Save 15 Cents Per Gallon at Exxon Mobil

I just received an email from Exxon Mobil where you can save 15 cents per gallon when using your Speedpass when you fill up for the next 60 days or 100 gallons, whichever comes first. You will not see the savings at the pump, however will get a credit on your card as one lump sum on gas that you used the speedpass for. It should appear when you reach 100 gallons or after 60 days, whichever comes first. Check out their Promotion FAQ for more details.

Just sign up for the promotion at the Exxon Mobile Speedpass site. You need to register an online account with them if you haven’t done so already.

If you are unfamiliar with a Speedpass device, it is a little key fob that you wave in front of the machine to active the gas pump. It links to your credit card, so you no longer have to use your credit card at the gas station. Exxon Mobil gas stations also have readers inside as well as at the car washes. No more dealing with money or credit cards anymore.

If you don’t already have a Exxon Mobil speedpass, you can Sign Up Here then register for the promotion after your account is created.

You figure with current gas prices at around $4. Getting $.15 gallon off is like saving 3.75% at the pump. Not a lot, but at least you can brag to your friends that you only paid 3.85 for gas while they still paid $4!!!

Fidelity Rolls Out eCheck Deposit for Smart Phones

Fidelity recently made updates to its iPhone and Android apps (sorry nothing for you blackberry users yet!) to allow for depositing checks using the phones integrated camera. You just go to the “Transact” menu on the Fidelity Moble App then select “Depost Checks”. From there you snap a picture of the front and the back of the check as well as add the depost amount and that is it. Like the other banks that offer this, you need to hold the check for a period of time, just in case they can’t make out the images on their end. Chase was the first large bank to roll this out, then followed by State Farm. It is nice to finally see the Brokerages getting into the game.

For those of you that are unaware, Fidelity offers an FDIC insured checking account called My Smart Cash Checking. This account doesn’t have any minumums and fully rebates all ATM fees. Having a checking account with your broker is great in the fact that you can have all your accounts in one place, and it provides for immediate cash transfers into your brokerage and retirement accounts.

Now with the check deposit feature you can have a totally free checking without even ever having to go to a branch. Not sure why they keep building more banks around where I live, since I haven’t actually been in a branch in years!!!!!!

Save Money By Renting Textbooks Instead Of Buying Them

As you can probably tell from the lack of consistent posting on this site, there is something else keeping my busy. Well you were right. I recently have started back at school to pursue my MBA. It has been a while since I did my undergrad when I graduated in 1997. Back then the Internet was still a baby and you actually had to go to a book store to buy your textbooks. Well these days, there are a bunch of sites where you can by textbooks and then resell them later and they usually are much cheaper that the campus book stores.

I came across a site called Chegg.com where you can actually rent textbooks. This saves you the hassle of buying them and then trying to sell them. I remember back in college when you would spend $100 on a book just to realize after you took your final that they would be a new version of the book and they weren’t going to buy yours back. Lets just say I have a bunch of useless books in my basement.

I decided to look into the text book rental a bit more. As I had just completed my first MBA class, I did a quick comparison. I purchased the text book Organizational Behavior from Amazon.com for $169.34, which was about $40 cheaper than the bookstore my school recommended. I then sold it back to amazon using their trade-in program for $89.20. So I only ended up paying $80.14 for the use of the book. Well I took a look at Chegg.com and their rental price for the book was $60.70 for the dates that would have covered my class.

A savings of $20 would have definitely been handy. I then checked for my upcoming class and it is a savings of over $35. I ordered the book through their website and just received it yesterday. It comes in a reusable box and contains info on how to print a return shipping label for free once you are ready to send it back. The nice thing is that all shipping is included in the rental price. All you have to do is make sure you send the book back by the rental expiration date.

At this point, I think I am going to switch to textbook rental. Obviously it doesn’t make sense to rent if you actually want to keep the book, but for right now I am just taking general education required classes which I could really care less about keeping the book.

If you are in undergrad or grad school, I would definitely take a look at Chegg.com and do the comparison between them and the other bookstores to see if money can be saved on the books. Lets face it, tuition isn’t cheap anymore and for some reason the cost of books increases right along with it, so why not do what you can to keep a little bit more money in your pocket.

Once I send the book back I will do a more indepth Chegg.com review for you all.

Hostgator Now Offers Shared Windows Hosting

For those of you website builders out there, after a long beta testing period, Hostgator has now finally started offering Shared Windows Hosting.

They have offered unix hosting for sometime now which I use quite a bit for various sites that I have running. The unix packages are great for hosting wordpress blogs and other simple sites. I have been looking forward to their Windows hosting for sometime now as I do side jobs that require the use of Microsoft SQL Server and Visual Studio.net which I cannot do on a Unix shared package. I currently am using another provider, which shall remain nameless, and I am not very happy with their reliability. So this new is great.

They offer 2 Windows Shared Hosting Plans. Personal and Enterprise. The personal will get you one domain and the enterprise will get you 5. Other than that everything else between the 2 packages is the same, including unlimited disk space and bandwidth which is awesome!

The personal shared windows hosting starts at $4.76 / month and the Enterprise plan starts at $14.36 / month. These prices include a 20% of promo and are based on how long you sign up for initially.

I have never had any complaints with Hostgator. This site actually runs on one of their shared unix hosting plans and is very rarely not available. For the cost you can’t beat their service as well as support process. When I have a question, I just submit a ticket and it is answered almost immediately. Ok, I need to wrap up this post so that I can sign up.

Check out there Shared Windows Hosting promo page for more details!

Need a Notary?

Once again I found myself in a situation where I needed to sign a doc and there was a requirement for a Notary Public to sign it as well. For those of you that are unaware, a Notary Public is someone legally empowered to witness signatures and certify a document’s validity. Usually in cases like this, I head over to my local bank as they provide me with Notary services for free. Well not thinking, my bank was recently shut down by the FDIC and the bank that took over fired the only registered Notary Public they had. I always thought a bank needed to have one due to mortgages, but I guess in this case not.

After doing some searching around, I found that UPS Storesoffer Notary Public services. I headed over to the one near me and he actually did it for free. He told me that usually he charges $1 / signature, but he did it for free if I would come back and use their services if and when I needed them. I really don’t use packaging services much since I have enough old Amazon.com boxes and packing material, I just do it myself. But I am definitely going to go there if needed. They just gained a customer!

Anyone can become a Notary Publicif you meet the criteria. This made me start thinking, why not just sign up and charge a buck for my signature. Not sure how often a Notary is needed, but a dollar for 2 seconds is not that bad of a deal. Plus you get a cool stamp to impress your friends with!! Now if only I could notarize documents over the Internet.