MyMoneyBlog.com

Here’s an article about the question “Do married couples efficiently allocate their retirement contributions across their retirement accounts?” Since employer match rates differ, even if you both for example set aside 5% of salary, that may not be the most efficient usage of your potential bonus money.

Roughly 20% of couples are not efficiently using their employer match. Of these couples, the average could have earned $757 more in employer match simply by shifting some of the deferral amount from the account of the spouse with the lower match rate to the account of the spouse with the higher one. Legally, retirement account wealth accumulated during marriage is treated as a marital asset that is equally divided in divorce regardless of which spouse made contributions. Practically, perhaps a household with separate finances will prefer keeping 401k balances separate even if happily married? Is that worth the lost money? Perhaps something worth discussing at the next money talk.

Here are their main findings:

– Employer 401(k) matches vary in generosity, so couples can get the most bang for their buck by prioritizing the more generous match.
– But, about 1 in 5 couples leave employer matching money on the table by failing to coordinate their contributions – forgoing $760 per year, on average.
– Half of forgone matches appear to be accidental; the other half reflect deliberate choices related to low marital commitment and/or misperceptions about how assets are treated in divorce.
– These findings suggest that employers and financial advisors could boost couples’ savings by alerting them to the value of coordination.

As of 9/27/26, most Discover cards were transitioned to Capital One. Capital One cards work with Paze, so now you might have some new sources of $10 credits! My family just ordered another 3 x $10 of Domino’s last week. To add them, log into Paze at www.paze.com, look to add a new card, click on Capital One, and log into your Capital One account.

Paze is a new online checkout shortcut where you don’t have to type in your credit card number and billing address details repeatedly (think of how “Apple Pay” or “Google Pay” are so convenient), this time backed by a bunch of different banks and credit unions. In order to build a habit, Paze is running a Spend $10, Get $10 promo that works up to 10 times per linked card. That means it could be worth $100 per linked card, and so if you have 5 linked cards for example, that’s up to $500 in credits. Here is a list of current Paze merchants.

Between June 15, 2026 and September 10, 2026, each time you spend $10 or more using Paze® in a single transaction at a participating merchant, you’ll receive a $10 statement credit.

You can earn this credit up to 10 times, for up to $100 back per card in your Paze wallet. Paze is accepted at a growing list of online merchants – see the full list here.

Note: Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards are also offering a separate promo for 10X points per $1 spent on Paze purchases right now. You can verify this in your Chase App under the Benefits section for your Sapphire Preferred/Reserve and Freedom Flex/Unlimited cards. A nice stacking opportunity. You can also link them to Paze directly in your Chase App under “More” in the bottom right corner and then “Digital Wallets”.

Here are a few ideas on how to spend this credit efficiently. Remember, each purchase just has to total $10 to trigger the credit, so you want to get as close to that minimum as possible.

• $10 Dunkin gift cards. Dunkin App, Scan/Pay, Pay Another Way, Add A Dunkin Card, No, Next, $10, Paze. You now need to wait 24 hours per $10 load.
• $10+ Domino’s pizza for carry-out. You can’t buy a $10 gift card through their app, but you can make multiple takeout orders for just over $10 and just pick them up all at once.
• $10 Fanatics gift card (limited). I was able to buy one but not a second immediately after. According to a commenter on Reddit who contacted customer support, there is a cooldown period. But since this promo lasts until September, you could still accumulate a decent amount of gift cards over time.
• Meals just over $10 from Wendy’s. Order in the app or online.
• Items just over $10 from Sephora. Order in the app or online.
• Items just over $10 from Newegg.com Gift cards are no longer a good option.
• Any other ideas?