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October 18, 2005

About $4000 out there in sign up money right now

Markber has put together a nice list of current sign up money deals. They total over $4,000. I've applied for a couple (the Bank of America $75 deal and the E*Trade $75 deal).

I still have my B of A account open after 6 months, so I guess they sucked me in even though all I wanted was their free money. B of A just came out with a new deal called Keep the Change where, if you use their debit card, they'll round up the purchase to the nearest dollar, pull the difference from your checking account into a savings account, and match the funds. It's a little complicated, but they claim they'll give you up to $250 from it. Some guys over at FatWallet have worked out all the details about how to best get the $250 but it sounds like too much work for me. If you just want a quick $50, try this thread.

Posted by brian at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)

October 12, 2005

Pay less in sales tax and computer tricks

I'm starting to think about Christmas gifts and that means shopping on the internet for presents. Kelli Grant over at SmartMoney.com put together a nice list of merchants that don't charge sales tax. The bummer is that buy.com charges California residents sales tax.

I found some tricks called "20 Things They Don't Want You to Know" over at PCWorld. One of the dirty little secrets is that extended warranties aren't worth it (but I already knew that). What I didn't know is that there is a website dedicated to telling you how to skip the computer prompts to be able to speak to a real person at a bunch of different companies (I've used the Cingular one and it worked).

Posted by brian at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2005

Free money with no risk - an arbitrage primer

Arbitrage is one of those fancy terms like "escrow" or "equity" that always confused me as a kid. When it comes down to it, arbitrage just refers to an opportunity to buy something at a low price then immediately sell it at a higher price without any risk. This is like when you sell CDs on eBay for $12 when you buy them at Amazon for $10 using coupon codes that everybody doesn't know about (I wasted too much time in grad school doing this for not enough money).

I found a nice little article that explains other kinds of arbitrage. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you how to make a killing, but it might spark some ideas.

Posted by brian at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2005

FICO score simulator

It's pretty easy to get a free credit report these days. Everyone is entitled to one per year under the FCRA and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, which established the free annual credit report program.

This site is kind of neat - it lets you estimate how your FICO score would change under different scenarios.

Posted by brian at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)