When there is uncertainty in markets and pressure on growth, executives often push the sales organization to do more, believing that if sales activity metrics rise, results will follow. In the current environment, that pressure is greater. Growth is harder to generate, costs remain elevated, and performance expectations remain demanding. Yet leaders are still being asked to deliver strong results without much help from the market.
U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday, taking the Nasdaq 100 Index into correction territory as the escalating war in Iran boosted oil prices.
Update 3/29/26: Deal is back until 4/30/26. Seems like you might need to be an existing member and might need elite checking again. YMMV Hat tip to reader WG
Update 11/19/25: Apparently bonus only applies to the elite checking account that has a $10 monthly fee that cannot be waived.
Offer at a glance
Direct link to offer
Everyday checking has a $8 monthly fee. Waived with a monthly $500 direct deposit or $200 average daily balance
I wasn’t able to find any early account termination fee in their fee schedule.
Same deal as last time, but they now define what a direct deposit is so it’s possible that this will be more tightly enforced now.
Hat tip to reader ShawntheShawn
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
A couple days ago, we had some parents from the neighborhood over for dinner. At some point the conversation shifted to what it cost to fill up their cars that week, and everyone had a number. $95. $110. One guy said he’d just paid over $6.00 a gallon in Orange County. The table got quiet for a second.
I drive electric, so I don’t feel it at the pump the same way. But I felt it in a different way, because I’ve been paying attention to what’s driving those prices, and it’s bigger than most people realize.
Here’s the short version. The U.S. and Israel struck Iran a few weeks ago. Iran retaliated by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that carries about a fifth of the world’s oil. Shipping through it has basically stopped. Oil prices spiked past $120 a barrel. And nobody’s quite sure when it gets resolved.
For most people, that’s where the thinking ends. You see the headlines, maybe notice gas prices, and get back to your day.
But I’ve been investing in oil and gas for a few years now, and what I’ve learned in that time has changed how I think about these kinds of events. Not just as news, but as something that directly affects inflation, interest rates, real estate valuations, and honestly, every investment in your portfolio whether you realize it or not.
I wanted to get a clearer picture of what’s actually happening, so I set up an interview with Troy Eckard. Troy is the founder and chairman of Eckard Enterprises, a firm that helps investors directly own U.S. oil and gas assets. He’s been in this business for nearly 40 years. Every time we talk, I learn something new, and this conversation was no exception. (You can listen to our full conversation on this week’s podcast.)
Here’s something that shifted my thinking early on. When most of us hear “oil,” we think gasoline. Cars. Maybe heating. But a single barrel of crude oil touches almost every part of your daily life in ways you’d never guess.
The plastic syringes in your supply room. The latex and nitrile gloves you put on before every procedure. The asphalt on the road you drove to work on. The synthetic fabrics in your scrubs. The fertilizer that grew the food you ate for lunch. The packaging on basically everything you ordered online this month. Even the screens you’re reading this on require petroleum-based materials to manufacture.
Oil doesn’t just power the economy. It literally builds the physical world around us. When the price of a barrel moves, it’s not just about gas stations. It’s embedded in the cost of producing, packaging, and transporting almost everything.
That’s why oil price shocks lead to inflation so quickly. We saw it play out in 2022. Russia invaded Ukraine, oil spiked, and suddenly we were dealing with the worst inflation in decades. Mortgage rates climbed. Real estate valuations got hit. Financial plans that assumed low interest rates fell apart.
The current situation could follow a similar path. Goldman Sachs has already raised its inflation forecast and bumped up the probability of a recession this year. If oil stays elevated for a few months, we could be looking at inflation creeping back toward 4.5-6%.
For physicians who are invested in real estate, stocks, or really anything, this isn’t background noise. It directly affects returns, borrowing costs, and how far your dollar goes.
The question worth asking: do you have anything in your portfolio that actually benefits when energy prices rise?
This is where the conversation got really interesting for me, and I think it will for you too.
Most physicians I talk to have never heard of directly investing in mineral rights or working interests. I’m talking about 99 out of 100. At physician conferences, it’s the same story. Almost nobody in the room has been introduced to these opportunities.
