SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE LATEST POSTS VIA EMAIL!Free Ink Cartridge Refill at Walgreens
March 31, 2008
In attempts to get people to start using their new Ink Refilling Machines, Walgreens is giving away a Free Ink Cartridge Refill on Tuesday April 2nd.
You can get a refill of either Color or Black ink. Here is a list of the cartridges that the machines support. Unfortunetly Cannon and Epson cartridges are excluded from this offer.
Print out this Coupon and take it with your emptry ink cartridge.
$100 Bonus from Key Bank Free Checking
March 31, 2008
Key Bank is giving out a $100 bonus when openeing a Free Checking Account. You must open the checking account by 4/25/08 and make a combination of two direct deposits and/or automated payments each of $100 or more by 6/27/08. You’ll receive a $100 MasterCard gift card within 90 days of meeting the requirements. Here are the details around the Direct Deposit and Automated Payment requirements that they posted in their smll print section: Direct deposit transactions are limited to: payroll, social security, pension and government benefits. Automated payments exclude Key Bill Pay, debit card automated payments, PayPal® transactions and account to account balance transfers.
If you close your account within 180 days of account opening, you will be charged a $25 account early closure fee.
Here are a few of the Key Bank Free Checking Features:
Link to Account Details and Application Page
Stop Using Paper Checks!
March 30, 2008
With the crazy number of reward credit cards out there, why would you use a paper check and receive nothing for the transaction. Personally I use the Amex Blue Cash Card (see post) and get 5% back at Gas Stations, Drugstores and Grocery Stores. I get 1.5% back on everything else. Last year I got around $800 back using my Amex Blue Cash Card for every purchase that accepted credit cards, as well as utility bills and other payments.
If you write checks to have a little “float time” on your purchase, with the use of the new Check21 processing, now the amount of your purchase can be deducted from your account immediately and you don’t even receive the paper check back as paper record of your purchase.
Another reason to drop the checks is have you ever lost your check book? Some banks force you to do a stop payment on each individual check you lost. Those fees can range from $5 – $20 per check, so watch that add up! Plus, most banks still charge you for checks. Why waste the money? Save it!
The only thing I think personal checks are still good for is for payments to people such as piano lessons, giving $50 to your grandson for his birthday, etc. But if you are in the checkout line at a grocery store and are writing a check, you better hope I am not behind you since I will let you have it! At least use a debit card for crying out loud!
If you are still using paper checks and my post hasn’t forced you to rethink switching over to a rewards credit card, please leave a comment and tell me why!
2008 Tax Rebate Stimulus Payment Scenarios
March 29, 2008
Update: See my latest posts on the Tax Rebate Payout Details in the 2008 Tax Rebate Category!
The IRS has just posted a bunch of scenarios to help you determine if and how much of the 2008 Tax Stimulas Rebate that will be paid out later this year.
Be sure to check them out if you are still unclear whether or not you will be getting a rebate. Also, don’t forget that you need to file that 2007 tax return to get a rebate. Also, for a faster rebate payout be sure to file via direct deposit!
Dental Insurance – You Need It! Do You Have It?
March 29, 2008
Dental Insurance seems to be more of a luxury these days as more and more employers don’t offer it. My current place of work only offers health insurance to keep costs low, so I finally decided to start looking around of some Dental Insurance on my own as we have been too lucky with no dental issues and I expect the other shoe to drop soon. Obviously it is not as important as health insurance, but in the end it is nice to know you have some sort of protection if needed.
Geez, where to start? There has to be over 10,000 ads and scams out there regarding Dental Insurance. Everywhere you go on the internet you see Dental Insurance ads. Most of them don’t look legit, so I thought I would share my personal exprerience with you. I stumbled upon DentalPlans.com. They seemed to be legit enough from the look of their website so I thought I would see what they had to offer. It was comforting to see that they had some bigger name plans from GE and Aetna, rather than fly by night shops I have never heard of that would disappear the day before your root canal.
Since I am married with a baby on the way I needed to look for Family Dental Plans. Now don’t forget that since you are getting the insurance your self it is gonna cost you a bit more, especially if you are needing family coverage. There is still going to be out of pocket costs, but the idea is to minimize them as much as possible. My main goal was to find a plan that picks up 6 month checkups. Since we both get 2 a year I wanted to make sure that we weren’t paying more out of pocket just for the simple exams.
After going through pretty much all the plans, we decided on GE Wellness Plan (Dental Only). This plan costs $159.95 per year for a family. It covers 6 month checkups up to $43 per visit. So for two people twice a year, the plan will already pay for itself. We will just need to pay for the cleanings which run about $60 per adult which are discounted from $83 per the plan. So there is still some cost involved, but at least it isn’t full price and is managable. Like with health insurance, the real savings come in when you need major dental work done, which thankfully neither of us have needed, knock on wood.
The whole process using DentalPlans.com was pretty painless. You don’t need to sign up to register to see pricing. You just sign up when you are ready to enroll in a plan. I did call their 800 number since I had a few questions and they were very helpful and courteous ( a rarity these days when dealing with health-care folks!!!).
I did notice that they currently are having a promotion that if you use the coupon code: SELECT you will get 10% off of any plan. Unfortunately I signed up before this promo, but just having the security of dental insurance is good enough for me. Now all I need to do is get all my teeth knocked out! 
Amazon MP3 Music Store Review
March 28, 2008
Since the URGE Music Store has been purchased by Rhapsody I have been looking for a new outlet to buy my music. URGE was alright, but it required a software install into Windows Media Player. URGE also used DRM (Digital Rights Management), so I could not play the songs anywhere other than my PC I downloaded them on. There might have been a way to do this by copying the licenses but I could never figure it out.
Fast forward to today. I decided that in my next music store, I wasn’t going to go with a site that had DRM or that required me to install software. I have 3 pc’s and a WindowsMobile Smart phone, I want to play the same song on all 4 devices easily.
After some research I decided to check out the Amazon MP3 Music Store
Bingo! I think I found what I was looking for:
- No DRM!
- No software to install (there is an application you can install if you want easier music management, but it is not required. You essentially just download the raw .mp3 file)
- Most all songs are .89 or .99
- Large selection of artists (They are not focused on just Pop or Rap)
I have been using the Amazon MP3 Music Store
This is not really a “Saving Money” post, but I have been able to save time by not having to burn a DRM song to a CD then RIP it back off just to get the song to play on other machines. Hey, didn’t someone say TIME=MONEY?
