Archive for the 'Deals & Offers' Category
Monday, March 4th, 2013
Amazon Mom is a program that has some nice perks for parents if you already pay for Amazon Prime at $79 a year (name is a little sexist, though 
). The main draw is the 20% off diapers & wipes (5% Subscribe & Save discount + 15% Amazon Mom discount).
Right now, they have a new-member promo for $10 off your first pack of diapers when you sign up for a free 3-month trial. During the trial, you’ll also get the free 2nd-day shipping of Prime but not the video streaming or free Kindle book borrowing. Many people have reported problems stacking the $10 off with the 20% off Subscribe and Save discount, but others have reported success after either changing up the subscription periods or using Amazon’s Help chat feature to manually combine them. If you can stack them, it’s a good deal.
Also, I saw that they are offering a mysterious coupon book of “$100 value” when you buy a qualifying baby book. Has anyone gotten this coupon book yet and is it any good? We currently own the following books on their list (amongst others, we went book crazy):
Now I’m looking for a good baby sleep book. Any suggestions?
Posted in Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 4th, 2013
(Update: Extended for an additional day. Also, if you use them, remember that you can save even more with cashback shopping sites like eBates ($5 new customer bonus), Mr. Rebates ($5 bonus), and BigCrumbs.)
LivingSocial has a special Sam’s Club membership deal where for $45 you can get:
- 1-year Sam’s Club membership
- $20 Sam’s Club gift card
- $19.84 in food vouchers (free Artisan Fresh Rotisserie Chicken, 16″ Artisan Fresh Take-and-Bake Pizza, and two boxes of 6-, 12-, or 24-count Artisan Fresh Cookies)
Expires soon, over 25,000 purchased already. Valid at any Sam’s club location. New members only, which is defined as someone who does not have a currently valid membership. However, it appears that you can wait until June 8, 2013 to actually activate the voucher without losing any value.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 2 Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2013
Update: Southwest has brought back their excellent two roundtrip flights offer after you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months of opening your account. Specifically, the bonus is 50,000 Southwest points which are good for over $800 in airfare, or $500 in Amazon.com or Wal-mart gift certificates. Another opportunity to *save* money with credit cards as opposed to losing it paying interest.
The huge “2 roundtrip flights” banner on the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards® Premier Card application page is based on the fact that one round-trip $416 Wanna Get Away fare would cost about 25,000 points. In reality, the value of the bonus is $833 in Southwest airfare broken up however you like. Any Wanna Get Away fare is eligible, so this bonus is very useful for Southwest fliers. If you take shorter flights or wait for a fare sale, this could easily be worth multiple free flights. This is a limited-time offer, and has gone to down to 25k in the recent past.
Details
- Two free checked bags. Southwest always offers 2 free checked bags on every flight.
- No ticket change fees. If you can’t make your flight, you can move your flight later or earlier as needed and just pay any fare difference without any penalties. Wanna Get Away fares are the cheaper fares that the vast majority of non-business frugal travelers buy. Anytime fares add the option to be refunded for cash. Business Select adds Priority Boarding.
- September 11th Security Fee? Applies to award flights, and is $2.50 each segment, up to $10 roundtrip. For a nonstop roundtrip, it’s $5.
- More redemption options. You can also redeem points on hotel stays, car rentals, international flights, and gift cards. For gift cards in general, 5,000 points = $50 value. Specifically, you can redeem 50,000 points for $500 in gift certificates at Amazon.com, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wal-mart. A good alternative if you don’t fly much or don’t live close to a Southwest city.
- $99 annual fee. However, you do get 6,000 bonus points each anniversary date which again is worth $100 towards a Wanna Get Away fare. The card also earns 1 points per dollar spent everywhere, which effectively means 1.67% back toward Wanna Get Away airfare, with double points given on Southwest airfare and affiliated hotel/car rental purchases.
- Companion pass eligibility. The 50,000 points earned through this card counts towards the 110,000 points you need in a calendar year to earn the Companion Pass, which allows a companion to fly free with you (paid and award flights) for the rest of that calendar year and also all of the next year.
- No foreign transaction fees.
