Archive for September, 2006
Nanolicious!
Saturday, September 30th, 2006
The nice FedEx lady just dropped off my own brand new 2nd Generation 2GB Silver iPod Nano
- free (of course) courtesy of KeyBank. Thanks KeyBank! Unfortunately, it looks like the promotion is now over. Hopefully everyone who participated gets their’s soon too.
It’s stuff like this that help me make an extra few thousand dollars a year from various offers. Won’t you subscribe and join me? Here’s a nice picture of my new Nano:
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 12 Comments »
Thanks to Aruna for pointing out in my Two $100 Business Credit Card Bonuses post that on top the $100 statement credit for the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card, you can also get a boatload of Membership Rewards points during the first year. It starts at 5,000 free points for doing nothing, and goes all the way up to 100,000 points with enough spending. That’s 100,000 not just 10,000!
It’s a bit hidden - if you click on the ‘Learn More’ link on the application page, you’ll see the bonus points offer, which works out to:
5,000 free points for doing nothing.
10,000 free points total for spending $20,000 in the first year
30,000 free points total for spending $50,000
90,000 free points total for spending $60,000 ($5,000 avg x 12 mo)
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Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 12 Comments »
TradeKing, a newish online brokerage that offers $4.95 trades and no maintenance or minimum fees, is again offering $100 for opening an account with $1,000 and executing one trade using the promotional code TRADE expired!.
I already received my $100 bonus the last time they offered it with little problem.You must maintain a balance of $100 for the first six months. Buy a small amount of something stable if all you want is the $100 minus the commissions, or see my previous post for what I did. Here’s the fine print:
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 23 Comments »
With rates rising, I guess they want some more money to lend out too:
E-LOAN Online Savings - 5.50% APY on all balances. Minimum opening deposit of $5,000, no monthly fees.
Countrywide Bank SavingsLink - 5.25% APY on balances of $10,000 - $49,999, 5.30% APY on balances of $50,000 - $99,999. Minimum opening deposit of $1,000, no monthly fees.
Posted in Banking | 6 Comments »
Really no other way to put it 
Eating out in London is atrocious. After a while a £10 meal starts to look like a great deal, when in reality it cost you $19. A one-way subway ride in London starts at £3 ($5.60), and day-passes start at $11. I extended my trip even longer and went to Paris for a few days. I reasoned that the hotels and food were cheaper, so I could cover the train ride 
A one-way Paris subway ticket is less than $2 no matter how far you travel.
Did you know that the price of baguettes are actually controlled by the government in France? Less than 1 Euro for the best bread you’ll ever have. Stop by a charcuterie and a fromagerie for some deli-style meat and stinky oozy cheese by the kilo, and you’ve got yourself a righteous picnic on the cheap. Wine is literally cheaper than bottled water there as well, starting at about ?1 a bottle!
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Posted in Frugal Living | 15 Comments »
It looks like Presidential Bank’s promise of online funds transfer capability has come to fruition. I see that it is a CashEdge-based funds transfer system, the same system used by Bank of America and HSBC. See the FAQ. Similar to BofA, only incoming transfers are free, outgoing transfers will cost $3.50. This makes me happy though, my two main everyday-use accounts are BofA and Presidential, and now I don’t have to use an intermediary to transfer money between them either way. I need to update my Presidential Checking Review, which is getting dated.
I just added a bunch of external accounts, so I’ll also earn a few bucks for all those 50 cent deposit verifications. Here is a screenshot of the announcement page I get after logging in:
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Posted in Banking | 11 Comments »
I almost feel like it’s the dot-com era again. This time, a new website called Zecco.com is saying that it will offer free online stock trades starting on October 9th, and instead make its revenue from advertising. Possible? I guess we’ll see.
They’ve been telling me about their blogger revenue-sharing program recently, and I wasn’t sure if I should join since frankly I get a lot of similar emails about new financial sites. But it seems like these guys have some serious backing, so I’ll have to look more into it. Check out the press release. Some excerpts:
Our model is different. We run a lean operation, use the latest technology and rely entirely on word of mouth, guerilla marketing, viral campaigns and public relations to get the message out. As a result we can look at the $2 per trade as the cost of doing business ? and still turn a tidy profit.
This approach will force the major brokerages to respond quickly - but in a sense they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Take E*Trade as an example. They will be looking at an annual loss of several hundred million of they decide to do away with commissions. Not a pleasant thought for a publicly traded company.
Thanks to Buddino for the heads up on the free stock trades announcement.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Investing | 17 Comments »
Lest you think things across the pond are so much better than things here in the States, I read today that according to a British study young people here are worse off now than their parents at the same age. In fact, they are coined the iPod generation - “Insecure, Pressured, Overtaxed and Debt-ridden”. Sounds very ominous, doesn’t it?
Posted in General | 10 Comments »
Whew! London is fun… and very expensive. Everything basically costs twice as much here. Burger King Whopper? On sale for ?1.99, or $3.80. No, I didn’t eat one.
I just watched A Comedy of Errors at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. It was simply fantastic!! It’s an authentic replica of the original Globe Theatre where Shakespeare introduce most of his later plays to the public. For ?5 ($9), you can get a ‘groundling’ ticket which is basically general admission for standing room only. But they are right in front the theatre - so they are the best seats (so to speak) in the house. If you get there about an hour early, you can line up to be the first people there, so you are at the very very front. You can literally rest your elbows on the stage and be inches from the actors. By far my favorite experience so far. I’m catching a musical (much more expensive) tomorrow.
All the museums and libraries are free in London, so it’s not the cheapest thing to do, but still the best deal for me. Only two minutes left at internet cafe, gotta run!
