$50 Tradeking Promo Ends Saturday

EDIT: This promotion has ended. Their latest promo can be found HERE.

If you still want to get in on the Tradeking Promo where you can get a free $50 when opening an account and making a trade, this is your reminder the last day to open the account in on October 31st, which in fact is Halloween. So before you get all scarried up and beg for free stuff, open that account now.

 

So while you are getting that free candy, why not get some free cash as well. Check out the tradeking promo page for more details.

Another Woot Off Going On Now

Woot.com is having another of its Woot Offs right now. It started around midnight central time and will go until they run out of stuff. If you are unfamiliar with Woot.com, they are a site that offers items at a discount. Usually only one item is listed per day starting at 12am Central Time and is listed until it is sold out or 11:59PM Central Time.

A Woot Off, which happens rarely, is a number of products that are for sale on a particular day or successive days. One product follows another as soon as it has been sold out. The number of Woot-Off items, sequence, and quantity will not be announced so an item could take a while to sell out or sell out immediately. Don’t miss a chance to score some items at a steal if you have some money to blow! But remember, that I prefer you really think about saving it.

Save Money When You Rent College Text Books

For any of you that are in or have gone to college, you pretty much know that after paying tuition, books can be another huge expense. Lets face it, the greedy authors rewrite the same book year after year to force you to buy a new edition with little chance getting a fraction of that cost back when you trade in your books at the end of the semester.

Well I came across this interesting company Chegg.com where you can actually rent college textbooks for a fraction of the cost of buying them in the college bookstores.

Here is an example of a chemistry book I had at college. (Taken from Follets.com)

Now take a look at how much it costs to rent that same book at Bookswim:

That is a savings of over $44 for a semester rental. Wow I wish this place was around when I went to college. I think I only got $15 back when I returned my new chemistry book. They also offer longer period rentals if need be, and when you are done with the book, you return it to them vis UPS for FREE. All of this with a 30-Day “Any Reason” guarantee included makes this one a no brainer, especially if you no longer have the need for the book once you are done with the class.

Trying to find cheap college textbooks was always a priority for me. I used to check the prices at all the store and went with the lowest one. This site would have saved me hundreds if not thousands over my 4 years of school. For any of you starving college kids, you should definetly check out Chegg.com. Just think of all the money you can save to spend on more beer!

$50 Bonus from Chase Freedom Card

The Chase Freedom Card is one of Chase’s best reward credit cards. It gives you back a flat 1% on all purchases like most reward cards out there, but also gives back 3% on rotating categories that change over time. You can even go a step further by getting up to 20% cash back when you buy from merchants online through Chase.com.

Chase is currently giving away a $50 cash back bonus after your first purchase using the card. All you have to do is Apply Now for the Chase Freedom(SM) credit card and make one purchase with the card to qualify. The bonus will be posted to your account 6-8 weeks after that qualifying first purchase.

Depeding on your credit rating you can also qualify for a 0% ARY on purchase for up to 12 months. If you are looking to upgrade to a new rewards card and get a little free cash along with it, then why not Apply Now for the Chase Freedom(SM) credit card

Originally Posted At: Budgetcents.net

No 2010 Stamp Price Increase

What does any company do when they are bleeding money? Well raise prices of course. But interesteringly enough for the cash strapped United States Postal Service, they have decided not to increase stamp prices in 2010. So that means your forever stamps aren’t going to increase in value this year. According to the USPS:

The Postal Service will not increase prices for market dominant products in calendar year 2010.

Simply stated, there will not be a price increase for market dominant products including First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, periodicals and single-piece Parcel Post.

I think the USPS is on that catch-22 of needing to make more money since consumer mail revenue is down, but raising prices will drive that down even further. There are talks on the books about closing some 3500 post offices and laying off non essential employees. It is good to finally see the USPS run like a real business and tightening its belt rather than gouging customers.

I personally use them for shipping when I sell things via eBay. They have a free package pickup where your postal carrier comes to your door to pick up your package. Can’t beat that as UPS charges $4 per pickup and that doesn’t include the shipping costs. I also buy nothing other than forever stamps, I mean why not they are the same price and they insulate you from having to use 1 cent stamps when stamp prices do increase. And I hate 1 cent stamps!

2010 401k Roth IRA contribution limits

With the econonmy in the crapper everyone was afraid that the IRS was going to lower the 2010 401k and Roth IRA limits. But when the IRS finally released the 2010 numbers everyone, including myself, was happy to see that they kept the limits the same as 2009.

Here is the breakdown:

2010 401k Contributions
Contribution Limit: $16,500
Catch-up 50 years and older: $5,500

2010 Roth IRA Contributions
Contribution Limit: $5,000
Catch-up 50 years and older: $1,000

So as you can see there is no real difference from last year. Don’t forget that you can contribute to a ROTH IRA up intil April 15th for the previous year.

My advice for retirement savings is to always contribute to your 401k up to the company match, if any. Then max out your Roth IRA to $5000 before increasing your contribution in your 401k to try to max it out at $16,500.

With the recent recovery in the market I think people are starting to realize that long term investing is the way to go as long as you shift your portfolio to safer investments as your time to retirement decreases.

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