I'll Never Pay for Long Distance Again

I did a post a couple of weeks ago recommending Google's latest acquisition - GrandCentral.com. If you didn't read that post, you can take a look at it HERE.

I've been thinking about GrandCentral since then - trying to figure out what, if anything, I could do with this kind of service. As a refresher, they give you a phone number and you can give that number out and your calls to that number will automatically be forwarded to any number you designate. Well - after a couple of weeks of thinking about it - I've figured out how that I can use a service like this.

Here's my plan. Anytime I need to call someone long distance, I simply go to GrandCentral first and enter the long distance phone I'm trying to call there. Then - when I call my OWN GrandCentral number (the number that got assigned to me when I signed up) my call will auto-forward to the long distance number of the person I'm trying to call. I've called a local number (my GrandCentral phone number is a local Charlotte number) and the service does the forwarding - so no long distance fees for me!

Give it a try! You can still sign up with the link in my earlier post.

Get 12% Off on All of Your Gas Purchases

I don't know about you, but my gas purchases are starting to get ridiculous. I filled up yesterday and it cost me nearly $48.00!?!? If prices go up much more (which they're predicting will happen), we could be talking about $60.00 fill ups - not to mention what the increase in gas prices does to your food costs, etc.

There is a card on the market that can help take the sting out of what you're paying at the pump. The Citi Driver's Edge MasterCard has some pretty unique features that make it attractive (especially for the first 12 months). The card offers a 6% rebate for the first 12 months on all gas, supermarket, and drug store purchases. It lowers to 3% after 12 months. The 6% deal is great, 3% is average.

Here's where the extra benefits kick in that make this a great card to get while gas prices are high. This card ALSO pays you a rebate of $.01 for every mile you drive in a year. If you drive 10,000 miles per year (pretty average mileage), that's an additional $100 rebate. The caveat is that mileage rebates have to be used for either a new/used car purchase OR auto maintenance costs. That shouldn't be hard however given that you're likely to do some type of oil change, tire rotation, air filter, etc. during the year that will add up to $100.

Crunch all the numbers out and you're getting roughly 12% back on this offer for the first year that you have the card. I'm not factoring in the money you'll get back from grocery and drugstore purchases either. Now - granted my tag line was a little misleading since you can really only apply the rebate to auto costs - not necessarily gas - but if you're saving one place, that's money that can be applied somewhere else - so it is a legit 12%. This is a great deal. I'm going to get the card, keep it for 12 months and then reevaluate! Please make sure to read the terms and conditions - it details what you have to do to get your mileage credits (fax/mail in receipts from car service places so they can verify mileage).

Website Recommendation: JetEye.com

JetEye.com is nothing like it sounds. When I first heard about it, I thought it was something to do with travel - and it's not at all. This is a cool site that can save you a lot of time - especially if you are a teacher, a researcher, or need help finding information on a particular topic.

JetEye.com basically allows you to take a shortcut - by posting other people's best links on a given topic. Groups of links are stored in what are called 'jet packs' and can be accessed and used by anyone on the site. For example, if you were interested in the 2008 Presidential Election or were doing research on the British monarchy, you could go to JetEye.com and type in those terms. Your results would be 'jet packs' - groups of links created by other people looking for similar information. By using other people's links, you're taking the shortcut of not having to weed through all the bad, non-useful links that you might get from a Google search and can head straight to information that someone else has already screened and deemed useful.

I don't know - maybe it's the fact that I actually like doing research - but I think this is a cool site and a cool concept. You can even take it a step farther and start creating your own jet packs for others to use. The more people that use the site, the better the information gets, and the more time we can all save by not having to wade through useless site after useless site in search of the one or two good ones. Give it a try next time you have something you want to learn more about!

Watch Sports on Your Computer - For Free!

I have my friend Todd to thank for today's website recommendation. Channelsurfing.net is a pretty bare bones, plain site. No fancy interface or pretty graphics to be found. That, however, does not lessen the 'coolness' of this site. What it offers are links to live video streams of sporting events from around the country and around the world. VERY COOL.

I have used the site to watch a number of blacked out NBA games or games that weren't being carried locally. I tested the site out today and saw that the Atlantic 10 basketball tournament was being shown. This is not to mention all the international sporting events that are linked to from the site (you can watch international soccer to your heart's content from this site). Todd has been spending some time on the west coast recently and told me that he watched the last UNC-Duke game on this site - all LIVE. Most live streaming sites are pay only and many don't have good performance. My experience with this site has been that it has very good performance and it's completely free! I will say that it doesn't always work well with Firefox (my preferred internet browser) - so if you want to give it a try, I recommend using Internet Explorer. Next time your favorite team isn't on showing in your area, give it a try. You might be able to watch online for free!

