(Update: Looks like this deal is over.)
I know that there are some Economist readers out there, and it’s a pretty expensive subscription. Right now the site NEAmag.com/2011FREE is offering a one-year subscription for free (51 issues) with no credit card required. You’ve got nothing to lose by trying, and there are several other magazines including Kiplinger’s Personal Finance available as well.
Update: This offer is no longer available.
The Capital One® Cash Rewards earns 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% bonus on the cash back you earn every year. As long as your card is still open at the end of the year, that’s a total of 1.5% cash back. You can request the cash back as a credit on your account, or in the form of a check. In addition, it offers an additional $100 bonus if you spend $500 within the first 3 months of the account opening. The Capital One Cash Rewards has no annual fee and a 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers till June 2014. Added to Best Cash Back Rewards Credit Cards page.
Citizens Bank and Charter One bank have an interesting CollegeSaver bank account for those with children. However, it is only open to residents of certain states in the Eastern and Northeastern US (CT, DE, IL, IN, KY, MA, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT; enter zip code to verify). Thanks to reader Justin for the tip.
You must open a bank account before the child’s 12th birthday with a minimum amount, and then save a minimum amount every month until the child is 18. (You’re allowed to miss one payment per year.) If you satisfy the requirements, you’ll get a $1000 bonus on the 18th birthday. Here are the details:
The best case scenario would be if your kid is just under 12 years old right now. That’s still a 6-year commitment, but if you contribute the minimums then with the bonus that’s a 6.40% annual rate of return on your money (per savings calculator). Since the bonus is constant, the rate of return drops the younger your kid is (longer contribution period). At just over 6 years old, you’d be locked in for 12 years and your annualized return would be 1.9%.
I would say if your child is 10-12 years old and you have patience, this is not a bad deal. But as this is not a 529, you will owe taxes on the interest. However, the upside is that you don’t have to use the funds to pay for college. The account is opened as a custodial account (UTMA), and thus the account can be opened for the child by anyone. However, depending on the state, the child will get control of the account at 18 or 21.
Discount broker Zecco Trading has a refer-a-friend offer where a new account holder can get a $100 cash bonus if you are referred by a existing member and fund the account with $10,000 within 60 days of receiving the invitation. A minimum $10,000 balance must stay in the account for the subsequent 90 days. So that’s a guaranteed 1% ROI in 3 months, an annualized return of 4% on your cash. The referring person from the Zecco Friends Program also gets $100. Expires soon on Friday 8/24.
Zecco has $4.95 stock trades, and no minimum balance requirement or inactivity fees. If you would like a referral, please either contact me and I’ll send you one within 24 hours, or use my this direct invitation link for instant access. If you use the link, you must click on the link and apply for a Zecco Trading account in one session.
The following offer is targeted at American Express Business Platinum cardholders, but has been reported to work successfully with all American Express cards. The deal is if you register your card at AmexNetwork.com/LowesPlatinum and make a single purchase of $200 or more at Lowe’s by November 15, 2011, you will receive a $40 statement credit. It would appear one good way to test this is to make a $200 gift card purchase at Lowe’s, either for a Lowe’s gift card or some other retailer gift card that is available in-store. Then you can use the gift card with any other available coupon later.
To be eligible for this offer, you must be the named recipient of this invitation and register your American Express Business Platinum Card® at AmexNetwork.com/LowesPlatinum between 9/5/2011 and 11/15/2011. You may only register one Card for this offer. Using your registered Card, you must make a single purchase of $200 or more between 9/5/2011 and 11/15/2011. If your Card is replaced during the promotional period, please call the customer service number on the back of your Card for assistance. Limit one offer per Card member. Statement credits are generally issued within 5 business days after your qualifying purchase, but may take up to 2 billing cycles to post to your account. The reward of $40 will be credited to your registered Card account as a statement credit. Additional terms apply; see Registration Terms and Conditions.