Application Tips
If you have any issues with approval, call the Chase credit reconsideration line at 1-888-245-0625 and talk to a human. Ask them politely for the exact reason why you were denied, and offer to cancel, merge together, and/or lower your existing credit lines in order to get the new card you want. Many times you’ll just be rejected by a computer that says you have too many cards or something. You should be offered some way to get approved, I have heard many success stories. They want your business.
- Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards® Premier Card application link
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 112 Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2013
Starbucks is offering a free $5 gift card for new members of their Starbucks Rewards program that register a Starbucks (gift) card. If you don’t have one, you can either buy one from a physical store or use their mobile app. Ends 3/15/13.
Indeed, the easiest way to get a free $5 gift card is to download their smartphone app (Android/iOS) and sign up for a new account via the app. When asked to register a card, choose to “Get a Mobile Starbucks Card”. You may need to wait a few minutes, but the card should eventually get credited with $5 without having to load it with your own money. Free caffeine, good for at least two iced coffees with milk per person! 
Posted in Deals & Offers | 7 Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2013
New coupon. You can get a $10 off a $50+ purchase at Lowe’s with this PDF coupon, valid until 5/18/13. Valid in-store only. Via mirom2 of SD. Selected fine print below.
Your promotional coupon (“Coupon”) is redeemable at any Lowe’s store nationwide and may be used on a single purchase only. [...] Limit one Coupon per household. Not valid on sales via Lowes.com, previous sales, service or installation fees, the purchase of gift cards, or any products by Fisher and Paykel, Electrolux, John Deere, or Weber.
Lowe’s also has a printable 10% off coupon code, targeted at future/recent movers and handy for larger purchases. Coupon is good for a single receipt purchase of any in-stock or Special Order merchandise only up to $5,000 (Maximum discount $500).
Coupon cannot be used in conjunction with any other coupon or discount. This coupon is good for a single receipt purchase of any in-stock or Special Order merchandise only up to $5,000 (Maximum discount $500). [...] Limit one coupon per household. Not valid on sales on previous sales or purchase of services or gift cards.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
American Express is running another limited time offer on the Business Platinum Card from American Express OPEN. This small business card won’t be for everyone, but if you travel regularly and value convenience, this offer is a way to effectively get a year’s worth of airport lounge access for you and your family for free.
- Limited Time Offer: Get 25,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $5,000 in the first three months of Card membership. Sadly, the normal bonus for this business card is zero points. You can transfer 25,000 MR points into 25,000 airline miles (more with seasonal promotions), or you can get $250 in gift cards at store like Home Depot or Macy’s. Or, you can use the Pay with Points feature to get $300 towards travel booked through American Express Travel which is comparable to Expedia, pick any flight, etc. (1 cent = 1 point, but Platinum cardmembers get a 20% rebate, so a $300 ticket would only cost a net 24,000 points).
- You also get $200 of auto-refunded statement credit annually with the airline of your choice to use towards baggage fees, flight-change fees, in-flight food and beverage purchases and more. Essentially, anything other than airfare that’s charged to your designated airline (ex. American Airlines or AA.com, even gift cards) will be automatically be credited back to you up to $200.
- This card will pay for your $100 application fee for Global Entry, a U.S. government program that provides you expedited clearance when returning to the US after international travel. You basically go through a background check, and if you’ve traveled recently you may have noticed little kiosks where people whisk by after scanning their passports instead of standing in the long customs lines. Lasts for 5 years before you have to renew.
- Free Starwood Preferred Guest Gold Preferred status. Free late 4pm checkout, room upgrades when available, and free internet access.
- Free elite status at car rental companies. Get automatic upgrades with complimentary access to the premium car rental programs of Hertz, Avis, and National.
- No foreign transaction fees.
- Free airport lounge access for you and your family. Get access to the first-class lounges, even if you are flying coach. Valid at American Airlines Admirals Club, Delta Sky Clubs, US Airways Clubs. One card will cover you and two companions, or your spouse and children under 21. Also, you get an individual membership to Priority Pass Select, with 600+ airport lounges throughout the world when you enroll in Priority Pass Select (many international ones have shower facilities).
