bank bonus. Once the Financial Advocate completes the requirements on the client’s behalf and the client receives the bonus, the funds are transferred out of the tempaccount. One half of the bonus goes to SDF, and the other half (along with any funds already in the account when the bonus was disbursed) are transferred to the client’s hubbaccount (leaving a zero balance in the tempaccount); and the tempaccount is then closed by the Financial Advocate. Although the client always has online access to each of the tempaccounts, they are not intended to be utilized for ordinary banking purposes.

A: The hubbaccount is a high-yield online savings account where the client’s money safely rests until some of it is needed to cover an automatic payment from one of the client’s credit cards (or any other automatic payment initiated by a creditor of the client’s for an installment loan or rental payment that may be scheduled to be directly paid from the client’s account). Unless some of the client’s funds can be transferred to a tempaccount with a bank that is offering an introductory bonus which could result in the client receiving a higher interest rate, any savings the client may choose to deposit into the hubbaccount remain there accruing interest until they are needed to cover the client’s expenses (or until the client elects to transfer the funds to an external account not connected to the program).

A: CIT Bank, N.A. (not to be confused with Citibank). CIT is an online-only bank and a division of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company, a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which means your hubbaccount is insured up to $250,000 per depositor, for each account ownership category.

A: CIT Bank pays one of the highest interest rates in the country on savings accounts. They have a very user-friendly platform that doesn’t impose any restrictions on the number of external accounts that one may link to the client’s hubbaccount, which can be very helpful when clients of SDF have numerous tempaccounts open simultaneously. (It should  be noted, however, that CIT Bank is not partnered with Skyline Drive Fiduciary and does not receive any kickbacks for being the hubbaccount bank of choice for SDF clients.)

A: They are as follows:

1. You must be a competent, independent adult over the age of eighteen with bills in your own name.
2. You must have both a physical address and a mailing address in the United States of America.
3. You must have some type of state identification and a Social Security number.
4. You must be willing to sign a contract and a Limited Specific Power of Attorney form.
5. You must be open-minded enough to recognize and accept some positive changes to your system of managing your own personal finances and prepared to embrace the improvements that your enrollment in SDF can bring to your life. This often involves transitioning from a primarily cash-based lifestyle (which utilizes cash, checks, money orders, and debit cards to pay for everything) to one where you will eventually be using cash back rewards credit cards for all of your purchases and regular expenses.

A: Only when the bank requires the account to remain open for a certain specified period (such as six months) in order to retain the bonus. (This is unusual, but it can occur every so often, especially with some of the smaller banks.) As soon as this requirement has been met, the tempaccount is then closed.

A: Yes, but it’s recommended that you are very discerning on which bank to select for a long-term external account. A few of the major banks that offer new-account bonuses only allow customers to receive one bonus, no matter how much time has elapsed since an account was closed or a previous bonus was received, so it’s best to keep an account open with one of them, as opposed to a bank that allows its customers to receive an unlimited number of bonuses. Your Financial Advocate will go over all of this with you in greater detail if you end up enrolling in the program and you think that you may be interested in keeping another long-term account open, in addition to your hubbaccount.

A: Mostly personal checking accounts, but if you have savings that you’re willing to deposit into your hubbaccount and/or a fictitious name registration for a sole proprietorship, you may also be eligible for personal savings account bonuses and business checking and savings account bonuses as well.

A: It can fluctuate somewhat depending on several factors, such as your income, your residential state, whether you have more than one direct deposit, any savings, or a fictitious name registration for a small business, and the specific bonuses that are being offered by the major banks at the time of your enrollment; but as a general rule, you can expect to receive at least ten-to-twenty introductory bonuses during your first year with the service (even if you’re only eligible for checking account bonuses). If you choose to remain enrolled in the program for longer than a year, that number may be slightly diminished, but you can still expect to receive at least six-to-ten checking account bonuses per year (assuming you don’t elect to leave accounts open with any of the major banks after receiving your bonuses). If you have at least a few thousand dollars in savings or a fictitious name registration for a sole proprietorship (even if the business is not currently in operation), you could be eligible for a substantially higher number of bonuses per year.

A: That can also fluctuate depending on the particulars of your financial situation and what promotions are being offered by the major banks, but for most clients, the total amount of each bonus usually ends up averaging between $300.00 and $400.00, of which you would be keeping half (about $150.00 to $200.00 per bonus), after SDF collects its portion.

A: Yes, there is a guarantee that you will receive at least a thousand dollars in interest, cumulatively, from your half of the introductory bank bonuses and your hubbaccount by the end of your first year of enrollment in the service. If you end up earning any less than a thousand dollars in interest after the end of your first year, SDF will deposit the difference (between a thousand dollars and the total amount of interest that you did receive) into your hubbaccount. For married couples (and those involved in a domestic partnership) who are sharing a hubbaccount and who each have their own individual direct deposit(s), the interest guarantee would be two thousand dollars for the first year of enrollment.