I was the same way. When I first heard about oil and gas investing, it felt like a wild gamble. Something out of a movie where a guy in a cowboy hat convinces you to pour money into a hole in the ground. If it gushes, you strike it big, if not, you lose your money. I had no framework for understanding it, and honestly, no one in my financial circle had ever brought it up.
That last part turns out to be the main reason most physicians don’t know about this. The financial advisors and CPAs we work with don’t get compensated for recommending these types of investments. So they simply don’t mention them. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just how incentives work.
Here’s how it works in plain terms.
Mineral rights means you own the minerals under a piece of land. When an oil company drills there, they pay you a royalty every single month. You don’t manage anything. There are no cash calls, no tenants, no maintenance. With modern drilling technology, these wells can produce for decades.
That said, it’s not without risk. Commodity prices fluctuate. Production from a given well declines over time. And you’re trusting the operator to do their job well. It’s not a savings account. But compared to what most people picture when they hear “oil and gas investing,” the reality of mineral rights ownership is a lot more boring, in a good way.
Working interests means you participate in the actual drilling of a well. The returns can be higher, and the tax benefits are significant. A large portion of drilling costs are 100% deductible in the year you invest, and yes, it can offset your day job income. For someone with a high W-2, that’s a meaningful tool. But working interests also carry more risk and more complexity. You can face cost overruns, dry wells, and ongoing expenses. It’s not for everyone, and it’s worth understanding the full picture before jumping in. I’d also highly recommend talking to your CPA to understand how it might benefit you.
If you’re already invested in real estate, which many in our community are, the concept of owning a tangible asset that generates income isn’t new to you. The comparison actually maps pretty closely. You own something real. You receive income from it. There are tax benefits. You care about who’s operating on your asset.
The structures are different, and each has its own tradeoffs. Real estate gives you more control, more leverage options, and the ability to force appreciation through improvements. Energy assets like mineral rights are more hands-off, but you’re also more dependent on commodity prices and the operator’s performance. Neither is inherently better. They just work differently.
What I find interesting is how they tend to behave during different market conditions. In inflationary periods, real estate can face pressure from higher interest rates and tighter lending. Energy assets, on the other hand, often benefit from the same environment that’s causing that pressure, because commodity prices tend to rise with inflation. When things stabilize, real estate typically recovers. They tend to counterbalance each other.
My own experience with energy investments has been pretty hands-off compared to some of my real estate deals, but that’s partly the nature of the asset. Every investment has its own set of risks and realities. The point isn’t that one is better than the other. It’s that most physicians I know have significant exposure to real estate and stocks, but almost zero exposure to energy. That’s a gap worth thinking about, not because energy is superior, but because concentration in any single asset class is a risk in itself.
Here’s something that might surprise you. The oil industry doesn’t actually want sky-high prices. The sweet spot is somewhere around $75-90 a barrel. At that range, operators make great returns, the economy runs well on affordable energy, and investors do just fine.
I want to be clear about something. I invest in energy broadly, both oil and gas, and sustainable energy. I’d love to see solar, wind, and other renewables scale to meet a bigger share of global demand. That’s where I hope we’re headed, and I put my money there too.
But here’s the reality. Right now, renewables can’t meet global energy needs without significant subsidies, and demand for energy isn’t slowing down. If anything, it’s accelerating. Think about what’s happening with AI alone. The data centers powering the tools we’re all starting to use consume enormous amounts of electricity, and that demand is growing exponentially. The world needs more energy, period. And for the foreseeable future, fossil fuels are going to be a major part of how we get there.
That’s not a political statement. It’s just where the math lands today. And it means the long-term setup for energy investors is strong. Demand keeps growing. Reserves keep shrinking. Extraction gets more expensive. The floor on oil prices keeps moving up.
What’s happening right now with the Strait of Hormuz is a crisis, not a business plan. But it highlights how fragile the global supply really is.
That’s not a reason to panic-buy. This is something you build into your portfolio over time, the same way you’d build a real estate portfolio. Steadily. Intentionally.
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Listen to this week’s podcast episode where Troy and I go deeper on how this all works, what the current market means, and how physicians are actually using these strategies.
And as always, do your own diligence. Ask hard questions. Understand the structure before you invest. But don’t write off an entire asset class just because nobody in your financial circle ever mentioned it. That’s how the best opportunities stay hidden.
