If you visit (expired) and print out the coupon, you can get a free 60-day trial membership to BJ’s Wholesale Club. There appears to be no surcharge as they say you get “full member benefits”. BJ’s also has a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their memberships, but this might be less hassle.
One trial membership per household. In-club only, so no online shopping.
American Express is temporarily offering a peek at your Experian PLUS credit score. This is Experian’s own proprietary credit score, but is the best you can get from Experian since you can no longer get your FICO Score based on your Experian credit report. (Only Equifax and Transunion.) PLUS has a range of 330-830 as opposed to the FICO range of 300-850.
You can either try this link or log in and look for “View your complimentary Credit Score & Report now.” under Card Options. It is free, and appears to be promoting their CreditSecure paid product. You do not need to enroll in CreditSecure to get your free score.
From their site:
How much does My Credit Score & Report cost?
My Credit Score & Report is a complimentary benefit offered exclusively to American Express Cardmembers. You pay absolutely nothing. Simply sign up to gain access to your Credit Score and Report.How long will I be enrolled in My Credit Score & Report?
Your enrollment in My Credit Score & Report will last 30 days. After 30 days, you will no longer have access to your complimentary Credit Score and Report. If you wish to continue enjoying access to your Credit Score and Report, you may enroll in CreditSecure.
As always, you can get your free credit reports (not scores) at AnnualCreditReport.com.
Suze Orman is giving away her stuff again!
Insurance Kit
I’m not 100% sure of what all this kit provides you, but it appears to be some sort of questionnaire which helps determine your insurance needs. I’ll try it out myself shortly. From the site:
This one-of-a-kind program provides you and your family with an instant, on-line evaluation of your insurance needs. Suze’s Insurance Kit provides easy to understand, step-by-step advice to help you determine if you have the right coverage in place for all the important areas of your life.
It also includes a disaster simulator and a online home inventory tracker which can store photos and receipts in case of an insurance claim.
To get your free activation code, enter the following gift code: “people first“.
Will and Trust Kit
Based on a question-and-answer format, this software includes the ability to create a will, a revocable trust, Financial Power of Attorney, and an Advanced Directive / Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare. I’m not sure how this compares to a more established legal service like LegalZoom which I had considered using up until now (I used them to incorporate my home business), but they charge about $100 for a basic will.
I would think that it would at least be an acceptable stopgap solution for those with simple estates, but for those who have lots of assets or complex issues, hiring an attorney would be worth the extra cost. I think having an advanced healthcare directive is an even better idea. Remember, it’s your family that will have to deal with all this! Do them a favor.
To get your free activation code, enter the same gift code: “people first“.
We are surrounded by rewards programs. I have a club card to shop at the Safeway grocery store, where I can buy some soda with “Coke Rewards” points, and I can also earn United frequent flier miles based on my total purchase amount. Finally, I pay for everything with a credit card that gets me cash back.
Now, here’s a rewards program to help us recycle more. With RecycleBank, each participating household gets a recycle bin with a computer chip that helps you track how much you recycle. The more you recycle, the more points you earn, which can be redeemed for purchases at stores like CVS pharmacy and Home Depot. You can earn up to $540 annually.
The municipality wins as well, because now there is less waste being sent to landfills, which lowers their costs dramatically. Both RecycleBank’s income and the consumer rewards come from these savings. According to this Time article, recycling rates in one of the first Philadelphia neighborhoods that RecycleBank served rose from 7% to 90% in a matter of months.
Not a bad idea at all! I agree that most people like the idea of recycling, but many of us could use a push in our busy lives. The only catch, really, is that even though are expanding, there are still only a relatively limited number of participating cities. See if yours is on the list.
Here are some more potentially money-saving links:
Walgreens Offers Free Limited Healthcare For Unemployed
The Take Care Recovery Plan is an offer for free healthcare services at Walgreens Take Care Clinics throughout the remainder of 2009 for those families that suffered a job loss after March 31, 2009 and have no health insurance benefits. The offer includes most services for the treatment of illnesses and injuries currently provided at Take Care Clinics, including treatment and tests for common family illnesses such as colds, cough, flu, upper respiratory conditions and minor skin conditions.
Cici’s Pizza – Pick Up Pennies Promotion
Cici’s pizza is dropping a million pennies around their restaurants. The pennies are essentially coupons which might be good for a free meal, so keep your eyes open. I haven’t been to a Cici’s since high school.