A: Yes, absolutely. You will be provided with an enrollment contract which stipulates all of the terms of the service, including the thousand-dollar-interest guarantee.

A: Only the first year that you are enrolled at this point, although that could change in the future. However, regardless of whether there is a minimum-interest guarantee for your continued enrollment in the program after the first year, you will probably always receive well over a thousand dollars in interest every year that you decide to remain enrolled.

A: Your year begins at the closing of the first statement cycle on your hubbaccount, which will be at the end of the calendar month when you opened the account. Assuming you are still enrolled in the service twelve months later when your thirteenth statement cycle closes, your Financial Advocate will add up all of the interest that has posted to your hubbaccount and then add in your half of all the introductory bank bonuses that you received throughout the year since enrolling in the service. For example, if you received $1,800.00 in bonuses (of which you retained $900.00) and $177.00 in interest on your hubbaccount, that would put your total at $1,077.00 in collective interest, which would exceed the amount promised; but, on the other hand, if you only received $1,600.00 in bonuses (of which you retained $800.00) and $89.00 in interest on your hubbaccount, your collective interest would only be $889.00. In this case, SDF would deposit the difference of $111.00 into your hubbaccount after the closing of your thirteenth statement cycle.

A: Yes, there are. They are as follows:

1. You must have direct deposits totaling at least $500.00 per month throughout the entire year.
2. You must possess at least one credit card (or be able to obtain one or more credit cards), with a cumulative credit limit of at least $1,000.00, and agree to allow your Financial Advocate to have all of your regular expenses auto-paid to your credit card(s), excepting rent, mortgage payments, and installment loans, such as car payments.
3. You must be eligible to have new accounts opened in your name without experiencing any problems due to derogatory banking history, involuntary closures, poor credit, suspected fraud, identity theft issues, or any other complications that could result in a bank declining to honor a new account application submitted on your behalf.
4. You cannot be a current owner or signer (or have been the owner or signer) of a checking account with more than one of the following major banks in the last two years: American Express; Axos Bank; BMO; Bank of America; Banner Bank; Capital One; Chase Bank; Citibank; Discover; PNC; US Bank; or Wells Fargo.
5. You must be fully committed to allowing your Financial Advocate to take charge of the directional flow of your income and any savings that you may decide to deposit into your hubbaccount. If you are withdrawing cash from the hubbaccount or any of the tempaccounts, writing checks or making debit card transactions against any of these funds, or transferring any of the money from your hubbaccount to an external account, so that you can continue to manage your money the way that you have previously, you will be impeding your Financial Advocate’s ability to obtain the maximum amount of interest on your hubbaccount, and the guarantee will no longer apply. In other words, you have to be “all-in” and allow your SDF Financial Advocate to demonstrate the full scope of benefits that you can experience from being enrolled in the service.

A: Some clients may have both, although the majority of their money will always remain in the savings account until the day that it is needed to cover an automatic payment on one of their credit cards (or other automatic debits) to the checking account; and the Financial Advocate will schedule a transfer from the savings account to the checking account for the amount that is needed (whether the statement balance, the minimum payment, or another specific amount) to occur on the date that the payment is due. Although having two separate accounts can tend to complicate matters and make the management of your finances slightly more labor-intensive for your Financial Advocate, some institutions may only allow automatic payments on their credit cards or loans to be taken from a checking account. Clients will ordinarily only have a high-yield savings account with CIT Bank, unless any automatic payments are scheduled to be taken from a creditor which requires the use of a checking account in order for their auto-pay instructions to function properly.

A: Yes, there are. If you want to remain a client of the service, it’s imperative that you handle yourself with integrity. The service utilizes the term Fiduciary in its title because it’s a word that implies the utmost trust. Your Financial Advocate is always going to function in your best interests and will always be honest and aboveboard about everything that is done on your behalf. However, trust is a two-way street, and the success of our business relationship is absolutely reliant upon your honesty as well.

Specifically speaking, the tempaccounts are only supposed to be linked to your hubbaccount, not to any other bank account that you may choose to keep open while enrolled in  the service. If you are linking your tempaccounts to an external account that your Financial Advocate does not have access to, so that you can continue managing your money the way that you always have and bypass the hubbaccount completely (or so that you can transfer the entire bonus to the external account as soon as it is disbursed and cheat SDF out of its half of the bonus), SDF reserves the right to collect its half of the anticipated bonus from your next direct deposit (or from your hubbaccount) before you even receive the bonus, and to subsequently drop you as a client. (This stipulation is all spelled out in the enrollment contract that you sign.)