I’ll say this. Adding energy to my portfolio changed how I think about diversification. Not because it’s a magic bullet or the right move for everyone, but because it filled a gap I didn’t know was there. It’s one more tool. Whether it belongs in your toolkit depends on your situation, your risk tolerance, and how much time you’re willing to spend learning something new.
But at minimum, I think it’s worth understanding. Especially right now.
Disclosure: Eckard Enterprises is a sponsor of Passive Income MD. This post was not sponsored by Eckard, but I want to be transparent about that relationship. As always, I only feature people and companies I personally trust and invest with.
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always consult with your financial advisor and conduct your own due diligence before making investment decisions.
Were these helpful in any way? Make sure to sign up for the newsletter and join the Passive Income Docs Facebook Group for more physician-tailored content.
Peter Kim, MD is the founder of Passive Income MD, the creator of Passive Real Estate Academy, and offers weekly education through his Monday podcast, the Passive Income MD Podcast. Join our community at the Passive Income Doc Facebook Group.
Hello and welcome to EarthTab Business School. My name is Grace Kasongo and I will be your preceptor for the course Principles of Business Management. In the evolving and hyper-competitive world of business, the need for sound management principles is not just an academic requirement but a real-world necessity. The Principles of Business Management course offers an immersive and intensive journey into the foundational pillars that govern modern business practices and management disciplines across all industries and sectors. This course acts as both a compass and a roadmap, guiding you through the historical evolution, core doctrines, operational intricacies, and strategic applications of management in contemporary organizations.
At its heart, business management is about achieving organizational goals through the effective utilization of human, financial, technological, and material resources. These resources must be managed within a framework that emphasizes efficiency, effectiveness, innovation, ethics, sustainability, and long-term value creation. In this context, the course goes far beyond simple textbook definitions and helps you think like a manager, decision-maker, and organizational leader.
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College applications present students with a challenging and time-consuming project — perhaps the largest they have faced in their lives. As a parent, you can help your child manage the process, but you can also hurt their chances if you make the wrong moves.
Here’s a collection of college application secrets that can help you craft the ideal college list, get your child into schools they love, and choose one that you’ll be able to afford.
Too often, a teenager gets their heart set on just one dream college. It’s that college or none in their view. But, if they don’t get into their dream college or can’t afford its price tag, it can lead to severe disappointment and even depression.
About a quarter of high school seniors do not get into their first-choice college. Of those who do get into their first-choice college, a quarter do not enroll. According to the American Freshman survey conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute in 2019, only about 55% of college freshmen said they were enrolled in their first-choice college. But that number increased to about 93% for those who were enrolled in their first-, second-, or third-choice college.
Instead of focusing on just one college, parents should encourage their children to pick three favorite colleges at different price points and apply to those. That way, students are more likely to get into a college that they want to attend and that their parents can afford.
Related:
What Is The Average Cost Of College?
Academic fit measures the extent to which a student’s academic performance is typical for the college’s general student body.
Most colleges’ websites will include information about the 25th and 75th percentiles for their freshman class’s SAT and ACT scores. You can use that range to determine if a college is a match, reach, or safety school for your student.
Craft a preliminary list of colleges that includes mostly match schools but also a few safety and reach schools. Don’t apply only to reach schools, as there’s a good chance your child won’t get into any of them.
Related: How To Craft A College List For Academic Fit
Students too often apply to a college that is more expensive than their parents can afford, which will burden both the student and parents with too much education debt. But it’s actually fairly easy to determine if a school makes financial sense for your family.
Use a college’s net price calculator to get a personalized estimate of its one-year net price. The net price is the difference between total college costs and gift aid, which consists of grants and scholarships. That difference represents the amount you will have to contribute from savings, income, and education debt to pay for a school.
Once you know a college’s net price, you can determine if it’s a financial fit by using my college affordability index, which is the ratio of a college’s one-year net price to your total annual income. If the one-year net price is more than a quarter of your total annual income, your family will likely have to go into an unaffordable amount of debt to pay for the college.
A few other tips for keeping college costs down include:
An in-state, public college will often be among the least expensive postsecondary education options out there. Encourage your child to include at least one in-state college on their shortlist.
Colleges with generous “no loans” financial aid policies, which replace loans with grants in the financial aid package, are also among the more affordable options. But most of these colleges have a minimum student contribution or summer work expectation, which limits the amount of financial aid that low-income students will actually receive.