I tried my trusty Starwood American Express and AmEx Blue Cash back card and both went through successfully, and I also got a confirmation e-mail. Lots of home improvement going on recently, so I’ll follow up to see if I get the $40 credit.
Daily deals site KGBDeals has a national deal of 2 Fandango.com movie tickets for $12. Each ticket has a maximum value of $12 (total $24). Supposedly has 13 days left, but with over 9,000 sold it may sell out.
Valid until January 31, 2012 and are good for one-time use only. Available for redemption starting October 31, 2011. Valid for use toward 2 tickets with maximum value of $12 per ticket (maximum total value $24). Both tickets must be purchased together in the same transaction for the same movie and showtime. Not valid on IMAX or 3D movies.
p.s. Groupon also has $20 for $40 at The Body Shop as their national deal. 54,000 bought already, perhaps a good value for gifts?
In addition to the $25 statement credit for American Express cardholders, FedEx has a separate promotion where they will be giving out $25 “Shop Small” AmEx gift cards in support of Small Business Saturday through a Facebook promotion. You’ll need a Facebook account and visit their page at Facebook.com/FedEx starting on November 1st. First 30,000 who submit their mailing addresses only. From one press release:
FedEx recently announced it would inject $1 million into the small business economy in support of Small Business Saturday by distributing 40,000 $25 Shop SmallSM American Express® gift cards for use at small businesses on November 26. A total of 30,000 gift cards are available, first-come-first-serve, beginning November 1 on facebook.com/FedEx. FedEx will distribute an additional 10,000 gift cards directly to customers.
I’m not sure how the 10,000 gift cards “directly to consumers” will work. From another press release:
Shoppers will be able to obtain their free $25 gift cards from the FedEx Facebook brand page beginning November 1. For a limited time, shoppers can register and share the offer with friends with a few simple clicks. By providing a mailing address, the cards will be shipped to the first qualifying 30,000 consumers in time for them to get out and shop on November 26, Small Business Saturday. Only one Shop Small Gift Card will be sent to each Facebook ID that registers. There are no consumer fees of any kind associated with the Shop Small Gift Card.
Update: Also check out the Citi Forward® Card for College Students.
As I was reminded in my best cash back credit cards post, the Citi Forward card is a great rewards card for those who spend a lot on restaurants and at Amazon.com. That’s not everyone, but sure sounds like me in my 20s. Okay, okay… it sounds a lot like me now. What can I say, I still love food, friends, and Amazon Prime 2-day shipping. 🙂 I have this card saved as the default card on my Amazon.com account for the 5x points, choosing this card over the Amazon-branded credit card. Why?
The Citi Forward® Card earns 5 points for every $1 you spend on restaurants, book stores including Amazon.com, video rental stores, and movie theaters. On everything else, you get the plain vanilla 1 reward point for every $1 spent. The important part is that I have confirmed that all Amazon.com purchases count as a bookstore under their categorization system (books, textbooks, music, electronics, cool pumpkin-carving tools, etc).
The news here is that they just added a new 10,000 ThankYou point sign-up bonus, redeemable for $100 in gift cards for new cardholders to stores like Home Depot, Macy’s, Gap, etc. You must make $650 in purchases and sign up for paperless statements within the first 3 months. That is the best sign-up offer they have ever had for this card, as I got this card when it first came out.
Alternative for 10k points include a $100 Amazon.com gift card, or you can also get a check for $100 towards your student loan and/or mortgage. You also get another 100 points each month just for paying your bill on time and not going over your credit limit. No annual fee.
Bank of America Travel Rewards Card
Alliant Credit Union Cashback Visa
Chase Freedom Unlimited (w/ Chase Sapphire Reserve)
TripAlertz.com is a new site that is basically like Groupon for travel, even though Groupon already does travel.