The tempaccounts are only opened on the client’s behalf for the purpose of obtaining an introductory bank bonus. They’re not intended for normal bank account use, such as withdrawing cash, writing checks, making debit card transactions, or transferring funds to an external account (other than your hubbaccount at the discretion of your Financial Advocate). Likewise, if you change the password to access your hubbaccount or any of your tempaccounts, the email account the two of you will be sharing, the online source of your direct deposit(s), or any of your creditors or debtors, and either carelessly (or purposefully) block your Financial Advocate from having access to continue assisting you, the arrangement is obviously not going to work out, and SDF will inevitably have to drop you as a client.

A: No, there isn’t. Just as SDF has the freedom to unilaterally drop you as a client if you’re not following the program that was designed to assist you in enjoying a more secure and carefree financial future, you may also quit the program at any time if you feel that it’s not working out for you. The only condition that you need to understand is that if you decide to quit the program abruptly before having received the bonuses on any tempaccounts that have already been opened for you, SDF reserves the right to collect its half of those anticipated bonuses, even if the requirements for the bonuses have not yet been completed on some or all of those tempaccounts, and it will then be your responsibility to finish fulfilling the requirements on any accounts where they have not yet been met, if you wish to receive the bonus(es). For example, if you have three tempaccounts open when you make the decision to abruptly quit the program, and the advertised bonuses are $400.00 on all three of them, that would be a cumulative total of $1,200.00 in anticipated bonuses. In this case, SDF would take $600.00 from your hubbaccount (or from your next direct deposit if the entire amount is not already there), and you can either leave the tempaccounts open and try to fulfill the rest of the requirements for the bonuses (if they haven’t already been satisfied), or you can close them and forego the bonuses.

The best way to end your relationship with SDF, if you are determined to quit, would be to first inform your Financial Advocate that you do not wish to have any more tempaccounts opened on your behalf; then wait until you receive all of the bonuses on the tempaccounts that were already open when you made the decision to pull out of the program. As each of the bonuses on these open tempaccounts are disbursed, SDF will collect its half of the bonus and transfer the other half to your hubbaccount (along with any funds that were already in the tempaccount when the bonus was disbursed), and then close the tempaccount for you. After all of the bonuses from your tempaccounts have been evenly divided, you may either leave your hubbaccount open, or your Financial Advocate can transfer the funds in your hubbaccount to your linked external account and then close the hubbaccount for you, or you may close the hubbaccount yourself; but you can go on your merry way without owing anything to the service.

A: This hasn’t happened yet, and it’s not likely that it ever would. Your Financial Advocate will confirm with the banks that you are in fact eligible for each promotional bonus before opening any new tempaccounts on your behalf, and it’s unrealistic to imagine that the Financial Advocate would ever make an error that could result in the bank refusing to pay the bonus; but in the unlikely event that a bank failed to disburse your bonus within the expected time frame, the Financial Advocate would contact the bank and go to bat for you to receive the bonus. (You won’t need to contact the bank yourself to fight for the bonus that was earned on your behalf.) If the bank manager was to adamantly insist that you didn’t meet the eligibility requirements to receive the bonus, any funds already in the account at that point would simply be transferred to your hubbaccount, and the tempaccount would be closed by the Financial Advocate. You won’t receive the introductory bonus, but you certainly won’t be expected to pay half of a bonus that you didn’t receive to SDF. We would simply chalk it up to one bad experience and move on as if the tempaccount had never been opened in the first place.

A: Most of the major banks (where the majority of the tempaccounts will be opened on your behalf) offer a generous grace period of several months before the assessment of any monthly maintenance fees, and, in some cases, the promotional bonus can actually be disbursed before the end of that grace period. In cases where it’s not, a direct deposit for a relatively nominal amount (such as $250.00 per month, for example) is often enough to avoid the monthly maintenance fee. In other cases, where it may not be feasible for your Financial Advocate to continue making direct deposits into the tempaccount over a period of several months (e.g., if you have several other simultaneous tempaccounts where the requirements for the introductory bank bonuses have not yet been satisfied), it may be necessary to keep a certain minimum balance in the tempaccount after the end of the grace period, just until you receive the bonus. Your Financial Advocate will always assume that you want to avoid paying any monthly maintenance fees and take the appropriate steps to ensure that you are not charged any of them unless you specify otherwise, but your Financial Advocate will explain this in more detail when enrolling you in the service.

A: Yes, they are, unless you specify otherwise, and so are your hubbaccount, all of your bills, and your credit cards (if they’re not already paperless). If receiving paper statements is important to you, this can be arranged, but some banks are actually charging customers extra for this unnecessary service, and many of them are making paperless statements  the default setting when the account is opened online.