Related:
Free Tuition Colleges: What You Need To Know
If the college has need-sensitive admissions, don’t skip applying for financial aid and think you can wing it for a year. Often, colleges with need-sensitive admissions policies will not provide grants to students who didn’t apply for financial aid as freshmen unless the student can demonstrate a significant change in financial circumstances.
And apply to a few colleges that use the FAFSA for awarding their own financial aid funds, not just colleges that require the CSS Profile. There can be significant differences in the financial aid packages among the two types of colleges.
Too many students wait until the last minute to submit their college applications. But a lot of things can go wrong if a student waits until the deadline to submit. Submitting an application early can help your child stand out and demonstrate that they are genuinely interested in the college.
But don’t apply early decision to any college. Early decision commits your child to enrolling if they are admitted, and you should never commit to a college before you’ve even seen the financial aid package it will offer. If you discover that a college is genuinely unaffordable, you may be able to break the early decision commitment, but it won’t be a comfortable conversation with the admissions committee.
The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) runs an annual survey in which it asks college admissions officers about the most critical applicant characteristics they look for during the college admissions process.
These criteria generally fall into three groups:
The purpose of assessing a college application is to determine whether the student is capable of academic success at the college. Students with good high school GPAs and high standardized test scores are more likely to graduate from college.
But, at the most selective colleges, the impact that a 1500 SAT score versus a 1600 SAT score will have on an admissions committee’s decision may be minimal. These colleges instead rely on non-academic factors to differentiate among their top applicants.
When two students have comparably strong grades and test scores, admissions factors that are normally considered less important — like who engages in more impressive extracurricular activities — suddenly become deciding factors.
But depth matters more than breadth. It is better to do one thing well for many years than many things superficially for a shorter period of time. So don’t spread your child too thin with their extracurriculars, and help them choose activities that they are passionate about and/or that can make a difference in your community.
Entrance exams have a big impact on college admissions, especially at second-tier institutions.
Practicing can help improve a student’s entrance exam scores. It teaches them test-taking strategies and reduces the likelihood that they’ll freak out on the day they take the test. Diagnostic tests can also identify weaknesses, where a little practice can improve your performance and help eliminate careless errors. A gain of 50 to 100 points on the SAT is not uncommon with some practice.
Good study guides with practice tests include those issued by Barron’s and the Princeton Review. These books also teach test-taking strategies and approaches to answering particular types of questions. You can also get official SAT practice tests through Khan Academy. You can also hire tutors to help your student prepare for the entrance exams.
A test-optional college considers standardized test scores if provided, but doesn’t require them. That’s different from a test-blind college, which does not consider standardized test scores, even if they’re provided by the student.
Students who have a good SAT score or a good ACT score (or both) have an advantage with test-optional college admissions committees.
Colleges don’t want to accept students who aren’t sincerely interested in attending their institutions, since that lack of interest may negatively affect a college’s yield (the number of students who ultimately enroll). Just as students get nervous about whether they will or will not get in, college admissions officers get nervous about whether their admitted applicants will or will not accept their offers of admission.
Demonstrated interest provides the college admissions office with a way of predicting whether a student will enroll if admitted, as students who interact more with the college are more likely to enroll.
Some of the best ways to demonstrate interest include:
Sending thank-you notes to admissions officers also helps. But don’t overdo it.
If your child has trouble writing essays, have them answer the essay prompt aloud while recording the answer, then transcribe the recording. This works because most people speak at about 100 to 200 words per minute but can write or type at about 40 words per minute. So, the act of writing interferes with the flow of thought. Answering the question aloud will yield a more fluid and passionate essay, making it more interesting.
After you’ve transcribed the recording, create an outline from the transcript. This will help organize your child’s thoughts and add structure to the essay. Keep the following in mind while developing the outline.
Admissions committee members have just 10 minutes to go through a student’s entire application, and they may not read more than the first paragraph of a student’s essay. So, the reader’s attention needs to be hooked early on.
When creating the outline, go through the transcript and pick out the most important and thought-provoking points that were made. Use the inverted pyramid style of writing and present the best content at the beginning of the essay.
Related: Can College Admissions Detect ChatGPT?