Old Spaghetti Factory – 40% off on Tuesdays
To celebrate their 40th anniversary, Old Spaghetti Factory has a special menu on Tuesdays for lunch or dinner where you can receive 40% off their Pasta Classics. My favorite dish is their pasta with brown butter and mizithra cheese, which is only $5.99. Not bad considering you also get bread, salad, and ice cream. Good until 5/26/09.
One-Way Travel Discounts
Want to save on a car rental, RV rental, or cruise? When companies relocate fleets, you can get great one-way deals. It might be interesting to work one of these into a cheap getaway.
300 Free Continental OnePass Frequent Flier Miles
Each of three boxes offers you 100 miles for learning about a new feature and entering your OnePass number. Quick and painless. The free checked baggage feature if you have one of their credit cards doesn’t sound too bad if you fly with them a lot.
If you aren’t familiar with them, Redbox and DVDPlay are little DVD rental kiosks that only cost $1 per day to rent. Redbox can be found in many McDonald’s, and DVDPlay’s tend to be in Safeway grocery stores. Limited selection, but not bad for some cheap entertainment. Just hope there isn’t a huge line or a broken kiosk when you want to return.
Redbox Free Coupon Codes
Every Wednesday in March, you can visit the Redbox Blog and get a free rental code. The code for March 4th is 75EA16 (tonight!) and is only good that day until Midnight central time. If you sign up for SMS alerts you can also get another free code every Monday.
DVDPlay Discount Coupon
You can get a 75 cent rental with the coupon code WOW75. One use per credit card. Expiration unknown.
The Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan is again offering a $25 refer-a-friend bonus if you open an account and deposit at least $25 by May 31, 2009. You can be a resident of any state, and there are no application or annual fees.
First Impressions
My own account with them has been open for a few months, and so far I am quite impressed with the Ohio plan. The website itself is functional and fast, there are a variety of investment choices (cash, index funds, active funds), they are upfront with the fees, and the expenses are very competitive – either the lowest or near the lowest in the nation. The only bad thing I can think of is that every time I make a purchase I get a snail-mail confirmation with no paperless option, which seems wasteful. A more detailed review is upcoming.
I have gotten the $25 bonuses plus several referrals, with no complaints from the people I referred. I have also started an auto-debit from my checking account for $50 a month. Right now, half of my 529 is in the Vanguard inflation-protected bond fund. This is an investment option that is unavailable in most state plans. I feel that since college is only at most 18 years away with a big lump-sum payment, I would prefer less volatility while marching towards that goal. This is in contrast to saving for retirement, where I currently have 35 years until I turn 65, and hopefully another 20 years after that as well.
Referral Bonus Instructions
Both the referred and referree get $25, and I’d love for you to help fund my kid’s college dreams. 😀 Here’s how:
I opened the account back in November and got my $25 bonus successfully and as promised:
* Javascript is required. If you can’t see any numbers, please use 2439350.
The new Escape by Discover® Card is a new travel rewards credit card with some profit potential. Here’s my review and analysis:
25,000 Miles Sign-Up Bonus ($250 credit towards Travel)
You get 1,000 Miles for each month that you make any purchase on this card, up to 25,000 miles. The simplest way to achieve this is to put some sort of automatically recurring charge on this card, like a cell phone or utility bill. But you may not want to use up all 25 months…
Rewards Program – “Unlimited Double Miles”
With this card, you earn two Miles for every dollar spent on any purchase. There is no cap on earning Miles. Now, a “Mile” in this program does not convert directly to any other specific hotel award or airline frequent flier program. I find it is easier to think of them as just “points”, but I’ll stick with the Miles name for now. I called an confirmed that this is the same Miles program that comes with the Miles Card by Discover*. Here are the redemption options:
Travel Credit. The best way to maximize this rewards program by far is to redeem for travel credit. Basically, you get cash, but only towards a travel purchase made with the card. 10,000 Miles = $100.
First, you just book any flight, cruise, vacation package, hotel or car rental – from any website. Then, within 90 days, you just log into your account, select the amount of Miles you want to redeem, and the credit shows up a few days later. The hardest part for me was remembering to use the card when I had travel plans. If redeemed for travel credit in this way, you can view this card as a 2% cash back on everything card.