A: Yes, you may, but it’s imperative that this is done through your Financial Advocate. You may not just impetuously change any of your passwords without informing your Financial Advocate if you wish to remain enrolled in the service.

A: Yes, you can, but it’s recommended that you keep things as simple as possible to help ensure that you don’t confuse yourself or forget any of your passwords. Remember that these tempaccounts are only intended to be opened for six months or less, but if you feel more secure in using a different password for each one of them and/or changing their passwords on a regular basis, that is your prerogative.

A: Yes, but your Financial Advocate does not have the authority to withdraw cash, write checks, or make any debit card transactions on your behalf (in accordance with the contract and the Limited Specific Power of Attorney form that you sign when enrolling), and the only occasions when any money will ever be transferred from your hubbaccount or any of your tempaccounts to another account that is not in your name is when SDF collects its half of one of your introductory bank bonuses; if you abruptly quit the program before receiving all of your anticipated bonuses on open tempaccounts; or if you violate the terms of the contract by linking any of your tempaccounts to an external account.

A: No, but the Limited Specific Power of Attorney form that you sign gives your Financial Advocate the latitude to manage your credit card accounts by performing certain tasks on your behalf, such as setting up or modifying automatic payments to your credit cards for your bills or automatic payments from the hubbaccount to your credit cards; making manual bill payments from the credit cards or one-time payments on your credit cards from your hubbaccount; selecting or changing bonus rewards categories; disputing charges; making cash back redemptions; requesting credit limit increases; and initiating balance transfers (upon your expressed approval). Your Financial Advocate doesn’t actually have any of your physical credit cards though: only their numbers, expiration dates, and CVV/CVC/CID codes.

A: Ordinarily, no, unless the bank requires the issuance of a debit card during the account opening process. It’s really just a waste of plastic and postage for the bank, given that  the tempaccount is not intended to be used for regular banking purposes and will ultimately end up being closed a few months later. In most cases, there won’t be any checks ordered on the tempaccounts either, unless you’re planning on keeping the tempaccount open after receiving the introductory bank bonus and you really want them.

A: Yes, but the services provided could be somewhat limited, and the thousand-dollar-interest guarantee may not apply to your case. There may be some ways that a direct deposit can be arranged for you if you don’t already have one, depending on your individual circumstances. Your Financial Advocate would discuss various options and explain what the program might still be able to assist you with, if it is determined that you are a compatible client, despite the absence of a direct deposit.

A: There may still be options for you to rebuild your credit, even if you are not able to qualify for a regular unsecured credit card. It may be necessary for you to start with a secured credit card (which most people with poor credit can still obtain) if you are willing to pursue this option and you have a modest amount of savings. If you’re not amenable to the idea of getting a secured credit card or your financial situation makes it infeasible, SDF would be very limited in what it could do to assist you.

A:  Yes, but it’s imperative that you’re prepared to allow your Financial Advocate to assist you in making changes in your habits so that you’re not continuing to pull out the money that could be used to reduce your credit card balances and enable you to begin using the credit cards again after the payments on them have posted. SDF can help you get out of your rut and pay off your debt, but there needs to be a desire on your part to modify your habits and put your trust in the expertise of your Financial Advocate.

A: Yes. Although those options can benefit some folks, there are also substantial drawbacks, and before filing for bankruptcy or engaging in any debt consolidation commitments, every other alternative should be explored. Every case is different, but if you have a steady income and are prepared to make a few adjustments to your lifestyle, there is a good possibility that enrolling in SDF could provide a better long-term solution to your financial predicament, where you may be able to avoid exercising those kinds of extremes.

A: Yes, but perhaps not quite as much as clients who are making a complete transition from a cash-based lifestyle to one that involves the use of rewards credit cards for all of their expenses. Although you may have parts of the puzzle put together, so to speak, there are probably still a number of ways that your system can be refined, and your Financial Advocate will be glad to analyze all of that and go over some ideas for possible improvements with you if you take the trouble to fill out the questionnaire.

A: The Limited Specific Power of Attorney form is what gives your Financial Advocate the legal authority to perform certain financially-based functions on your behalf. In some cases, the tempaccounts might not open immediately online and require and in-person appointment with a banker before the account can be opened. Whenever this step becomes necessary in order to open an account for you, the bank is going to require an official written document signed by you which proves that your Financial Advocate has the proper authority to function on your behalf in this capacity; and the Power of Attorney form that you sign is usually enough to cover this requirement.

A: Yes, but you won’t need to do so formally in writing. If you simply inform your Financial Advocate either verbally or by email that you are no longer interested in continuing with the program, the Power of Attorney form that you signed will be considered by SDF to be obsolete and invalid.