Make use of narratives in which the student had an impact on other people, and other people had an impact on the student. This makes the essay personal and will help your child’s personality shine. Construct the narratives with specific examples, not generalities. The admissions reader can use those examples to champion your application.
Never write about a mental health condition, a serious illness, or bad behavior. Don’t give the admissions reader an excuse to reject your application. Focus on the positive, not the negative.
And proofread your essay multiple times before submitting it. Print it out and then read it aloud. Mark any place you stumble, because that may be a sign of a problem.
When considering whom to approach about a letter of recommendation, think about teachers who can both write well and write well about your child, specifically. And don’t have your child simply ask their teacher to write a letter of recommendation. Instead, have them ask their teacher if they can write a great letter of recommendation. This gives the teacher an out if their letter will be less than enthusiastic.
If you find a great educator who’s willing to provide a letter of recommendation, keep in mind that you want that letter to align with the rest of your child’s application. Give the teacher a copy of your child’s accomplishments resume that lists some of your child’s honors, awards, hobbies, sports, student activities, volunteer activities, jobs, and summer activities. This will provide the educator with facts that they can weave into their recommendation to make it seem like they know your child better than they do. But be selective in what you include in that resume, and keep it to just one page.
If a college admissions committee is on the fence about a student’s application, its members may visit that student’s social media accounts.
Before you submit a college application, preemptively review your child’s online presence and ask them to delete any inappropriate or offensive material. Eliminate any signs of bad judgment, drug and alcohol use, or a negative attitude. Colleges are checking social media accounts – even parent social media accounts.
When your child communicates with admissions staff, remind them to use a professional email address based on their name, not based on an inside joke or innuendo.
Parents too often try to relive their college years vicariously through their children. They then become overly involved in the college admissions process and may be perceived as “helicopter” or “bulldozer” parents by the admissions committee. This can cause the application for admission to be rejected.
Just as you need to learn how to say “no” when your child picks a college you can’t afford, you also need to learn how to say “no” to yourself.
Back off.
Let your child demonstrate their maturity and take the lead in the application process. Remember that sometimes it’s best to simply play the role of chauffeur and checkbook and that you should only intervene if you have truly serious concerns.
During the campus visit, let your child go off on their own. Don’t tag along, and don’t look over their shoulder. If you want something to do, go to the cafeteria and offer to buy a random student lunch if they will tell you about their experiences with the school, both good and bad.
Most importantly, listen to your child, comply with their boundaries, and avoid these mistakes:
If your child is admitted to a number of colleges, creating a college decision matrix can help you choose which offer to accept. A college decision matrix is a one-page chart with each college in a column and its important attributes in rows. Gathering all this information on a single page will make it easier to make a decision.
Among the attributes you should consider including in your matrix are:
Assign points to each row based on the importance of each attribute, and allocate them to each winner. Or use red, yellow, and green highlighters to mark each cell in the matrix and count the number of wins for each college. The totals will help you rank the colleges and make a final decision that’s right for both your child and your finances.
Related:
Compare Colleges With These Top Research Tools
Your role as a parent is to help your child stand out from the crowd and guide them towards making a good decision. It’s important to be knowledgeable about the college acceptance process and to stay involved. But remember that it’s their decision in the end.
Editor: Ashley Barnett
Reviewed by: Robert Farrington
The post How To Build a Stronger College Application This Summer, According To The Data appeared first on The College Investor.
In March, Robinhood announced its Platinum credit card, whose perks include generous travel rewards, $250 in annual DoorDash credits, and a free membership to Amazon One Medical. The name of the new card, which has a not-so-low annual fee of $695, is both an homage and a flex: It echoes the card brand made famous by American Express, though Robinhood points out its version is the only one to be “plated in 99.9% pure platinum.”
The offering is the latest splashy option in the fast-expanding world of premium credit cards that are branded not as simple payment tools, but as lifestyles. In this world, “members” enjoy access to concerts and upscale gym memberships, and the opportunity to load up on free goodies from retailers like Lululemon and Apple.
For the well-disciplined, the high-fee cards are a good value thanks to a combination of perks plus rewards for spending that can be cashed in for a host of travel offerings. Even better, all of this comes tax-free, thanks to a legal quirk that treats credit card swag as “redemptions” rather than income.