- The annual fee is $450. It is not waived the first year.
So there you have it. The annual fee is $450, and you’ll have to decide if you can get $450 of value from the above benefits. If you take full advantage of the $300 towards booked travel using Pay with Points, $200 airline credit, and $100 application fee, then you’re definitely already ahead. Then, on top of all that, you’ll get unlimited airport lounge access for you and your family for an entire year. Finally, the $450 annual can be a deductible business expense which can offset the net cost. Is this better than an upfront point bonus? That’s up to you.
Note: “Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have had this product or any other Business Gold or Green Card account within the last 12 months.” So I’m currently out after my last AmEx application spree.
There is also a personal version of this card, The Platinum Card® from American Express, which has a similar offer of 25,000 points after $2,000 in spending within 3 months.
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
LivingSocial has a new promo code MYFEB which will get you 20% off almost any deal for $100 or less, local or nationwide. Look for “Redeem promo code” during checkout. Valid for first 10,000 uses. Must be used by February 22, 2013, 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time). Fine print below:
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Deals & Offers | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2013
Forbes has an article about how the share economy is taking off. The primary focus is on AirBNB, which lets you rent out a room in your home with ease and last year booked around 15 million nights of stays. I’ve written about some of these sites before, and while I mostly forgot about them, some people are going quite well with them. “Almost anything you can buy new, you can also rent from a stranger.”
One person lives off of income generated by renting his house out whenever he can (while he cordons himself off to an unattached area). One person makes more money dog-sitting from home than working at Starbucks. One person rented his car out part-time for more than the monthly payments, so now he has three cars being rented out. Yet another drives his car around ridesharing every night and is basically a taxi service. These people may be the exception rather than the rule, but is it proof that the next generation of millennials really don’t care about ownership anymore? Is it better to just have access to whatever you need when you want it? Peer-to-peer everything!
Here’s an infographic from the print version of the article that lists sharing websites of all types from around the world, with the data source being Rachel Botsman of CollaborativeConsumption.com.
Here are links specifically dealing with sites that allow you to make money from your own stuff (US-focused only) – be it a room, a car, or your power tools:
- Rent out rooms in your house (or your entire place): AirBNB, Roomorama
- Rent out your parking space: ParkingPanda, ParkAtMyHouse, ParkCirca
- Rent out your car: RelayRides, GetAround
- Drive around others in your car (rideshare, pseudo-taxi): Lyft, Sidecar, Zimride
- Pet sit / doggy daycare in your spare time: DogVacay, Rover
- Rent out all your other stuff: Neighborgoods, Poshmark, Zilok, Snapgoods, Liquid
Posted in Deals & Offers, Entrepreneurial, Frugal Living | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
Motif Investing is a new brokerage firm that is unique in that it lets you buy an entire basket of up to 30 stocks for only $9.95 per trade. I previously thought that this would be useful to creating your own “custom ETF” of whatever you want, for example dividend stocks.
This week, they rolled out a new set of “motif” baskets which are focused on passive, index fund strategies. I’m happy to see this, although in my opinion some are hits and others are misses. You can find them under the “Investing Classics” category:
- Permanent Portfolio. Based on the Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio of 25% stocks, 25% long-term bonds, 25% cash (short-term bonds), and 25% gold. Their implementation seems a bit needlessly complex, however, as they use over 15 ETFs to replicate international stocks when they could have just used something like Vanguard Total International ETF (VXUS). But again, you can edit and customize the motifs to simplify down to 4-6 ETFs. Still, buying 5 ETFs of your choice in one go for $9.95 isn’t bad, and they will even rebalance for you as well.*
- Target Date Motifs. Based on target-date retirement funds, you can choose for example “Retiring 2050″ or “Retiring 2030″. I’m not a big fan of this one, if you want to go this route I’d just stick with the Vanguard Target funds bought directly from Vanguard for no commission fees at all and the highest level of simplicity.
- Ivy League. Based on the Yale Endowment manager David Swensen portfolio. Nice and simple, just the 6 ETFs matching each of the asset classes as described in his book Unconventional Success. I’m biased of course, as my own portfolio is very similar to this.