A: Yes, you may. You always have online access to all of your accounts, and everything is done with 100% transparency. Your Financial Advocate is not going to get involved in a “tug of war” with you over the directional flow of your funds. You get the final say over where your money goes and what steps are taken with it, but if you’re constantly rejecting the decisions that are being made with every intention of assisting you and your Financial Advocate gets the impression that there isn’t any truly good reason for your resistance to the improvements that are being offered to you (other than the fact that you’re uncomfortable with making changes in general), SDF will eventually need to drop you as a client.

A: Only in situations where the requirements for obtaining the bonus involves transferring any of the money already in your hubbaccount to the tempaccount (which is typically only the case with personal savings accounts or business checking and savings accounts). If the tempaccount is a personal checking account that doesn’t require depositing and maintaining a substantial balance for a specified period in order to receive the bonus, the Financial Advocate will not seek your permission before opening up the account.

A: Your Financial Advocate will send you an email titled “New Tempaccount Opened!” documenting the name of the bank; the type of account; the amount of the anticipated bonus; the amount of your take (which will always be half); and the approximate date that you can expect to receive the bonus.

A: Yes, always. Your Financial Advocate will make recommendations from time to time on which credit card could most benefit you, based on your credit score, your regular expenses, and your spending habits, among other factors, and explain the advantages of obtaining the new card (which may include 0% APR on purchases and/or balance  transfers for an extended period, better cash back rewards than you’re currently getting on certain categories of purchases and/or regular expenses, as well as cash back bonuses for satisfying a certain minimum spend within the first few months), but it’s ultimately your decision whether you would like to apply for the new card. (Remember that you  won’t need to worry about keeping track of things such as due dates, bonus cash back category selections, and automatic payment instructions on an additional account, because your Financial Advocate takes care of all these details for you whenever you increase your number of revolving charge accounts.)

A: Yes, always; and balance transfers are only recommended by your Financial Advocate when you have an offer of 0% interest for at least six months (preferably longer) on a new credit card or an existing one with a different bank and when they’re likely to save you a substantial amount of interest.

A: Only in cases where it may negatively impact your credit score. (Some of the major banks don’t bother to conduct a hard inquiry into your credit file when a credit limit increase is requested, while others do. The ones that don’t conduct the inquiry base their decision solely upon factors such as your income/debt ratio and your payment history on the accounts that you have had with their bank, and your Financial Advocate knows which ones don’t conduct the hard inquiry which could negatively impact your credit score.)

A: That can depend on several factors, including the frequency of your direct deposits, whether you have more than one direct deposit source, and how many promotional bonus offers you’re eligible for within the same general time period, but if you only have one direct deposit per month, it’s likely that your direct deposit instructions will change nearly every month. If your direct deposit is from employment, and it’s either biweekly (i.e., every two weeks) or semi-monthly ((i.e., twice a month), the instructions may not change every single pay period. Regardless of how often the instructions change on your direct deposits, the funds will always end up in your hubbaccount after they pass through one of your tempaccounts, and they will always be directed straight into your hubbaccount whenever they are not needed to either satisfy the requirements for an introductory bank  bonus or avoid being assessed a monthly maintenance fee on one of your tempaccounts.

A: That can depend on a number of factors, including how much you spend each year, which cash back credit cards you qualify for, and which ones you already have, but one of the objectives of enrolling you in the program will be to build your credit up to the point where you can eventually qualify for (and have in your possession) all of the best cash back credit cards for your particular lifestyle; and once you have all of those credit cards, it’s realistic to expect that you will be able to average at least 2.5% cash back on all of your annual expenses. In some cases, clients may even be able to average over 3% cash back (and that’s not even including the cash back bonuses they may be eligible to receive by satisfying a minimum-spend requirement on a new credit card every year).

A: It couldn’t be more secure. It’s kept in a locked drawer of a private office and only shared with banks and authorization centers who function on their behalf (and whose employees have all been thoroughly background checked). You can rest assured that your identity (and none of your money) will ever be stolen as a result of sharing your credentials with your SDF Financial Advocate.

A: SDF doesn’t specifically favor any particular demographic of American adults; however, the service was started primarily with the intention of assisting mature, single adults,  mainly because older individuals tend to be more settled in their lives, with their “wild days” behind them, for the most part, and because they are more free to make all of their own decisions involving their personal finances without finding it necessary to consult a partner before enrolling in the program. SDF will not turn down clients simply because  of their age or marital status, but two of the biggest potential problems with enrolling married couples and domestic partners who share their personal finances are the following:

