Free Tall Cappuccino + 15% Off at Barnes & Noble

Posted on October 16, 2008 // 5 Comments

Here is an e-mail coupon for a free Tall Cappucino at a Barnes & Noble Starbucks. There is also a coupon for 15% off one item. Expires 10/31/08. Via FW.

Sadly, for me the main draw of this offer is that with a Starbucks drink I can actually find a place to sit and browse through books inside Barnes. (They kick you out of the cafe area if you’re not a customer and it’s crowded.) The last time I actually found an open couch was probably 2005. The 15% off may be useful for those times when you simply can’t wait to go home and order it from BN.com or Amazon.com for 30% off…

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Quicken Online Now Free: Joining Yodlee, Mint, Geezeo, Wesabe

Posted on October 14, 2008 // 46 Comments

Quicken Online is now free. It used to cost $3 per month ($36/year). This established brand name is now directly competing with other free online account aggregation services like Mint, Geezeo, Wesabe, and Yodlee MoneyCenter. I guess they decided it would be better to give this product away for free as well, in the hopes that they can sell you TurboTax or the desktop Quicken later on. 😉 I signed up; here is a screenshot:

Although I keep meaning to do a more in-depth review of all these services, I have not done so yet because after trying each of these services briefly I always end up going back to my trusted Yodlee MoneyCenter. I have been disappointed in how they all (including Yodlee) unsuccessfully attempt to categorize my purchases, and I am unwilling to keep manually correcting them.

I prefer the simple “snapshot” feel of Yodlee, where I can see all my balances and investments at a glance, along with recent transactions. I can even keep track of my frequent flier miles and other rewards points. Each day I log in, acknowledge any changes, and am done within 5 minutes. “Get in, get out, get on with your life”.

Other more personal (and lame) reasons include sheer habit, as I have been using Yodlee since 2004. Finally, I have a lot of accounts, and the idea of having to re-enter all those passwords again is not appealing at all.

All of these sites take your logins and passwords, and essentially pretend to be you and scrape the pertinent information off each webpage using a script. Yodlee actually sells its account aggregation services to Mint. Geezeo uses CashEdge. Quicken Online and Wesabe have their own systems. Be aware that in many cases you are giving them limited power of attorney to do this. It’s all in the terms and conditions! Many people wisely are very skeptical of handing over all their passwords to a third party. I have previously posted a modest defense of my use of Yodlee here.

Filed Under: Budgeting, Deals & Offers //

250 Free Business Cards From Quickbooks ($5 Shipping)

Posted on October 12, 2008 // 8 Comments

In my last Amazon.com order, there was a flyer for 250 free business cards from Intuit Quickbooks. I have been meaning to get new business cards with my new address, so I tried it out. Even in this digital age, business cards are a great way to publicize your home business or freelance work. Pass them out!

The ordering process was easy, and UPS Ground shipping was $5. I kept things pretty simple, and did not add a custom logo for extra money or any other options, and it was $5 total with no sneakiness. Very cheap advertising, not to mention it is a deductible business expense. 🙂 The order shipped in 3 days.

From looking at the 42 available free designs, it would appear that these are the same offered by Vistaprint. I have used Vistaprint before with no problems, but others have reported issues with them. Vistaprint does try to cross-sell you a lot of different trial offers with various companies before letting you check out with your free business cards. Quickbooks did not. Also, Vistaprint puts their logo on the back of the free cards, which some feel makes the cards look less professional. Quickbooks does not.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Entrepreneurial //

New $50 Signup Bonus For TradeKing Brokerage

Posted on October 2, 2008 // 21 Comments

Online stock brokerage firm TradeKing has a new $50 sign-up bonus for new accounts. To qualify, you must open with at least $2,500, make one trade, and not take it out for 6 months.

There is no referral required, just be sure you see the $50 offer from the link. Expires 10/31/08 Extended until 11/30/08. Selected fine print:

1) To qualify for this offer, new accounts must be opened and funded with $2,500 or more. Account opening and funding must occur within 30 days from the date this email was sent, and one trade must be executed within 180 days of account opening. […] A minimum balance of $2,500 is required in the account (minus any trading losses) for the first six months or the credit may be surrendered. Offer applies to new non retirement accounts funding for the first time.

Background – Why pay more?
TradeKing is a discount brokerage with $4.95 trades and $0.65 option contracts. They have good customer service, with both Live Chat and phone reps with short hold times available. Won SmartMoney Magazine’s Best Discount Broker award in 2006, 2007, and 2008.