- Index Fans. Supposedly based on the Boglehead philosophies of Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard. I don’t know why they chose to use a combination of the Total World Stock ETF (VT) and Total US (VTI), when VT is already 50% US stocks and hold a lot less companies (and thus less diversification) as compared to holding US and non-US separately with VTI and VXUS. Or why they didn’t just use a single Total Bond ETF (BND) for bonds. I’m thinking they didn’t actually get official Bogle approval, nor did they read the Bogleheads book.
*Excerpted from a previous interview with Tariq Hilaly, Motif Investing’s Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer:
MMB: Does the motif ever “rebalance” in the future back to the original weightings to prevent drift?
A: Yes, we rebalance most motifs on a quarterly basis. On rare occasions, with longer-term investing strategies that take longer to play out, we rebalance once a year.
$150 Sign-up Bonus.
Motif Investing is also offering a $150 cash bonus when you open a new brokerage account with $2,000+ and make 5 trades at $9.95 each. If you make 1 trade, you’ll get $50. 3 trades will get $75. The new funds must be posted to the account within 10 calendar days of account opening, and must remain in the account for 45 calendar days.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Investing | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
Whole Foods Market is offering a $10 bonus if you auto-reload a Whole Foods Market gift card with a $100+ using any American Express card. You can buy a gift card online or in-store. You can also get a $5 bonus for every third reload of $100 or more after that. Offer runs through March 31, 2013.
A new Whole Foods recently opened up near us, and we’ve been shopping there occasionally. Despite being nicknamed “Whole Paycheck”, I have to admit that it’s a nice change to talk to knowledgeable employees about meat and other products. Being able to buy things by the pound (meat, bulk foods) as opposed to by the package has also been less wasteful for us. Their 365 basic items are also pretty good, although I’m certainly not saying that I could do all my shopping there.
Selected fine print:
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Deals & Offers | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
HomeDepot.com has a coupon code HDFEB10 that will take $10 off any purchase of $100 or more. Expires 2/17/13. You can have the item shipped or pick up in-store.
For an even greater discount, buy a Home Depot gift card at a grocery store using the American Express Blue Cash Preferred card which offers 6% cash back at supermarkets, or by a Home Depot gift card for 7% off at a secondary market like PlasticJungle, Cardpool, Raise, etc.
I’m constantly amazed at how often I go to Home Depot as a homeowner nowadays as compared to never as a renter…
Posted in Deals & Offers | 2 Comments »
Monday, February 11th, 2013
(Expired.) Here’s a rather convoluted promotion from American Express and Twitter that will get you a $25 American Express gift card including shipping for only $15. But I’ve gotten a lot of free money from these social media deals, so I really shouldn’t complain. Here are the directions, adapted from the fine print:
- Link your American Express card and Twitter account at sync.americanexpress.com/twitter. If you wish to change your linked card (or just make which one is linked), go to sync.americanexpress.com/unsync.
- Tweet using #BuyAmexGiftCard25.
- Receive a response message (tweet) from @AmexSync asking you to Tweet #ConfirmAmexGiftCard25. (It should arrive almost immediately. If you’re waiting more than few minutes, try doing the next step anyway, it worked for me and I got a purchase confirmation.)
- Confirm your purchase and authorize American Express to charge your Card by Tweeting #ConfirmAmexGiftCard25 within 15 minutes.
- Receive another response message (tweet) from @AmexSync confirming successful purchase.
- Receive a confirmation email from American Express stating that the product has been purchased successfully, including all purchase details.
In the end, your linked American Express card will be charged $15, and they’ll ship a $25 gift card to you via 2nd-day shipping to your card’s billing address. Limited quantities. I guess now they want you to be able to buy stuff just by tweeting something specific. Most likely, I’ll just use this card to buy a $25 Amazon gift certificate online and keep things simple.
If you have multiple American Express cards, the terms state “Limit one (1) purchase per Card per product.” So it seem you can get multiple gift cards, although you may need multiple Twitter accounts for multiple AmEx cards. Still, an easy $30 over 3 accounts for our two personal accounts and @mymoneyblog.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 5 Comments »