1. Couples often break up, and when they do, one can expect that there will be changes in their financial situation, which could likely result in SDF losing them as clients; and
2. Couples often disagree on anything related to their shared finances. Typically speaking, one partner in the marriage (or domestic partnership) may be very enthusiastic about enrolling the two of them in this sort of program and recognize that they could probably benefit greatly from the services offered, while the other partner may be skeptical, apathetic, suspicious, or adamantly opposed to the idea; and SDF has no interest in getting in the middle of anyone’s romantic relationship. That having been said though,  the program can actually work out quite nicely for couples who are both on the same page about enrolling, because, while they can both share the same hubbaccount, they may actually be eligible for about twice as many promotional bonuses if they each have their own direct deposit. As mentioned above, in these types of cases, the interest guarantee for their first year of enrollment in the service would actually be $2,000.00, provided they both meet the requirements for the guarantee. However, if you happen to be someone who shares your finances (and financial decisions) with either a spouse or domestic partner, it is highly recommended that you discuss this option thoroughly with your partner and only proceed further in filling out the questionnaire if you are both leaning in favor of enrolling in the service.

A: No, but those who are highly educated and have a substantial amount of expendable income are not likely to be interested in this type of service, and it wasn’t really designed with them in mind. Most individuals who have a “take-charge” personality enjoy being in control of their finances, and those who have achieved a great deal of success in their own lives usually already employ expensive and established services which they don’t mind paying a great deal of money to manage their wealth. They can afford to take risks that present the opportunity for a greater return on their investments than just a few thousand dollars of interest income and cash back per year, and they’re not usually concerned with refining the directional flow of their income or their savings in order to obtain the highest possible interest rates on their money or the maximum amount of cash back  rewards on their purchases and regular expenses. They can afford to be imperfect, so to speak, in how they manage their money, without having to put their trust in a small and yet-to-be established service like SDF to manage it for them. (That having been said, if you happen to be one of those very educated or highly successful individuals, and you’re interested in checking out what the service has to offer you, SDF would certainly not frown upon hearing from you.)

A: SDF is not a cult. Of course, you don’t have to deposit all of your savings into your hubbaccount; however, if you do have some degree of savings and you should choose to deposit part or all of your savings into the hubbaccount, this would open you up to more promotional bonus offers, which would ultimately result in earning you a much higher overall annual percentage yield on your money.

A: Yes, you may keep one or more external accounts open while enrolled in the program. SDF does not expect any of its clients to completely close out any preexisting bank accounts when enrolling. It’s completely understandable that many clients will choose to retain another account (especially if they have a great deal of history with a certain bank), at least until they have the opportunity to see whether this sort of program is going to be able to improve the management of their finances.

However, if your plan is to split the management of your finances between two separate accounts and to continue managing some of your expenses yourself through a preexisting external account, while you allow your Financial Advocate to manage other expenses through the hubbaccount, this could cause overwhelming complications and prove to be very exasperating and impractical; and it’s highly unlikely that this sort of arrangement would work out for you on a long-term basis, unless you have more than one income source and/or some degree of savings or expendable income. Moreover, you’re probably not going to be able to get a genuine sense of how beneficial the program could be for you  unless you’re willing to “take the plunge,” so to speak, and really give it a fair opportunity to succeed.

A: No, but it’s highly recommended that you make a sincere effort to at least gradually reduce your use of these payment options, if you expect the service to help you make improvements to your financial situation, until you eventually arrive at the point where you no longer feel the need to even carry cash in your pocket anymore and you also find it unnecessary to use anything other than your cash back rewards credit cards for every one of your purchases and regular expenses.

A: If you’re living check-to-check and don’t currently have any savings, this sort of arrangement would probably never work out for either one of us. However, if this is not the case, and you would like to receive half of all the bonuses without doing any of the legwork to get them, but aren’t interested in allowing a Financial Advocate to manage your financial expenses through a hubbaccount, it’s possible that SDF might still be able to take you on as a client. Under these circumstances, the contract and the Power of Attorney document that you sign upon enrolling would both need to be modified in such a manner that would accommodate this sort of alternative arrangement (one which would involve SDF collecting half of all your anticipated bonuses in advance from your hubbaccount as soon as the tempaccounts were opened).

A: For independent Americans who have a relatively active lifestyle, regularly spending money on a wide variety of purchases and billed expenses, and who would like to always obtain the maximum amount of cash back on everything, SDF recommends keeping at least six to twelve major credit cards, spread out among different banks. If you’re new to credit cards (or only have one or two), this can be a gradual process to get there. You don’t want to suddenly apply for many cards within a short period, but SDF can assist clients in reaching that goal over time, so that they can eventually be experiencing the many advantages of having numerous revolving charge accounts with all of the most lucrative cash back rewards programs and end up benefiting from the best of what all of the individual banks have to offer.

