With gas prices so high, it seems like we're screwed at every turn. Here's 5 tips on how to scam the system. Note: these are relatively small scams, and are all perfectly legal. But they are sweet spots because the current goes in our favor for a change!

1) Earn interest on your cash.

Hopefully, this is obvious for everyone but it might not be for some (people have to start learning about things somewhere). Set up an 401K plan. Set up an IRA plan. Let the magic of compound interest work in your favor. This remains the single most important thing you can do to ensure your financial security.

2) Earn stupid money, Buy stupid stuff.

Make $100 or more just for signing up for a new credit card and making a purchase. Put them away afterwards, or use them for rewards. I bought a Dyson vacuum from money received by opening new cards and other rewards money received - no kidding.

3) Manipulate credit cards.

The Basics: when you play with credit cards, you're playing with fire. Credit card companies want you to be stupid and want to take your money. That's their business. They loan you money, charge high interest, and hope that you pay only the minimal each month. Don't do that. If you do have credit card debt, call up your credit card and negotiate a lower rate. They probably will. It's a very competitive business. Or talk to a new card company and have your debt transferred to the new card with a lower debt. Think about it, the new card is better for you because it's a lower rate and it's also better for the new card company because they now are making money off of you even if it's at a lower rate than what the other card was at (that's because they didn't have your business at all before!). 

Advanced: This is very important. Before screwing around with advanced techniques make sure that you both understand and execute The Basics. If you don't, you're going to get yourself into trouble, and that defeats the purpose. Our purpose is to scam the system. Assuming that's in order, use and abuse  "life of loan" offers. These are special credit card offers that provide a low interest rate for the "life of" whatever the loan is for. I've switched a 5.99% auto loan to a 3.99% life of loan offer. I've even switched a 7.75% 2nd mortgage to a 1.99% life of loan. When you do this, you have to treat this like a business. Those cards have to be put away and not used for anything else, and you have to pay all your bills on time. You can get yourself into some serious trouble if you don't mind the basics.

For more information on this sort of "scam", see the link below. That's the best article I've yet come across describing this opportunity:

http://finance.comcast.net/personalfinance/view.html?x=debt/advice/goodcredit

4) Save on monthly expenses

If you have Dish/DirectTV, or cable, threaten to leave for a competitor. You'll be transferred to someone who is not a clerk and who is in a position to offer deals. By the way, use this same strategy for credit cards. You will never get anywhere by talking to clerks. Clerks are reading off scripts and do not have the authority to offer deals. The words "cancel my account" may as well be a magic code to save you money. You will transferred to someone "that handles cancellations", and this person will be in a position to keep your business. Use the magic words on your cell phone company as well. It's a competive world out there.

5) Make money off credit cards 

The idea here is to take a 0% credit card offer and stick it in an interest-generating account of some sort. Internet-based accounts like ING are popular for this. In my experiment I put a 12 month 0% offer into a 9 month CD at about 4%. I did this to about $15,000 total, divided into 2 cards. The reason I bring this up is so that you can learn from my mistake. One of those cards had an automated charge on it for a newspaper subscription. As soon as that applied, my deal was ruined because I then owned interest on that new purchase, and I had to pay off the big chunk of money sitting in front of it before I could get to it. Oh, did I forget to mention that the new purchase is conveniently put behind your special promotion? That's correct. Because of this I ended up breaking even. The couple hundred bucks I made on one card was offset by the money lost in interest on the other card. So you have to be careful.

When I try this scam again, I'll probably use a bigger chunk of money and I'll probably diversify it into different risk levels of interest. It's definitely an idea I find appealing, because it's money for nothing and you're scamming the very crooks that have ruined so many young lives (right when they're most gullible/vulnerable).

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