The refer-a-friend program works in that the referring person gets $10 for referring a new user. Here is my TripAlertz sign-up link. The new user only has to sign up with an e-mail address, nothing else, no purchase required. However, the new user does not get a bonus. So while you don’t get a bonus right away, joining quickly means you get $10 from any of your friends that sign up with just an e-mail address. Literally just takes seconds. If you get 47 people to sign-up, you could get the 3-night Aruba package on the home page for free.
Update 10/14: Looks like they changed it to just $1 per referral. Oh well.
I’ve enjoyed every Michael Lewis book that I’ve read, from Liar’s Poker to Moneyball to The Blind Side. Reading his writing is as easy as listening to a great storyteller, making the most mundane subjects interesting. I’ve been hearing about his new book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, and was surprised learn from Felix Salmon of Reuters that the book is simply a collection of previously written articles from Vanity Fair magazine. Articles that are still available, for free, online!
I looked inside a copy of the book, and it’s true. Amazon reviews confirm it. The articles are the same, word for word. You can even read the only “new” thing, the Preface, online for free at Amazon since it’s the “free first chapter”. I don’t feel bad sharing this, since Vanity Fair paid Lewis good money to write these articles, put them up publicly with ads, and no doubt enjoy the traffic. So if you want to read Boomerang electronically, the Table of Contents of the book is below. I used Instapaper on my iPod Touch and read parts of them while waiting at the doctor’s office.
Preface: The Biggest Short – Amazon book page (“Read first chapter FREE”)
I. Wall Street on the Tundra – Iceland (Partial only, but Archive.org has the entire article. Thanks to reader Travis.)
II. And They Invented Math – Greece
III. Ireland’s Original Sin – Ireland
IV. The Secret Lives of Germans – Germany
V. Too Fat To Fly – California
Warning: Reading this book will make you some combination of scared, angry, and depressed. I’ve only read the Preface, Greece, and California chapters, and I’m already seriously thinking of buying some gold and guns to join my food hoard. I remind myself that Lewis is a gifted storyteller, but some people still disagree with they see as oversimplification and broad stereotyping of cultures. But just going by the hard numbers given, I’m still worried.
* Update: The Iceland article has been changed to only a partial stub at VanityFair.com, pushing you to buy the book “The Hangover” to read the rest. Interesting, the same article recycled in two separate books. The rest of the articles are still up, but I’d print to PDF or similar in case they change them as well. The Iceland article was free to read for years before this book came out, so it’s still out there if you look hard enough. Update 2: A couple of astute readers found saved versions. I recommend visiting this Archive.org link and saving it quickly.
Here’s another 529 bonus that’s pretty easy to grab. (See Ohio 529 $50 bonus.) The FDIC-insured version of the CollegeInvest College Savings plan is currently offering a $50 bonus if you deposit $50 of your own money and set up automatic transfers. There is no minimum balance, and the terms only require a $1 monthly transfer for 6 consecutive months. Effectively, double your $50 to $100 in 6 months.
This is one of the several 529 plan options for Colorado, and you do get a state tax deduction for your 529 contributions if you’re a Colorado resident (subject to recapture if you don’t use it for a qualified expense). One that caught my eye was the stable value version that is paying a 2.84% rate for 2011.
Plan Review. This bank version itself is pretty bare, and is intended for people who want to invest very conservatively in FDIC-insured accounts. There are only two options: (1) a 1-year CD paying 0.30% APY, and (2) a savings account paying 0.05% APY on balances up to $20,000. Even if it’s tax-deferred… yuck. If you are currently in college or have a really short timeframe, then you could just grab this bonus and take a qualified withdrawal soon afterward. Otherwise…
Take advantage of plan rollovers. I’ve opened a lot of 529 plans for the bonuses over the years, and I enjoy trying out each new service. Some have surprisingly good online interfaces (Ohio), while others are shockingly bad (Oregon circa 2007). But the good thing is, it’s pretty easy to roll over funds from one 529 to another existing plan. You usually just have to fill out a rollover form.
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