But not everyone is pleased. In recent months Congress and the White House, mindful of rising credit card debt and growing merchant fees, have renewed a push to pass the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), which could make it much harder for card issuers to offer all those perks. That raises a problem for points hunters: Is the go-go era of rewards nearing its end?
“I wish it was a $400 million loss,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon famously declared in 2017. He was responding to investor complaints over a $200 million earnings charge the bank had incurred from huge sign-up bonuses tied to its Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Dimon’s comments reflected a bet that the new premium card would, over time, become a big moneymaker.
The calculation proved correct: Today the card is incredibly popular and has helped the bank attract a generation of premium customers to its other services. Indeed, that’s one of the main rationales for banks issuing these lifestyle cards. At the same time, however, JPMorgan has gradually raised its annual fee from $450 to $795, while reducing the redemption value of certain rewards points. American Express, meanwhile, has raised the annual fee for its flagship Platinum card to $895. Changes like these have led some consumers to question whether the potential to capture loot is worth the upfront cost.
Moshe Orenbuch, a managing director at TD Securities, says that JPMorgan Chase and others would argue the card offerings are more generous than ever—they’re just distributed differently. Many top cards, in addition to offering rewards for spending, now provide credits—usually of $5 to $20 a month—for services like Lyft, DoorDash, and Disney+ that can stack up to thousands of dollars a year in value.
“They are trying to create an ecosystem,” notes Sanjay Sakhrani, a card industry expert at KBW. “Ultimately they want to make this not having a card but having an experience.” And for some members of the card issuers’ web of merchant partners, tie-ups with credit issuers translate into big money. Orenbuch notes that Delta Air Lines alone has collected as much as $10 billion from Amex in recent years for supplying seats on its planes to rewards customers.
23.66%
Average annual interest rate on a travel rewards credit card, 3/16/26
617 million
Credit card accounts in the U.S. in 2024 (latest data available)
Sources: Lendingtree, Wallethub
Chase’s and Amex’s premium cards have been doing such brisk business that new challengers are leaping into the category. In addition to Robinhood’s Platinum card, there is Citi’s $695-per-year Strata Elite, whose debut last year was marred by an application-process bungle that saw the bank freeze thousands of accounts—but which has proved popular nonetheless.
The surge in usage, however, has come with growing pains—most notably at airport lounges. At venues like Amex’s Centurion Lounge and Chase’s Sapphire Lounge, cardholders can enjoy plush seats, chef-made nibbles, and free Chardonnay. But as the cards get more popular, road warriors are increasingly encountering crowds, long queues, and wait times.
The glamorous branding of premium cards can also lead some consumers to make foolish mistakes by running up high-interest credit card debt. Sakhrani notes that some premium card customers quickly find themselves carrying monthly balances with interest rates of over 20%—an obligation that can quickly dwarf the value of any rewards they earn.
“Consumer credit is not intuitive. Plenty of people who are otherwise smart can overestimate their own ability to manage credit cards,” says Beverly Harzog, a former CPA and personal finance author who has written about her own experience with card debt. She notes that while some are assiduous about amassing a given card’s full rewards value, many will come to the very reasonable conclusion they can’t risk the costs. In these cases, she suggests people choose a slightly less premium card like the Capital One Venture Rewards card, which can still offer valuable perks but for an annual fee closer to $100. The frugal-minded, meanwhile, may prefer a no-fee, cash-back card like the Citi Double Cash card or the Apple Card.
Merchants, meanwhile, are frustrated by one feature of premium cards: They force businesses to pay higher swipe fees compared with plain-vanilla ones. The CCCA, backed by many of these businesses, would lower the cost of these transactions. President Trump expressed support for the bill early this year, calling for an end to the “out of control Swipe Fee ripoff” and a temporary cap of 10% on monthly interest.
If any of these proposals come to pass, analysts say, banks would be forced to dramatically scale back rewards and turn their “lifestyle” offerings back into ho-hum instruments of credit. For now, though, that appears unlikely. The powerful bank lobby has a growing list of allies—including airlines and hotel chains—that will likely push to preserve the status quo. The good times should continue to roll, letting disciplined consumers pad their incomes with free stuff for the foreseeable future.
This article appears in the April/May 2026 issue of Fortune with the headline “Credit card rewards are more lavish than ever—but you have to work harder to cash in.”
