Adding Up Bank, Brokerage, and Credit Card Bonuses
A reader asked how much money I’ve gotten total from doing zero interest balance transfers and the bank, brokerage, and credit card bonuses I post about in my Deals and Offers section. Well, the 0% APR part is a bit difficult to calculate, but I would say easily over $1,000. It used to be tough, as I was borrowing at 0% but only earning 2.75% interest. Now you can get 4.25%, making the game much juicier.
As for the bank bonuses, I’ve never really added them up before, so I did a little mental rundown:
Banks Bonuses
Charter One - $100
Citibank - $200
ETrade Bank - $225
Metlife Bank - $50
Meadows Credit Union - $75
ING Direct - $25
VirtualBank - $20
HSBC Direct - $25
Brokerage Bonuses
ETrade Brokerage - $75
Ameritrade- $75
Sharebuilder - $46
ex24.com - iPod Shuffle ($75?)
Fidelity - $100
California 529 - $50
Credit Card Bonuses
Sony Card - $100
Charles Schwab - $150
Pending Right Now
Citi Professional Card - $100
Bank of America - $25
Total: $1391 (+$125 pending)
I know I’ve forgotten some, but this shows that these little bonuses add up. I’m actually thinking of making a Free Money portfolio, consisting of all my bonus money, and start investing it aggressively in various stocks and ETFs.
Find more in Deals & Offers | 12/24/05, 12:11am | Trackback
December 24th, 2005 at 3:09 am
The Shuffle deal is worth $99.
December 24th, 2005 at 6:01 am
You gotta pay taxes on Bank Bonuses because the bank reports the bonus as interest. How much is your taxable total vs. non taxable clean and sweet money?
December 24th, 2005 at 6:07 am
How much have you pulled down from Emigrant Direct referrals?
December 24th, 2005 at 6:38 am
Thanks for the blog…
Thanks to you:
-Got my mom to plop a chunk into EmgigrantDirect making her very happy after her bank was only give 1% interest.
-We made a few very large household purchases with 0% financing for two years. We put the present value of the payoff amounts into TreasuryDirect bonds, so essentially we’re getting 10% off the purchases.
-Opened a Citi Card cash back card (and so did my sister).
Those are just off the top of my head…so, have a great Christmas and keep up the good work!
December 24th, 2005 at 9:28 am
My marginal tax rate is 25%. No Social Security tax since they are not “earned income”. So Uncle Sam gets 25%.
These totals are all from just me as an individual. No referrals, no hey-honey-sign-up-for-this-it’s-easy-money. So in theory anyone could have replicated these results.
Currently, I’ve paid out over $600 in $10 Emigrant Direct bonuses. Not sure how I’m going to handle the taxes on that… but that’s my problem.
December 24th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
What state do you live as you don’t have to pay state income tax? And don’t forget local taxes if your county has any.
I live in Maryland, State takes 4.75% and the local county grabs 3.2%
December 24th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
Uncle State gets 9%. How could I forget?
December 28th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
When you add up the amount of time you’ve spent signing up for these, do you still think you are money ahead? What hourly wage after taxes do you figure you’ve made?
Also, what do you do with this money?
December 29th, 2005 at 7:17 am
Wow, after reading some of these comments you’d think that getting free money were a bad thing!
December 29th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Ha, I like people looking at things with a critical eye =)
If I solely wanted to get free money, I’m sure I could make about $50 an hour just getting bonuses. But the truth is I also blog about them, which takes time, and I don’t view this as a profession. It’s a hobby, as others have mentioned. I do try to only pick the relatively easy bonuses.
Believe me, there are a lot of other ways to make money that take a lot more time than just filling out an application!
January 1st, 2006 at 9:04 pm
how long do you have to keep these bank cards once you have made the purchases and gotten the reward cards