Posted in General | 7 Comments »
NetBank is still offering some tidy bonuses for new accounts, but it’s an exercise in following the fine print:
Up to $175 Offer - $75 for opening a checking account, $75 for opening a money market account, and up to a $25 gift card for opening a 1-year CD with at least $1,000.
Up to $250 Offer - $75 for opening a checking account, $75 for opening a money market account, and up to a $100 gift card for opening a 1-year CD with at least $15,000.
Be sure to note to the multitude of fees in their Fee Schedule, which include:
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 11 Comments »
As a follow-up to my post on Earning More Bonuses Using Business Credit Cards, here are two additional non-airlines cards with nice bonuses:
CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network - 10,000 ThankYou Points after first purchase, redeemable for either $100 cash towards student loans, or a $100 Gift Card at Home Depot, Target, gas stations, Gap, etc. There is also a 0% balance transfer intro offer with this card.
American Express Business Gold Rewards Card - Get a $100 statement credit when you spend $100 or more. Annual fee is waived for the first year. (Added: You can also get up to 100,000 Bonus Membership Rewards points depending on how much you use this card!) Here’s the pertinent fine print:
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 3 Comments »
Update: Currently American Express is offering a 25,000 points bonus, worth either $250 in gift cards or a free plane ticket, for their American Express Business Gold Rewards Card!
Many people aren’t aware of the fact that anyone can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not part of a corporation or LLC. Just use your own name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.
Why? Because any individual can be a business as well. The business type is called a sole proprietorship. Maybe you sell garage sale items or crafts on eBay. Boom! You’re a sole proprietorship. Done any freelance work for a friend? You’re a sole proprietorship. This is the most simple business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. Unless you apply for another one, the name of your business is your legal name, eg. John Doe.
When you apply for a business credit card, you will have to put down both your Social Security number and the Tax ID number for the business. If you are a Sole Proprietorship, you Tax ID is your Social Security Number. (Unless you filed for a EIN). For the vast majority of business credit cards, if even you are a corporation or LLC, you will still be personally liable for business debts. That’s why they’ll usually ask you for your SSN anyways.
Remember, if you are a sole proprietorship there is no legal distinction between you and your business anyhow. Business debts are personal debts. Personal debts are business debts.
(Also, unless you want to deduct your purchases as qualified business expenses on your tax return, you really don’t need to worry about any tax issues or filing anything special with the IRS. You can simply buy things with the card and pay off the balance as you would your other credit cards. If you do want to take deductions, please consult your tax advisor.)
Because of this liability, you will get a hard credit inquiry to your personal credit report just like apply for a consumer card so that the issuer can make a decision whether to offer you credit. (Now, businesses can also have their own credit scores, but that’s another post for another time.) However, for most business credit cards the card itself won’t show up on your personal credit report. This means that you can open and close accounts, have a bunch of new accounts, and max out the credit lines without affecting your personal credit card score. This also means you can make thousands from playing the 0% Balance Transfer game without worrying about your credit score!
In addition, I use this fact to get more credit card bonuses. I was reminded of this recently by my mom, actually. My parents live in a smaller city which is basically only served by Delta Airlines, so they love SkyMiles. When you are in a small city, tickets are expensive since you can’t get a nonstop flight. So they always get over 2 cents to the mile when redeeming for free tickets.
Anyways, my mom applied for the Delta SkyMiles American Express card for the 17,500 free bonus miles, and then my dad applied for the SkyMiles card for the free miles. My mom asked me if she could cancel the card and apply again to get more free miles. Not so quickly, I don’t think, but while don’t you apply for the Delta Business SkyMiles AmEx card for another 15,000 free miles? First year is even free too. She applied and got accepted, now next Thanksgiving is at my place
More Business Cards With Rewards:
CitiBusiness AAdvantage Mastercard - 20,000 miles, first year free.
United Mileage Plus Platinum Business Card - 17,500 Bonus Miles
Continental Airlines Business MasterCard - 15,000 Bonus Miles
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 18 Comments »
Here are two different viewpoints on ‘The best time to buy everything’, one from SmartMoney and the other from CNN Money. Some excerpts are below, see the articles for more.
Airline tickets
SmartMoney and CNN agree: Buy on a Wednesday, about 21 days (or just a couple of days earlier) before your flight. This is when airlines release their available seats for the upcoming weekend and the weekend after.
Televisions
SmartMoney: Six to 12 months after a particular model is launched.
CNN: While the blowout sales on electronics tend to cluster around the holidays, even cheaper deals on TVs can be found in the spring beginning in April, after the end of the fiscal year in Japan.
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Posted in Frugal Living | 7 Comments »
Bank of America (merged with MBNA) is offering a free baseball jersey as well as an iPod Nano with their MLB Extra Bases card. Looks like you need to spend $2,000 on the card with 90 days of account opening to get the iPod. Pertinent fine print quoted below.
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Posted in Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
So while in London, I’m going to visit a friend in Southern England, and I’m going to get back into London late that night for an early flight back to the States. So basically I was looking at paying $100 for a hotel so I could sleep for 6 hours between the train ride and my flight. Although I’ll have a decent amount of luggage… I was thinking… maybe I could just go straight and sleep in the airport? Would that be impossible? stupid? Of course, I run off and google “sleeping in airports”…
…And find SleepingInAirports.net! Complete reviews of every major airport in the world. Marvelous. Checking out the London Gatwick Airport page, comments range from the promising “I was able to stretch out on the padded, armless seats” and “the soft backed chairs in one of the closed cafes could be placed together to make a nice bed” to the more forboding “GOT ROBBED OF MY MONEY PASSPORT PHONE CAMERA TRAIN TICKET ETC.” and the hilarious (well, not for him) “a small child wiped her Big Mac on my face”. Maybe I need to pay Priceline another visit…
Posted in Frugal Living | 19 Comments »
