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August 31, 2006

Three (not just one) free credit reports per year

A while ago, I posted this link to get your credit report for free each year. Why bother? Well, it might help you avoid a nasty surprise when you go to apply for a home mortgage or car loan or help you catch identity theft. One in four reports have errors serious enough to result in the denial of credit, according to these guys who are keep track of even nerdier stuff than me. (Is nerdier a word? I guess not).

So it turns out you can actually get three free credit report per year, not just one, because three credit agencies keep track of your credit (or mistrack your credit, as it were): Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and you're entitled to one free credit report from each of them. So you can get a report from Equifax this month, then Experian in four more months, then TransUnion four months after that and in a year, start over with Equifax.

I found one error in my Equifax report - a Discover card account that was listed as being closed by Discover, not by me. I don't know how much that dings my credit score, but it was pretty easy to fix the problem. I just filled out the online form and in about a week it was changed.

Posted by brian at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2006

Housing bubble blogs - what is wrong with me?

More frequently is seems I'm coming across housing bubble stories on popular news sites like MarketWatch, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, and CNN.com. But the blogs have been talking about it for years.

I've been following this FatWallet discussion for over three years and sadly I have read just about all the 7000 posts. I check out the Marin POS (Piece of S#!+) blog once a week, to see pictures of tiny, rundown, 2 BR/1 BA cottages going for a million bucks or more just 50 miles to the north of where I live. And I love the Flippers in Trouble blog, where a guy named Max keeps track of flippers that have lost money trying to sell houses quickly to other suckers.

I don't know why I love following the housing bubble. I don't think it says anything good about me, that I revel in other peoples' misery of losing money in the housing market or not being able to afford adjustable rate loans. Maybe it's because, as a renter, I'm jealous of people who made a big bet a few years ago on what I view as overpriced real estate and come out ahead. I could've bought a house with no money down with an interest-only loan three years ago but I thought it was stupid to do that. Well, I could've made six figures on a 2 Br/1 Ba house here in the Bay Area. I didn't, so I guess that's why I'm happy to see the flippers starting to get hurt now. But I don't think that makes me a good person.

Anyway, if you're sick like me, check out this site. It updates all the housing blog info on a daily basis. And while you're at it, go to F#@%edCompany.com to read about companies that are facing bad times.

Posted by brian at 07:51 PM | Comments (2)

August 16, 2006

401(k) vs. Traditional IRA vs. Roth IRA

Here's a nice, succinct article describing the virtues and differences between 401(k)s, traditional IRAs, and Roth IRAs.

If you're like me, you love reading about these things. If you're like the other 99% of the population, you can't be bothered. But as someone who has read a ton of these kinds articles, please trust me when I say this is one of the best in terms of clearly describing the advantages and disadvantages of these accounts. If you're not currently contributing to a retirement account, it will only take about five minutes to read it and hopefully motivate you to start.

Posted by brian at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2006

E*Trade bonuses just don't add up

I don't like E*Trade. I don't like their fees to trade stocks. I don't like their fees to cash in options. I don't like how long they keep me on hold. I don't like that they've charged me fees when they shouldn't have (like incorrectly applied low balance fees - twice), even though they eventually refunded those fees when I complained. I don't like that they take so long to answer email. Sometimes, they don't answer email at all. I don't like E*Trade.

So now that I've switched jobs and lost all my (worthless) stock options that my employer put into an E*Trade account, I don't have to deal with them anymore. Still, I'd like to complain about them one more time.

I got an offer for a $50 account bonus to fund a money market account. Ok, I like free money, so that was nice. The catch? The money market account pays 4.25% and you have to fund the account with at least $25,000. Yeah, a 0.25% bonus in a money market account paying nearly 1% lower than the rates at Citibank, HSBC, MBNA, Emigrant Direct, etc. is really going to entice me. So even their sign up bonuses are insulting.

I don't like E*Trade. Did I write that yet?

But here's the deal. If you're a new E*Trade customer, you can get $50 for a $1,000 deposit and earn 5.15% for three months. You just have to keep the money there for 120 days before you can close the account and walk away with the cash. That works out to nearly a 20% return.

Posted by brian at 05:31 AM | Comments (1)

August 14, 2006

Earn $40 from Citibank - follow-up

Last month, I linked to an offer from Citibank to try out their Credit Protector and earn an easy $40 bucks.

Well, I signed up. I didn't get a $40 check or even a $40 statement credit. Instead, I got a rebate form to send in, along with receipt(s) totalling $40, from purchases using my Citibank card. I have to mail in the rebate form within 90 days.