Cash Option. If you want a direct credit or deposit into your bank account, then the minimum redemption is 5,000 Miles for $25 cash. Since you lose 50% of your potential value this way, I’d avoid this. Gift Cards. A middle ground. For example, 4,000 Miles = $25 Gift Card. 12,000 Miles = $100 Gap or Macy’s Gift Card.
Primary Car Rental Insurance
This is another big draw for me. Most credit cards only offer what is called secondary rental car insurance, which only kicks in after your own personal auto insurance. This means you’ll have to file a claim (likely raising your future rates) and pay your own deductible. In my case, that’s $1,000!
Primary car rental insurance essentially replaces the Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) that costs $10-$20 per day that they try to sell you at the rental car counter. You know, the insurance that you buy so you don’t have to worry about parking lot dings, or them finding some bogus “new scratch” when you return it. You’re covered up to $50,000, and there is no deductible.
More perks:
Conclusion: Annual Fee and Total Value Calculations
The Escape by Discover® Card is meant to be a “premium” travel card, so this card has a $60 annual fee. At a rate of 1,000 miles per month, the intro bonus is worth ~$120 per year if you do the travel credit route. Since the bonus is only good for 25 months, I’d note when they actually charge the annual fee, as I wouldn’t want to pay for the 3rd year.
But if you time things right, you’ll net a ~$60 bonus ($120 minus $60 annual fee) for the first two years (~$120 total), during which you’ll also have two years of free primary car rental insurance.
* The Miles Card by Discover has a similar offer – 12,000 bonus Miles over 12 months. The upside is that there is no annual fee to worry about, but also no double miles and primary insurance. As outlined above, 12,000 miles = $100 Gift Card to various stores, or $100 credit towards travel.
Time for another class-action lawsuit. This time, Bank of America and its affiliated banks are putting up $35 million to settle accusations of doing various naughty things to boost their revenues in the form of overdraft fees (AKA insufficient funds fees, bounced check fees, returned item fees).
For example, let’s say you have a bank balance of $500. You have debit card transactions of $15, $75, $200, and then $600. Allegedly, BofA would order the transactions posted from high-to-low, so that you’d have 4 separate overdraft fee charges, instead of just one.
According to the official settlement website, it looks like it may cover a lot of people. If you are eligible, you may be rewarded up to $78 depending on the number of claimants. You must submit a claim form either by mail or online by May 1, 2009. So who’s eligible?
You are a member of the Settlement Class and eligible for a payment if you resided in the United States at any time between the dates set forth below, had an account at a bank listed below, and meet all three of the following requirements:
- Your account was accessible through a debit card, check card, or any other bank
card used for debit purchases; AND- You paid at least one:
- insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR
- overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account;
AND- The insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, overlimit fee, or similar fee was paid between the following dates:
For customers of . . . From Through Bank of America 12/6/2000 12/31/2007 Fleet Bank, N.A. 4/1/2004 12/31/2007 U.S. Trust Company, N.A. 7/1/2007 12/31/2007 LaSalle Bank N.A. and LaSalle Bank Midwest N.A. 10/1/2007 12/31/2007
Update: The current case status appears to be that the judgement is still under appeal.
Due to a combination of owning a corporation, moving mid-year, and all the residency and payroll rules attached to assigning incomes between states, we are hiring a CPA this year. This MSN Money article says that 62% of Americans pay a professional to do their taxes. I’m actually surprised by this number, as I think most people can get by just fine by using current tax software. I’ve certainly been happy to do so for the last decade.
Below are several free ways to get your taxes done, besides of course using old pen n’ paper. As you’ll see, for just about everyone there is at least one option for completely free Federal filing with E-file. And even if you add in State, it shouldn’t cost more than $14 with E-file.
IRS Free File – Income Restricted
If your 2008 adjusted gross income of $56,000 or less, there are a variety of options from 20 different software companies available from the Free File Alliance at IRS.gov.
Free File Fillable Tax Forms [IRS]
If you already know which tax forms you need to fill out, the IRS now lets you fill them out electronically and file them electronically for free. This is not the same as the income-restricted “Free File” above. Via Consumerist.
TurboTax
You can use the TurboTax Federal Free Edition if you have a simple tax return, for example one that only requires the 1040EZ return with no itemized deductions. State is $25.95.
