Where’s My Tax Rebate?

 As the electronic payouts for the rebate are complete, you may be asking your self “I was supposed to get mine via direct deposit, but didn’t, what’s up?”.

Well it seems that now more details are coming forward about the rebates. I have just found out that when you filed, if you elected to have your tax preparation fees taken out of your refund, rather then paying for them seperately, you will be receiving your rebate via a paper check, even though your refund was through direct deposit. Check the Payout Schedule to see when your check might arrive.

Another issue that has arose is that around 350,000 people were missing the $300 per child payment as part of their rebate. This was an error for people that used commercial tax preparation software such as TurboTax or TaxCut. The IRS will be issuing letters to those people to let them know of the error. Checks for the $300 per child will be issued in July to those affected.

Be sure to use the Rebate Status Tool to check the status of your rebate if you haven’t received it yet. Also, be sure to review your rebate and make sure it is the correct amount that you are expecting. With some of the glitches we have seen thus far, it is possible that more could be uncovered.

Saving Money on Gas

Now-a-days it seems like anyone will do anything to offset the rising cost of gas. At the end of the day there is not much we can do about the price, but there are things you can do to extend gas mileage and try to discount the gas price.

There are many things that you can do to offset the price of gas so it doesn’t hit you that hard. Its funny how we take these for granted when gas was at $2 / gallon, but now since it has increased over 100% everyone is looking to do anything. Here are some ideas for you:

Keep your maintenance up to date. A well-tuned engine burns less gas. Get regular tuneups and follow through with routine maintenance as that will lower gas consumption in the long run.

Remove excess junk from your car. Yes all that stuff weighs something and in the end your car is going to need more gas to move that extra weight. I have even heard of people removing their spare tire and seats (if removable) to cut down on the car weight.

Don’t accelerate to fast and try to not drive faster than 55. Accelerating fast uses much more gas then accelerating at a slower pace. As you start to drive faster than 55, your gas milage significantly decreases. So stop the road raging and turn that into gas savings.

Get a rebate on gas. There are many credit cards out there that give you up to 5% of the price of gas. The card I use for all my gas purchases is the Blue Cash® from American Express . This card gives you 5% back on all your gas purchases. So think of it this way, if gas is currently $4/ gallon, then after the rebate you are only paying $3.80 / gallon. Most people I know would drive around town looking for a gas station with a price like that.

If you are highway driving, keeping the windows up helps reduce air resistance in the car, so having the AC on can actually reduce gas consumption. However when driving in stop and go traffic, you are better off with the AC off and the windows down.

These are just some ideas that I use to keep my costs down. Since I drive 100 miles a day round trip for my job, I am looking for anyway to stop giving the oil companies my hard earned dollars!!!

Cut Down on Email Spam

I have recently been using Yahoo’s Mail Plus email account. Basically it is an uprade from Yahoo’s Free Email account.

There are some neat features like larger attachment size, more filters, etc, but the best feature is the Disposable Email Addresses. Disposable Email Addresses are just what they sound like, email addresses that you can throw away when you want.

Say for example my email address is: [username]@yahoo.com. I don’t want this to get on any spam lists otherwise I will be receiving spam forever! Yahoo Mail Plus lets you select a keyword, and then create multiple address off of it that forward mail sent to them to your main account.

For example if I choose the keyword [keyword], then I all the address I would create would have that key word as a prefix, you just choose the word after the prefix:

[keyword]-mail@yahoo.com
[keyword]-shopping@yahoo.com
[keyword]-amazon@yahoo.com
[keyword]-[....]@yahoo.com
All of the above would forward to my main account [username]@yahoo.com.

The neat thing about this is once you start seeing spam coming to one of these address, you can just delete it and no more spam. I use a disposable address for each specific account I have do I can easly filter emails and put them in their corresponding folders. You can also send outbound email with a disposable addess as your return address so that you don’t have to disclose your real email address.

Currently Yahoo only charges $19,95 per year for Mail Plus, I would be willing to pay up to $100 / year for this feature since it keeps my mailbox clean. (I hope Yahoo doesn’t read this!).

I can’t tell you how much I love this feature and how it helps me stay organized. I don’t think I will be leaving my Yahoo Mail Plus email account anytime soon!

Want more? Get it withYahoo! Mail Plus.

$200 Bonus For Opening Citibank Checking Account

I stopped off at Citibank this morning to pay my Home Equity Loan and saw a promo card at the counter for $200 free when opening Checking Account. Unfortunetly Citibank only allows one bonus per person per lifetime and I have already used mine on a similiar promo to this one. This is a good one to get in on if you haven’t had a checking account with them before. $200 is one of their higher bonuses.

Here is what you need to do:

• Call their new accounts line @ 1-800-374-9500 or go to a local branch (The rep said that you can also go to offer.citibank.com and enter the code, however you will not see a description of the promo)
• Tell them you want to open a new checking account and reference offer code CEMX
• Make a $1000 initial deposit by June 30th. (previously you could use a credit card to do this online, I did and it was treated like a purchase)

Bonus Payout Details:

• You will receive $100 after 3 months having direct deposit or using online bill pay for 2 bills per month.
• You will receive another $100 after 3 more months of direct deposit or bill pay usage.

This promo expires 6/30/08 so be sure to jump in on this one. Not a bad deal for only 6 months of using bill pay!

$100 Bonus From Discover Business Card

Discover Business Card is offering a $100 bonus when you sign up for the . To qualify, you need to spend $1000 on your card within the first 3 months of your account opening. (NOTE: 3.0% for each balance transfer made under this offer, with a minimum of $5 and a maximum of $75.)

This card also offers a 0% balance transfer for 12 months as well as as up to 5% cashback on every purchase. See the application page link below for the details.

This isn’t a bad deal since many card issuers have either removed their bonuses, of lowered them significantly.

Discover® Business Card Application Page

3 Days Left To Get Your Free $25 Bonus

Thursday May 15th is the last day for the $25 bonus promotion from revolutionmoneyexchange. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are a rival to PayPal. It’s free to send, receive, and withdraw money, but the only funding source allowed is your bank account. (See my earlier Post).

There is no minimum to open the account and the $25 is yours to do what you want with. If you are interested, sign up by clicking the button below:

If you are looking to score some free money, it doesn’t get any easier than this!

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