They are one of my three favorite discount brokers. To sum things up very briefly, they are between Zecco (cheaper, less refined) and Scottrade (more expensive, but has local physical branches). I don’t see any reason to be paying $10+ for a trade, given these three options.

For more information and tips on TradeKing, please check out my TradeKing Review. I have an account with them, so you can also ask questions in the comments.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Investing //

Bought Some More 5% APY Bank CDs From WaMu/Chase

Posted on October 1, 2008 // 27 Comments

I went ahead today and bought some more of the 12-month CD at 5% APY from Washington Mutual/Chase. Here’s why:

Reason #1: Chase agreed to honor WaMu CD rates
From the official FDIC WaMu takeover page:

6. Will I continue to earn interest at the same rate?
JPMorgan Chase accepted Washington Mutual’s interest bearing accounts including CD’s at the contract rate; therefore, they are not waiving early withdrawal penalties.

Even though there was speculation that Chase would only pay interest up to the failure date as was the minimum requirement, Chase went as far as to not even allow early withdrawals without penalty. They have committed to honoring these rates, which also worked out great for those that jumped on it last month.

Reason #2: They are still offering the 5% APY 12-month CD
A week later, the same high rate is still on their website:

This can’t have been an accident. 13-month CD is available too.

Reason #3: It’s FDIC-insured, now with a more stable bank
For those that worried about WaMu service interruption or lost liquidity (which never happened) , now it should be even more stable with Chase Bank.

Reason #4: It’s still a top rate, and it might change at any time.
Maybe there is some sort of behind-the-scenes rate freeze agreement that we don’t know about. Their popular Online Savings + Free Checking combo is still paying 4.00% APY on savings and the checking perks haven’t changed (WaMu review). Savings accounts at any bank are always subject to change, so there is nothing I can do about that. But I can sure lock in this rate now and keep my system going as long as possible:

Reason #5: Fed may drop interest rates soon
Bailout plan or not, this economy ain’t doing so well. Although I don’t make big bets on such forecasts, there is a good possibility that Fed will lower interest rates by the end of the year (see USA Today, WSJ).

If your funding source is not WaMu, they let you fund electronically with another bank’s routing and account number. You have to remember to verify the test deposits, though.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Free FICO Credit Score From Equifax (No Trial)

Posted on October 1, 2008 // 56 Comments

Equifax is currently running a campaign that is giving out your FICO credit score for free (expired) based on your Equifax credit report. There is no credit card or free trial subscription required, so you don’t have to cancel anything. Only available to the first 10,000 responders, so go try it now! If you’ve used Equifax before, you should just sign in because they will make you sign in again anyways once getting your information.

The free score comes with some general information about your credit history (see mine below), but to get more specific information you’ll have to purchase your credit report and analysis.

I see my score of 754 is only better than 62% of US consumers. Given that I am making interest off of 0% APR credit card debt, I am pretty happy with the results. 🙂

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Another Free Schick Razor Sample (Men’s)

Posted on September 30, 2008 // 9 Comments

About as straightforward as it gets: SchickSamples.com.

Thanks YP, I missed this one.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Free Schick Intuition Razor Giveaway

Posted on September 29, 2008 // 7 Comments

Here is another offer for a free Schick Intuition Plus razor (now expired), targeted at the ladies (though I don’t see why a guy can’t use it). First 70,000, so enter today. Via SD. We’ve gotten one of these free before, and Mrs. MMB reports that this is a very nice razor. 🙂

Enter the Countdown to Wedding Bliss Giveaway, brought to you by iVillage and Schick® Intuition®, and get on the road to your happily-ever-after. Be among the first 70,000 iVillage members to respond and you can get a *FREE Schick® Intuition Plus® razor. Make it a beautiful beginning–enter today!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. Open only to legal U.S. residents who are 18 or older. Limit one Schick razor per person, per household of the physical address above. Offer expires 12/31/2008 or while supplies last.

I just got another two free razors in the mail within the last week, so many of them definitely do come through.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Zecco Gives Unlimited Free Stock and Options Trades in October

Posted on September 25, 2008 // 21 Comments

Apparently Zecco.com, a start-up brokerage where I keep most of my “play money”, didn’t do so well during the last week. People report having problems logging into their accounts due to all the market turbulence. I was luckily not affected, as I haven’t had time to trade much at all.