Now, Citibank is counting on a couple of things. One, that I'm too lazy to save a receipt, put it in an envelope, and mail in the form. I am pretty lazy, but not that lazy. I mean, $40 - c'mon, I can do that. Second, they are counting on me buying stuff and then charging me $0.85 per $100 in balances per month in Credit Protector bogusness to start recouping that $40 incentive. Well, I bought $39.65 in gas, mailed in the receipt, and the next day used online bill payment to send in $39.65 to give me a $0.00 balance.

The check is supposed to arrive in 4-6 weeks. I don't know that I have to keep Credit Protector active in order for them to send the check, but I will. I just have to make sure not to charge anything to that card.

So it still looks like you can earn $40, but it requires a little tiny bit of work.

Posted by brian at 06:14 AM | Comments (3)

August 11, 2006

Midget Popsicles

Right off the bat, the term "Midget Popsicles" is a legitimate culinary phase - after all, Del Monte sells Midget Pickles:

I bought some Breyers Fruit Swirl Bars (Lemon Lime, of course). This is what they look like on the box:

This is what they look like when you take off the wrapper:

Not really the same thing. Now Breyers either needs to start labeling the box "Midget Popsicles" or else they have a quality control problem. (I've bought these before, so I know its the latter). Of course, since I have this week off in between jobs and way too much time on my hands, I had to write an absolutely scathing letter, demanding compensation:

My handwriting is not normally that sloppy, but the adrenaline was rushing through my veins as I expressed my fury.

Ok, I sort of wimped out on the letter. I even addressed it to "Dear Packers Fan" since the letter was going to Green Bay and I was trying to ingratiate myself with the Breyers people. I even told them their popsicles are yummy. They probably thought it was written by an eight-year old.

Oh well. Now I gotta go water the garden before my girlfriend gets home so it seems like I did something today besides writing letters to popsicle companies.

Posted by brian at 03:04 PM | Comments (2)

August 10, 2006

Making money by driving around

I quit my job and have this week off before I start my next one on Monday. I thought I was going to do all these things like weed the garden, go to the gym a bunch of times, and touch up the paint inside the house. But this week is passing by a lot faster than I thought it would and all I've managed to do is the laundry and fix the kitchen cabinet so that it closes properly. (Well, that cabinet has been bugging me for a while, so I'm happy about that, at least).

Anyway, here's something else I don't have time for: Making $25 for test driving a Suzuki (Actually, I didn't even know Suzuki made cars - I just thought they made dirt bikes).

Posted by brian at 05:51 AM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2006

Best places to park cash

My dad asked me where to park some cash. I told him I'd hang onto it for him, but that didn't fly. I get this kind of question a lot and I end up looking at a few websites (bankrate.com, MSN, etc.) and compiling a list for people.

Well, this time I thought, 'Someone must've already done this type of list already'. So I used this new-fangled thing called a 'search engine' I heard about called "Google", and found the lists. Ain't the internet cool?

This forum topic keeps track of the best interest rates for checking, savings, and money markets. It's continuously updated many times a day by people scouring the internet and newspapers, looking for the highest interest rates.

You'll find over 1000 posts, but the best deals are summarized in the first page. For example, I quickly found that MBNA is offering 5.33% APY on a MMA (through AAA).

If you're after a CD, a similar topic keeps track of CD rates (3 mo/6 mo/.../up to 5 yr). Again, you have a ton of people out there looking for deals and continuously updating the list.

You can do a little better than 5.33% in CDs, but for maximum flexibility and liquidity, I'm sticking with money market accounts for now.

Posted by brian at 08:06 PM | Comments (0)

August 07, 2006

Bank of America likes to give away money

Lately, BofA has been offering $50 to open new checking and savings accounts but either no one is going for it or they just decided to be generous. Here's $100 to open a checking account.

I like BofA because I can find the ATMs everywher. Plus, when we went to England, we could use the Barclays ATMs with our BofA ATM cards free of charge.

As always, there's a catch. For the offer linked above, you get hit with a $5.95 monthly fee unless you have direct deposit. You can get around it by transferring at least $25/month from BofA checking or you might be able to get around this by transfering funds from Paypal, ING, HSBC, etc. into your BofA account regularly.

The last time I took BofA's money, I got the bonus in about 30 days. So you could always try out the account and keep it if you like it, or close it, pay one month's worth of $5.95, and walk away with $94.05 (plus a little interest).

I ended up closing my account, by the way. We don't go to England that often and WaMu has a lot of ATMs, too.

Posted by brian at 04:21 PM | Comments (2)