I bought the Pueblo Leather Round Zipper Card Case from SOT when I was in Japan in 2018, and it's one of my favorite possessions. Mine holds a few cards, some paper bills, a band-aid, an ibuprofen pill, and an Apple AirTag. After six years, it shows no signs of wear besides a natural patina on the leather. I think the only way to order it is from the SOT website, or Amazon.jp. Thanks to a favorable exchange rate, it’s about $100. — MF

Ben Braddock offers a devilishly clever tactic for Chipotle aficionados who want to maximize their protein bang-for-buck: “l always wait until after the employee puts the first scoop of chicken on my burrito to ask for double chicken, so the size of the first scoop isn't compromised by the knowledge I'm getting a second scoop and now the employee has shown their hand in terms of their default scoop size, so they can't skimp with my second scoop.” — MF

“How to choose the streaming services that are right for you” is an incredibly helpful breakdown of the major streaming services and their costs. The guide suggests keeping a TV diary for a week to write down what you watch as you watch it to reveal where you direct most of your attention as a viewer. I’ve been slowly getting kicked off of shared streaming services and was surprised to find that I don’t miss Netflix at all. The shows I most enjoy are on Max and Hulu. — CD 

Naval Ravikant is a young entrepreneur and well-known VC in Silicon Valley who likes to give advice about making money and living a good life. One of his fans consolidated his voluminous advice from interviews he’s given and compiled them into a book. The Alamanak of Navi Ravikant is a free PDF. I found myself in agreement with his approach, which is the kind of counsel I would give to a young person starting out. For free advice, it’s well worth the price. — KK

Notarizing documents traditionally requires visiting a notary, but I've been utilizing online notary services for the past few years to avoid this hassle. All that's needed is a laptop with a webcam. There are numerous online notaries available; my recent choice was Notarize.com, which charges $25 to notarize a single document. — MF

Anytime you accept a free trial subscription for a smartphone app, cancel it immediately. You will still be able to use the app until the trial ends, and you won't get charged if you decide you don't like it but forget to cancel it before the trial expires. Here's how to cancel a subscription from Apple, and from Google. — MF

There was a charge on my credit card that I didn’t recall making. The statement said, “EB 801-413-7200.” I looked up the number on a website called What’s That Charge and discovered it was for Eventbrite. Then I remembered that I had bought tickets for a play using Eventbrite. Next time you see an unfamiliar charge on your statement, try it. — MF

Salary Transparent Street shares videos of people on the street being asked “what do you do?” and “how much do you make?” It’s humbling and (mind-boggling!) imagining how I would survive in the Bay Area on certain salaries across the U.S. The channel’s goal is to promote pay transparency across the United States, close the gender pay gap, increase diversity and equal opportunities. You can follow it on Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. — CD

I use Paypal to send money to strangers (like on Ebay or Etsy); I use Venmo to pay friends; but if I need to send a lot of money (more than several thousand $$$) I use Zelle. Unlike Venmo which holds a reserve in your account that you replenish, Zelle is basically a bank to bank wire transfer – for free. But the interface is person to person. Still can’t do it internationally, but it is very handy for larger peer-to-peer payments in US. Easy to set up. — KK

I’m traveling in England and no stores seem to want to use cash anymore. Everyone uses Apple Pay even for the smallest purchase. Contactless payment made by hovering your phone near a device is rapidly becoming common all around the world, US included. I was immensely surprised how easy it was to hook my credit card up to my iPhone to make payments. Took 30 seconds, and no new accounts, no bank, no wallet, just my usual credit card. Now it’s Apple Pay all the time for me. — KK

Andreas Antonopoulos’ full-time job is explaining Bitcoin to people who don’t know anything about it. If you watch his two-hour video, “Bitcoin Explained in the Bitcoin Basics Workshop,” you’ll know more about how Bitcoin works than 99.9% of the rest of the people on the planet. — MF

Here is a 6 minute read of Japanese philosophies that’ll help you spend money consciously. These were all new to me. Currently practicing Chisoku — being content with what I already have. All of them are perspective-shifting. — CD

Crypto is weird, perplexing, silly, revolutionary, overhyped, underhyped, a mania, thrilling, accelerating, and awash in huge oceans of money that make it very difficult to discern what is real and sustainable. I am reading The Generalist, a free website of long “briefs” written by one analyst, to parse what is happening, I still have a zillion questions about crypto, but I have gotten more clarity from here than anywhere else on this confounding subject. — KK

A free newsletter I find myself reading more than I thought would is Money Stuff by Matt Levine. I am not that interested in finance, debt structure, bond rates, macro-economics, or really money itself, but Levine makes it so easy and clear, I can’t help reading and learning. Here is a typical sentence: ”Your job, as an investment banker, is to become close to the people who possess giant piles of money, in the hopes that one day they will do giant deals with their giant piles of money and give you some of it.” Money Stuff seems to arrive every weekday, and most days I read most of it, always learning. — KK

It’s super easy to get Amazon to donate money to your favorite non-profit. Go to Amazon Smile (smile.amazon.com) and designate your choice of charity. From now on as you shop on Amazon, they will automatically donate a small percent of your purchase amount, at no extra cost to you. In just the last quarter alone, we (Amazon and I) gave $295 to the Long Now Foundation, my chosen charity. The money came from Amazon’s side of the account not mine. — KK

My friend Brad recommended a 2011 episode of This American Life, titled “The Invention of Money.” It’s a crash history about money as a useful fiction, beginning with the giant limestone discs used as money on the island of Yap. — Mark

I’m thinking about what stuff — if any — I want to save after I die. My blog? Instagram? My 200,000 photos on a hard disk and in the cloud? My bank account? And for the living, where are my passwords? Today is the best day to figure this out. This WSJ article on digital legacies, “What to Do Before You Die: A Tech Checklist”, is a wonderfully comprehensive outline of what I should be asking myself, and you too, no matter your age. — KK

You can access federal tax filing software for free from the IRS. The IRS Free File webpage is hard to find because paid tax software vendors like Intuit’s TurboTax overwhelm Google with ads for pseudo-free software. Intuit successfully lobbied the US government to prevent the feds from making free tax software widely available, and in a compromise, Intuit offers IRS Free File by Turbotax, free tax prep software for anyone earning less than $36,000 per year. — KK

I appreciate this r/personalfinance tip to control impulse purchases by adding things to a wishlist first. I sort of already doing this by “saving for later” a lot items on Amazon, but I will definitely practice this more intently and wait a week before I buy anything that is not necessary. — CD

For years I’ve tried to keep a home budget, but it never seems to work. I end up spending more than I budgeted in some categories, less in others, and I don’t keep good track of what I’ve spent. When our Cool Tools podcast guest Lillian Karabaic recommended something called You Need a Budget (YNAB) a couple of months ago, I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did. YNAB’s websites and mobile apps are excellent, as are the podcasts, videos, blog posts, and mailing lists they produce. It took me a while to wrap my head around the YNAB method, but now that I get it, I’m a true believer. For the first time in my adult life, I feel in control of my finances. — MF