If you are under a Sprint cell phone contract and want to get out, check your statements with a billing date in December. PhoneNews.com is reporting the the following verbage from Sprint:

Regulatory Charge/Ts&Cs Changes
Effective 1/1/10, the Regulatory Charge will increase to $0.40/line. Visit Sprint Ts&Cs or sprint.com/taxesandfees for details; also effective 1/1/10, the Sprint Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) are changing. Please review them carefully at sprint.com or on request.

It would appear that the regulatory charge that Sprint is choosing to pass onto you is connected to the change in T&Cs. This is important because the law states that if a company makes a material change to the contract, then the consumer has the ability to exit the contract without an early termination fee (ETF) if they notify Sprint within 30 days of the notice.

You may terminate each line of Service materially affected without incurring an Early Termination Fee only if you: (a) call us within 30 days after the effective date of the change; and (b) specifically advise us that you wish to cancel Services because of a material change to the Agreement that we have made. If you do not cancel Service within 30 days of the change, an Early Termination Fee will apply if you terminate Services before the end of any applicable Term Commitment.

Since Sprint themselves state that this is a change in the Terms & Conditions, it should be possible to exit your contract without an ETF. They’ll probably make it difficult, and you might need to speak to a supervisor. I did this a few years ago with Verizon, and they canceled my number on the spot and I had to get a new one. But with the ease of number porting nowadays, you might be able to coordinate things so that you can keep your number after making sure you won’t be charged any penalties for canceling.

Added: As to whether this is a “material” change. The .20 increase is NOT some government fee that is passed straight to you. It is NOT required by law. Sprint could choose absorb it into their other costs, or only include it for new customers on new contracts, but they chose to increase it in this way. Think of it this way – 50 million customers times 20 cents per month = $10 million per month in additional revenue.

Sure, email is great, but there’s something uniquely heartwarming about the kind of card that comes in the actual mail — especially for folks who don’t hear from us as often as they should, simply because they aren’t online.

So we’ve made it as easy to send snail-mail holiday cards as it is to send email. Simply fill out the form below and we’ll send one free holiday postcard on your behalf. Yes, through the mail and everything.

Courtesy of Google, via Gizmodo. Send a happy thought today! All the cards have a little Gmail logo hidden somewhere.

Restaurant.com is offering a 80% off with the coupon code SAVE, resulting in a $25 “certificate” for just $2. Offer good until end of today, November 30th. I just checked it and it still works:

Despite my initial skepticism about these things, many readers responded that they indeed found these certificates very useful in savings some money.

Here’s a example positive scenario. You find a restaurant on the list that you like that usually runs around $20 + tip per person (~$48 for a couple). You buy a $25 certificate for $2, which usually comes with a $35 minimum purchase + 18% required gratuity on full price.

In that case, you can save around 50% on the total bill. These might make good gifts to the right person, but I wouldn’t pass them off as worth face value! 🙂

Kroger and affiliated stores are offering $10 off for every $100 in selected gift cards bought until December 13, 2009. Limit five $10 rewards per household, need to have shopper’s card.

Participating stores include City Market, Dillons, Jay C, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, King Soopers, QFC, Ralphs and Smith’s. Valid retailers are: Applebee’s, Bass Pro Shops, Bath & Body Works, Best Buy, iTunes, Sears, and Spa Finder.

I would also check on eBay as I know iTunes gift certificates can be cheap there, but it would seem like 10% off of Best Buy or Sears gift cards could come in handy. [Source]

Amazon.com is offering $3 in free MP3 downloads with the code MP34FREE. No purchase required. See directions and details at this link. It should increase your gift card balance by $3, but the may be restricted to music purchases only. You must redeem the code by November 30, 2009 11:59 PM PST.

It may ask you to install the AmazonMP3 Downloader software, but you can go to “skip” this for individual songs. Entire album purchases may require installation.

Coin-changing machine operator CoinStar is running a promotion where if you change $40 in coins into a gift card, you can receive an additional $10 gift card by mail. They offer to exchange coins into gift cards with no fee for several stores, the most popular probably being Amazon.com followed by CVS, Starbucks, Lowe’s, and iTunes.

Perhaps empty out that coin jar and cross someone off your gift list and well? Below is selected fine print from the official rules:

Obtain an official claim form when you convert in a single transaction at least 40 U.S. dollars (in coins only) into a gift card or eCertificate at participating Coinstar Centers. The claim form will be displayed at the end of qualified Coinstar® receipts.

General terms and conditions: the $10 holiday bonus offer ends 12/6/09. Offer valid in the U.S. only and excludes Puerto Rico. Offer good on qualified coin transactions made between 11/9/09 and 12/6/09. Transactions occurring before or after these dates are not eligible for this offer. Limit 1 per name, address, or household.

BBVA Compass Bank is offering a free 8gb iPod Touch when you open a checking account with $100 and set up direct deposit for 6 months. Unfortunately, there are a lot of restrictions. For one, you must reside in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, or Texas. Secondly, the iPod is offered through a third-party fulfillment company (think mail-in rebates…) to which you actually have to pay the shipping and handling. Thanks to reader Susan for the tip. Selected fine print:

*To qualify for this offer, you must (1) by December 15, 2009, open a new BBVA Compass Build-to-Order consumer checking account with a minimum deposit of at least $100, (2) within 6 weeks of account opening, your paychecks must begin to be directly deposited into your new checking account at least once each statement cycle. At 6 months your account will be verified again to confirm you are still meeting the payroll direct deposit requirement. If not, BBVA Compass will debit $180 (the approximate cost of the iPod touch) from your checking account.