In response, they are offering unlimited free trades (both stock and options) for the entire month of October to all customers and all accounts. Also, the $2,500 minimum for free trades is being waived. From a recent announcement:

To show our appreciation for your loyalty, we have decided to make October a 100% unlimited free trading month. This means that between October 1st and October 31st you can make unlimited equity and options trades commission-free. As far as I know, this has never been done in the history of the brokerage industry, until now. But then again, we are seeing things in the market we never would have believed, until now.

Eligibility

* The no-commission stock and options trade offer applies to all Zecco Trading accounts in good standing.
* The offer applies to equity and options trades, including multi-legged options orders and all options contracts.
* Mutual fund trades are not eligible for the offer.
* There is no minimum equity balance requirement or minimum trade volume restriction.
* All account types are eligible, including IRA.
* The offer is effective for equity and option trades placed and executed 10/1/08 through 10/31/08. The standard free trading program and options pricing will resume 11/1/08.

What are some good ways to take advantage of this offer? Maybe time to do some tax-loss harvesting? I suppose active traders and daytraders should be happy and go nuts. 🙂 Since their normal offer is to give you 10 free trades per month, I usually consider Zecco best for buy-and-hold investors to buy shares of ETFs regularly and cheaply. Now I guess you could dollar-cost-average every day.

The free options trading do sound interesting, as they used to cost $4.50 + $.50/contract. You never see free options trading. Maybe it’s time to try some test trades out? It would be interesting to learn to create proper hedges.

As an aside, I recently moved all of my cash out of my Zecco account since I wasn’t trading (no free time) and wanted to earn more interest elsewhere. However, they then de-activated my account. It wasn’t closed permanently and a phone call got it open again, but just an FYI if you experience weird things. You can read about my previous experiences with Zecco here.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Investing //

Bank Bonuses: Citibank, Bank of West, Provident Bank

Posted on September 25, 2008 // 9 Comments

Citibank
You get a $100 bonus when you open an eligible Citi checking account with $1,000 and complete one direct deposit or repeated billpay usage. New customers only. Seems also to be for Citi credit card holders only.

Within the first month after account opening, customer must complete at least one direct deposit to, or at least two electronic bill payments from, the checking account each month for three consecutive months to get $100.

Bank of the West
This regional bank (west/midwest US) is offering a $100 bonus for doing a variety of activities: $25 for opening the account with a debit card, $25 for using it 10 times, $25 for direct deposit, and $25 for billpay. Must be opened in a physical branch.

Offer valid for a new personal checking account opened from September 8 through November 1, 2008 with $100 or more from a financial institution other than Bank of the West.

Provident Bank
Another regional bank (east/northeast US) offering a $100 bonus for opening a checking account with $25 minimum.

Provident Bank will award $100 to new personal checking customers that open a new Totally Free, Regular, Interest or Platinum checking account between 9/2/08 and 11/21/08 that have direct deposit and a Provident MasterMoney™ debit card by 12/31/08.

Wells Fargo
You get a $50 bonus when you open a Wells Fargo Free Checking Account with $100. No minimum balance, no monthly fees.

Limit one $50 bonus per household. To qualify for your $50 bonus, you must open and fund a new personal Wells Fargo checking account with a minimum initial deposit of $100 (not including the $50 bonus) by October 17, 2008.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

WaMu Raises Savings Rate to 4.00% APY

Posted on September 23, 2008 // 58 Comments

Washington Mutual has raised the rate on their Online Savings + Free Checking combo to 4.0% APY. This is now the highest of the no-minimum no-fee savings accounts. Curiously, HSBC Direct actually dropped their rate to 3.25% APY earlier this week.

You can learn more about this account at my WaMu review post. They also again have 12-month CDs yielding 5% APY.

I’ve already laid out why I am sticking with Washington Mutual. In short, why would I mess with this nice setup as long as my money is still insured?

[Some pages still say 3.75%, but my account details confirm the 4.0% APY. Existing account holders can log in and click on “About this account”. Or just click here and hit Apply Today, and you should see the new rate.]

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Scottrade Referral Code: 7 Free Trades

Posted on September 10, 2008 //

Through October 31st, 2008, the referral bonus from Scottrade is now worth 7 free trades (instead of the usual 3) when you open an account with at least $500. At $7 per trade, that’s worth nearly $50. If you need a referral code, please contact me and I’ll send you one from another reader.

Both referrer and referee will receive 3 free online trades when the referee opens a qualified account with Scottrade. These free trades will usually be credited within 24 hours. An additional 4 free online trades will be credited to both accounts within 15 business days.

Referrals must be made and the new account must be opened by the new referee by the end of business day on October 31, 2008 in order for both accounts to receive the bonus 4 free online trades.

Related

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //
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