A: When analyzing the entire situation from a truly objective standpoint, there aren’t really any disadvantages to enrolling in the service. However, three of the biggest factors that some people might be likely to see as drawbacks are of a psychological nature, and they are the following:

1. For people who are used to making all of their own managerial decisions where their personal finances are concerned, the idea of giving someone else the latitude to begin making those decisions for them (especially a stranger who just seemed to drop out of the sky offering a very new and yet-to-be established service), is an understandably difficult hurdle for some folks to get over.
2. A “sister” concern for many, especially those who have grown accustomed to living check-to-check, using mainly cash, money orders, and debit cards to pay for everything and “barely staying afloat” from one month to the next, the idea of suddenly making the sort of sweeping changes that would result from enrolling in this type of service can be quite frightening. Change can be a scary thing for many people, but it’s important to realize that you wouldn’t be making these changes on your own: You would have the assistance and support of a Financial Advocate with an unusually high level of expertise in money-management, who isn’t going to allow you to “drown,” so to speak.
3. Once enrolled in the program, your income will not always be immediately accessible to you, during the period of seven to ten days or so that it’s “traveling through” one of your tempaccounts before “landing” (and then clearing for regular use) in the hubbaccount, and for some folks who are used to being able to run to the ATM to pull out cash or make debit card transactions against their income as soon as it is disbursed, this can be a very difficult adjustment to make. However, for those who are open to the idea  of allowing a Financial Advocate to assist them in transitioning to a 100% credit-based lifestyle, they no longer need immediate access to their newly disbursed funds, because they’re not living check-to-check anymore; and they can relax, knowing that they have some leeway and allow themselves to experience the many long-term benefits that the service has to offer them.

A: Yes, there is, and it involves the client’s income taxes. Although the Financial Advocate is listed as an authorized user on each of the tempaccounts, you, as the client, are actually the owner of the accounts; and because the entire amount of each bonus is reported as interest income under your Social Security number, you would be accountable to report the entire amount of the bonuses on your income tax returns, even though you only get to keep half of the introductory bank bonuses.

To put this into dollars and cents, if your adjusted gross income would have been $40,000.00 without having received $4,000.00 in introductory bank bonuses, but receiving that additional $4,000.00 in interest raised your taxable income to $44,000.00: As a worst case scenario, assuming you’re a single person who resides in California, where the state income taxes are the highest, you might expect to owe an additional $480.00 in federal income taxes and an extra $236.00 in state income taxes. This would be a total of $716.00 in additional federal and state income taxes on your interest income from the program; and if the portion of the bonuses you retained after SDF collected its half was $2,000.00 and you paid an additional $716.00 in federal and state income taxes, then your actual profits from the $4,000.00 in bonuses that you received would be about $1,284.00. (Obviously, if your base income was higher, the taxes could be even more than what was depicted in this hypothetical example, but, on the other hand, if your income is lower, or you reside in a different state, or you’re married and file a joint California income tax return, they could be substantially lower than the example depicted.)

However, remember that SDF does not take any percentage of the interest that you will be earning on your hubbaccount, the cash back you can expect to be receiving from utilizing your rewards credit cards for all of your purchases and regular expenses, or the cash back bonuses that you may be able to enjoy if you’re following the program by allowing your Financial Advocate to apply for a new credit card each year which offers you a generous bonus for satisfying a certain minimum spend, once your credit is in a  good enough place to qualify you for the very best cash back rewards credit cards.

A: Unfortunately, no. Your Financial Advocate is not an investment banker, a certified public accountant, or an income tax advisor/preparer. You will need to seek out the appropriate professionals for any of those services.

A: The bottom line is that, even though you’re signing a Limited Specific Power of Attorney document which gives your Financial Advocate the autonomy to perform all of the necessary functions to improve the directional flow of your finances and assist you in obtaining the maximum amount of cash back on all of your purchases and regular expenses, as well as the optimum amount of interest on your income and any savings you may have, you’re not really giving up control of your money at all.

Although some folks seem to get a bit alarmed when they hear the term Power of Attorney and tend to think that they’re “signing their lives away,” it’s important to remember that the service (although not your traditional fiduciary) is called that, in large part, because your Financial Advocate is always going to function in your best interests as the client, and that includes honoring your wishes, even if the Financial Advocate doesn’t agree with them or understand your reasoning.

Think of it a little bit like you’re moving over to the passenger side of the vehicle and allowing your Financial Advocate to take the wheel and drive you safely home when you’re either too inebriated, or simply too tired, to drive the rest of the way there yourself. You can get back in the driver’s seat whenever you choose, but you’re merely allowing your Financial Advocate to demonstrate to you how much better you could be managing the directional flow of your own money by “moving aside.”

