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.

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.

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:

1. Your account was accessible through a debit card, check card, or any other bank
   card used for debit purchases; AND
2. You paid at least one:
   1. 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
   2. 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
3. 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.

Audible.com is giving a free audiobook version of the popular personal development book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey.

I’ve read about half of the print version, and it does have some useful tips. One idea that I explored previously was to focus on your circle of financial influence.

Might be worth a download to see if you like to listen to audiobooks while commuting. Turns out, I don’t.