Benefits of Merchant Accounts Online

Merchant accounts have been proven to be of great help and facility to the Merchants in the context of their day to day financial dealings with their clients and customers. With the continuing recession in the world, the value and worth of money is continually decreasing, especially in the third world countries like Pakistan. The worth of money is decaying day by day, for example, the cost of the things in the market has increased to more than double of their previous prices. According to a survey, a normal household that used to shop for grocery at the beginning of each month, spent about ten thousand, but now due to recession, the cost of the same amount of grocery has now reached to about twenty-three thousand. It is at this step that the benefits of the facility of merchant accounts online come into practice. The customers instead of carrying this big amount of money with them at the time of grocery they can make the use of debit or credit card, with the help of the facility of online merchant accounts. This is a big facility for the customers in this unsafe environment, to avoid carrying cash with them. Another important benefit of the opening merchant accounts online to the merchants is the fact that the sale of their shop also increases. Sometimes it happens that people come for just window shopping and don’t carry any cash with them, but at the shop it happens that they find some product to be appealing and in their range, so now they can still buy that product using their credit card although they have not brought money with them. In this way, the sale of the shop can increase by a considerable mark. Another important benefit of an online merchant account to the merchant is the facility of lesser tax deductions as compared to ordinary bank accounts in their everyday transactions.

Making Quick Money

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’re saying to yourself, “I need money desperately ,” but you don’t have any idea as to where to get the cash? You’re not entirely alone in being in that kind of desperate situation but you don’t have to stay with the others and just sink in. There are ways that you can get some quick money real fast and here are some of them:

1. If you already have a job then that just means that what you are earning from you work is not enough. Time to think about getting a part time job.

2. Think about starting a small business. It does not have to be a huge undertaking. You could start selling some stuff. If you have always had an idea for an enterprise then maybe it’s time to act on it.

3. Right now an online business makes more sense than a traditional kind of enterprise. With an online business you need not come up with a huge amount as an investment. You just have to invest in time and a huge amount of effort. There are many ways that you can start an online business. One of the best ways to begin is to start selling extra stuff that you have on a site like eBay.

4. Start doing some odd jobs in your neighbourhood. There is always a need for manual labour and if you are not adverse to the idea of getting your hands dirty then this one of the fastest ways that you can earn some quick cash.

5. If you really need the money fast and there is no time for you to earn it, there are websites that are offering payday loans without having to run a check on your credit score.

These days you really need to handle your finances well. Once you have managed your personal finances well enough then maybe you’ll get to the point where you might want to find out more about the right method of investment and things like day trading tips and tricks.

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!!!

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.

Chase Freedom Mastercard $100 Bonus and 0% APR on Balance Transfers for 12 Months

It has been a bit of a while, but it seems that the major credit card issuers are finally bringing back some of the great offers that we saw prior to this whole housing mess. The Chase Freedom Mastercard is one of those cards that has a great offer if you are looking for a new credit card.

There is a $100 bonus when you spend $500 in the first 3 months after opening the account. And in addition to the bonus, there is a 0% APR for 12 months on Balance Transfers that are made within the first 30 days that the account in open. Note that there is a balance transfer fee of either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater, however if you have a balance on another card with a higher interest rate, you will most likely save money moving it to a 0% rate. There is also a promo rate of 0% for 6 months on all purchases made with the card.

The Chase Freedom Mastercard also is a rewards card. It earns cash back based on the type of merchants that you shop at. The card earns 5% cash back up to $100 spent in bonus categories each quarter and 1% cash back on everything else.

There is no annual fee for this card, and once your 12 months are up, the interest rate will be 11.99% – 22.99% based on your credit worthiness.

To see the 5% categories as well as more details on the card, check out the Chase Freedom Mastercard account page.

$100 Brokerage Promotions

If you are looking to jump back into the market and are looking for a new broker, there are currently 2 active promos where you can get $100 when opening a new brokerage account. Here are the details:

$100 Tradeking Refer a  Friend Promo -  Get $100 when you open a new account, deposit $1000 and make 1 trade within 80 days. (See post for more details) – Note that this offer expires 4/14/11, so open your account today!

OptionsXpress $100 New Account Bonus – Get $100 when you open a new trading account with at least $500 and make 3 trades within 12 months of opening the account. (See post for more details) Note that it was just announced that OptionsXpress will be merging with Charles Schwab, so there is no telling if this offer will expire prior to the 12/31/11 date posted on their site.

I have accounts with both and use Tradeking for stocks and OptionsXpress for options. I really haven’t had any issues with either. I have had to call OptionsXpress’ customer service a few times but everything was resolved quickly.

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