Your Financial Advocate has no interest in forcing you to make changes in your lifestyle or your spending habits if you’re not comfortable with making those changes; but the other side of the coin is that if you prove yourself to be hyper-resistant toward embracing the changes that could represent a significant improvement to your own financial health and well-being, SDF will inevitably have to let you go as a client, so that you can resume the responsibility of managing your own financial affairs in the manner to which you’re accustomed, without the assistance (or interference) of an SDF Financial Advocate.

A: It’s a complicated scenario to explain to those who don’t have a degree or a background in finance. There are actually several reasons why they do it, but the biggest one is that Savings and Loan organizations are able to make more loans by experiencing the sudden influx of cash that they tend to experience by offering these introductory bonuses to new customers for opening an account with their institution and essentially moving at least some of their money (and their source of income) to the new account at their bank, even if it’s only for a relatively short period of a few months.

Bank executives are fully aware that a significant percentage of these clients who are opening new accounts at their bank are doing so simply for the introductory bonus, but they also know that some of them will find the services offered by their bank appealing and decide to keep the accounts open even after they receive the bonus. Similarly, some of the new customers will forget, or simply neglect, to close their accounts after receiving the bonus (or even remember to verify that they actually received the bonus a month or more after completing the requirements), and others will decide that it simply isn’t worth the time or the trouble to close the account and switch banks again, even if they don’t have any particular preference for the new bank over the one where they were banking previously.

Another factor that many people don’t know about these introductory bank bonuses is that the banks don’t have to award all of the customers who open their accounts during the promotional period, because one thing that these large financial institutions “bank on” is that there are a great many people in the country who suffer from a general lack of attention to detail and/or poor follow-through skills.

To provide a hypothetical example, if a bank ends up getting ten million new customers who respond to a promotional offer for an introductory cash bonus, they might only need to award four million of these bonuses, because three-and-a-half million of the new customers neglected to complete the requirements for the bonus in a timely fashion and in perfect accordance with the instructions, and the other two-and-a-half million customers (who actually did everything correctly) weren’t eligible for the promotional bonus in the first place, either because they perhaps already had an account of that same type with that institution at the time that the new account was opened, or maybe because they had a previous account (or received a bonus) too recently for that type of account with that same bank.

The banks often get to make more money off of the many customers who don’t end up getting the bonus, because these customers will usually need to keep their accounts open longer before finding out that they’re not going to receive the bonus. Bank executives know all of this, and you can rest assured that they have it all figured out so that their banks end up coming out ahead when they offer the promotional bonuses for new customers. That’s why they have certain eligibility requirements that the customers must meet in order to receive the bonus (and also why their systems normally aren’t constructed to alert customers who are not eligible for the promotional bonus in advance of opening the account).

A: No, they certainly don’t hate you. Don’t be silly, they could never hate you. They actually like you, because even though you may be keeping your account open for a  relatively brief period, they actually make more money because of you and others like you.

A: No, not at all. Although it is the primary objective for SDF to enroll clients that are more interested in finding a long-term solution for their financial issues, and who then decide, once they see how much easier their lives can be after enrolling in the program, that they have every interest in being clients of the service for life, with regard to those who have the self-confidence to believe that they can handle their own finances in a manner that meets with their own satisfaction and avoid having to share their bonuses with the service, SDF supports their desire to “spread their wings and fly away,” so to speak.

Before you try to do this on your own though, you should be aware that the process of successfully researching and selecting worthwhile promotional bonus offers on potential tempaccounts and then opening the accounts, fulfilling the requirements for the bonuses, and closing the accounts (where everything is completed in a timely manner and in perfect accordance with the instructions) can be a very tedious, time-consuming, and cumbersome undertaking, and it can often require a fair degree of experience, as well as a highly unusual combination of “soft skills” (i.e., personality traits), including a great deal of patience, persistence, and objectivity, an extremely high level of attention to detail, stellar multitasking abilities, an outstanding memory, tremendous initiative and follow through, exemplary organizational habits, a propensity for arithmetic, an acute understanding of banking procedures (with particular regard to the timing of transfers), a fastidious nature, and a general inclination and willingness to keep meticulously
accurate records on all of your bonuses, in order to ascertain when you may be eligible for another bonus for the same type of account with the same bank.

Otherwise, you’re very likely to forego many of the promotional bonuses that you’re eligible for, while (even worse) you may open a tempaccount and do everything right but fail to receive the bonus, because you didn’t wait quite long enough since receiving your last bonus (or since your most recent account at that bank was closed). To consistently obtain the best bonuses that the major banks have to offer, year after year (and do it well) requires a much higher level of expertise than many people would realize, and it’s likely that most clients who might attempt it on their own would find that they were better off just allowing a professional service such as SDF to obtain the bonuses for them, rather than investing all of their time and frustrating themselves, only to end up with half (or even less than half) of the bonuses that their Financial Advocate could have obtained for them.