TurboTax Business
If you have a corporation, partnership, or multi-member LLC and think you can handle it yourself, you can get TurboTax Business for Federal filing free with Federal E-file included.
H&R Block TaxCut
The free version of TaxCut is also restricted to those with simple returns.
Not quite free, but you can also get TaxCut standard for Federal for $1 with free Federal E-file at Dollar Tree stores. It has no income restrictions and handles itemized deductions. State return is the upsell, at $29.99 extra (see below for more options).
TaxACT
Competing well with the big boys is TaxACT, which offers a free federal return for everyone with no restrictions, with free Federal E-file included. State return is $13.95 with E-file included.
The TaxACT “Ultimate” Bundle is $16.95, includes data importing, and the state return. However, there is a returning customer’s offer that gives you 30% off, bringing the total cost to $11.90. The link does not appear to actually discriminate between new and returning customers.
State Income Taxes
Many states also offer their own online income tax filing programs. I don’t have time to compile all the links this year, but use this old list as a starting point, or just Google your own state’s tax website. In many cases, filing a state return manually is not very difficult.
Several months ago my “check engine” light went on. I went to my local mechanic, who plugged in a code scanner and found my error. Since it didn’t re-appear after resetting, he said he could try to fix it ($$$) or I could just leave it and it might never come back on. He said he normally charges $50 just do do the diagnostic, but this time it’d be free. A week ago, it came back on, and of course I wasn’t eager to go through all this hassle again.
I decided to try and buy my own error code scanner. If you search for “OBDII”, “OBD II”, or “OBD 2” code readers, these devices will plug into your 1996 or newer model year car and read the diagnostic code from your car computer. In addition, they can erase or reset the code so that you can see if it is an ongoing problem.
Luckily, while searching I ran across a post on Fatwallet that had this CodeKey OBD II code reader on clearance for $23.90. There are nicer scanners out there, but they usually start at $60+. From the CodeKey site:
Simply put, CodeKey™ is an easy to use device designed to unlock the mystery of why your vehicle’s Check Engine Light is on. The Check Engine Light can ignite for something as simple as a loose gas cap, or as serious as a fuel leak. A flashing Check Engine Light can be serious, and continued driving can cause permanent damage to the vehicle. Until now, you would need to rely on a mechanic to determine what problem caused the light to go on
When you know the source of the problem you can:
* Decide if you should go to the garage immediately.
* Determine if the problem is something you can fix yourself.
* Know what to expect when you bring your car to a garage.
Other options
If you go to a dealership and have them read this code, it’ll cost you $100 just for the “diagnostic check”. Some people report that your local Autozone may lend these out for free at the store. I have also read that some Jiffy Lubes let you use theirs if you pay for some service like a oil change. I’d call first.
The old-school method is to simply disconnect your car battery and wait for the computer to reset itself. But for cars newer than 1996, this site reports that wiping out the computer’s memory can affect the operation of the transmission, climate control system and other functions. You can also trigger your alarm system or anti-theft car radio into lock-down mode. However, you won’t know the actual cause of the problem.
In the end, at less than $25 I just bought the tool. Just avoiding the gas to/from the mechanic and having to arrange a carpool for pickup/dropoff would be worth it. And sure enough, after resetting the light it has not come back on again.
It turns out, buying this tool could be the start of a new side business. Check out this Craiglist ad where a guy will come over and reset your light for $25. Learn how to do common repairs, and there you go. I think I’ll pass, but don’t forget to deduct business mileage if you go this route! 😉
If you have a website that you would like to promote, there are several coupon codes out there that can get you a free $200+ in credit towards Facebook Ads (update: codes are expired). In addition, if you join the Visa Business Network and install application, they’ll kick in another $100 (still available). Via this SlickDeals thread.
You’ll need a credit card to sign up, but it shouldn’t be charged until after you use up all your credits. Watch the expiration dates, and set your ad budgets wisely. Facebook ads are pretty low-converting from what I’ve heard, but at least this way you can test for free.
The Best Credit Card Bonus Offers – 2025
Big List of Free Stocks from Brokerage Apps
Best Interest Rates on Cash - 2025
Free Credit Scores x 3 + Free Credit Monitoring
Best No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer Offers
Little-Known Cellular Data Plans That Can Save Big Money
How To Haggle Your Cable or Direct TV Bill
Big List of Free Consumer Data Reports (Credit, Rent, Work)