Holding on to your full-time job lets you find people to help put your idea into practice and see whether it has traction.
🔃 Update: The bonus is now up to $500 and valid through April 30, 2026. You will receive a $300 credit for Flagstar Ready Checking or a $500 credit for Flagstar Elite Checking into this account as a bonus 91-104 days after an initial deposit is made to the new account (account funding) opened, subject to the following conditions: Within the first 90 days of the account funding (bonus period) you must maintain an average daily Balance of $500 or more and have one or more direct deposits (ACH credits) totaling $500 or more.
Flagstar Bank is offering a checking account bonus of up to $350. The bonus you earn depends on the checking account that you open. Before you continue reading any further, you should know that this bonus is only available in AZ, CA, FL, IN, MI, NJ, NY, OH, WI. Now let’s see how this bonus works.
There are two bonuses available, based on which checking account you open:
You will receive a $250 credit for Flagstar Ready Checking or a $350 credit for Flagstar Elite Checking into this account as a bonus 91-104 days after an initial deposit is made to the new account. For tax purposes, you will receive an IRS form from Flagstar Bank.
Here are the eligibility details for this bonus:
This is a decent bonus from Flagstar Bank, but the $250 offer is probably the better option here. Flagstar Elite Checking is required for the $350 bonus, which means that you need to pay $15 per month for 6 months. You can waive the fee with $25,000 balance, but that’s not worth it. So I would just open the Flagstar Ready Checking account and go for the $250 bonus.
Bank bonuses are a great way to earn some extra income, often from the comfort of your home. You can take a look at my bank bonus results for 2022 where I made over $6,000. If this bonus is not for you, then you can check our full list of available bank bonuses. You can also access bonuses available in your state by visiting dannydealguru.com/tag/NY-bank-bonus/. Just replace NY with your state.
And, if you’re new to bank account bonuses, you can learn more about churning bank accounts here.
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Foyer and Nayya are partnering to offer first-time homeownership benefits to employees across the country.
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Employers who use Nayya’s agentic AI platform can provide Foyer, a dedicated 401(k) for homeownership, as a benefit that helps its employees buy a home by saving for a down payment, building credit and navigating the entire purchase process in one place, the companies announced in a press release Thursday. The partnership utilizes Foyer’s homeownership tools and Nayya’s benefits guidance.
“First-time homebuyers have never had to work harder or be more intentional to get into their first home,” said Landy Liu, founder and CEO of Foyer, in the release.
“We built Foyer to be a 401(k) for homeownership, a dedicated account and experience that helps people save, build credit and get expert advice so they can stop renting and start owning. Partnering with Nayya means employers can finally offer a homeownership benefit alongside retirement and healthcare, meeting this generation where their real financial goals are today,” he added.
The share of first-time homebuyers fell to a record low of 21%, while the typical age of first-time buyers rose to an all-time high of 40 years, according to a report released in November by the National Association of Realtors. Affordability struggles due to
“Young workers are under enormous pressure: they are navigating a historic housing affordability crisis while trying to make sense of increasingly complex benefits and financial decisions,” said Sarah Liebel, CEO of Nayya, in the release. “By adding Foyer’s first-time homebuyer experience to our platform, we are helping employees turn homeownership from a distant goal into a concrete, guided plan.”
Nayya serves millions of employees in the United States. Its new platform reduces benefits-related HR questions and helps employees make decisions, sometimes taking some actions on their behalf. Foyer is the first homeownership-focused benefit on the platform and will be surfaced next to health, retirement and other financial wellness offerings, the release said.
Foyer members can open a dedicated homeownership savings account, set savings goals and earn rewards that can be used toward a down payment. Members can also access credit monitoring and credit-building tools through the platform, as well as advisors, including former loan officers, according to the release.
The partnership reflects increased demand from employers for more benefits that support life goals like buying a home. Many of Foyer’s members are lower income earners and women, groups that have been locked out of homeownership and could take advantage of earlier preparation and employer-backed support, the release said.
“Homeownership is still one of the most powerful ways to build long-term wealth, but the system was not designed for today’s first-time buyers,” Liu said. “Employers are uniquely positioned to help their teams close that gap. Through Nayya, offering Foyer as a benefit becomes as simple as adding another line to the benefits menu, while employees get a single app dedicated to getting them mortgage-ready.”
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