Website Recommendation: AllMyFaves.com

Have you ever seen that commercial where the guy is surfing the internet and gets a message telling him that he's reached the end of the internet and must go back? That's how I often feel. I often struggle to find good sites that I haven't seen before or have not already decided that I'm not interested in. The site I'm recommending today helps with that.

AllMyFaves.com is a site that brings you the best of the internet organized into categories. When you hit the site, you'll see lists of the top ten sites in various categories displayed. Site listings are updated weekly and you can also drill down into more specific categories for some topics. For example - it doesn't just list the top 10 entertainment sites, it allows you to drill down into TV dramas, movies, etc.

Next time you're on the hunt for some interesting content or want to try some sites that you haven't been to before, start here. You're likely to find something that's new and interesting!

Website Recommendation: UShip.com

My friend Matt introduced me to a new website this morning that I think people will find really useful. UShip.com is a startup company that aims to connect people that need to ship goods (whether that be boxes/packages across the country or household moves across town) with reliable moving companies. The great thing is that it's an auction style site. You list the particulars of your move and literally thousands of companies bid on the job. You can choose the shipper of your choice based on recommendations, price, feedback from other users, etc.! Even better - there's no cost to use the service!!

Here's just a quick example of how this might be a good site to bookmark for future reference. When I moved to Charlotte from Memphis almost four years ago, I was moving a 2 bedroom apartment (far less stuff than I have today). That move cost me over $4,000. I put in the particulars of that move on UShip (using their estimator tool) and it came back with a price in the $900 - $1200 range. Now - I'm sure that probably didn't include some of the extras that I purchased like packing and insurance - but it definitely looks like this is a place that you could go to save yourself some big time money.

A final note - my friend Matt knows one of the guys running the company and he says it's growing like crazy. I say that to let you know that this isn't some fly by night scam type website - we have actual human contact and have heard some of the 'back story' on the company. Give it a shot if you've got a move coming up, need to ship something you sell on Ebay, etc.

Don't Pay Full Price for Magazines

I don't think I've ever paid full retail price for a magazine subscription in my life. Most of my subscriptions have been gifts and if I choose to renew them, I usually wait for the "please don't let your subscription lapse" letter which always comes and then renew. You can find good prices on magazine subscriptions pretty easily by doing a little digging on Google or some of the deal sites. The offer I saw yesterday, however, is better than a good deal - it's a FANTASTIC deal.

Fandango.com, a movie ticket site, looks to be running a special for their customers where you can get a year's worth of top name magazines for $2.00. The great thing about it is that you don't have to do anything with Fandango to get the deal. Simply go HERE and you can sign up for up to 4 magazines. We're talking about expensive magazines like Sports Illustrated (usually $90 per year), Time, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, etc. $2.00 for a year of any of those magazines would definitely be worth it. That's lower than the cover price of one issue!

My understanding is that in one year's time, they'll send you a notification that your subscription is being auto-renewed and your credit card will be billed if you don't cancel. I, being the 'cheapskate' that I am, did not want to mess around with having to cancel (though I'm sure that'd be pretty easy), so I used a virtual credit card to pay for the subscriptions. What, you ask, is a virtual credit card? It's a one-time use Visa code that some credit card companies offer to their customers for online transactions. When these magazines try to renew next year, they'll get a denied message because my virtual card has already been used once! Check with your bank to see if it's a service they offer. I know that PayPal, Citi, and Bank of America all have the service.

Lending Club - Free Money Update

I posted last Monday about LendingClub.com's $25.00 free signup bonus. I'm happy to report that the ENTIRE process (enrolling, confirming my bank account, getting the $25.00 credit, and taking that money back out) took less than a week! That's really almost unheard of in the online banking/financial world. So...long story short, if you haven't signed up for an account at LendingClub, do it now. It's fast free money - and, like I said in my last post, if you want to try your hand at lending money, you could make it worth even more!

Stop Paying for Movie Rentals

Have you seen the video rental kiosks popping up in grocery stores all over the place? They're owned by a company called RedBox and the concept is pretty straight forward - $1 movie rentals dispensed from a machine. They require a credit card (which I assume is charged if you fail to return the movie) and all rentals are for one day. I tried the one from my local grocery store and it worked like a charm. Given that I live right down the street from the grocery store, it was much more convenient than going to Blockbuster too.

Now - here's the cool thing - this company offers promotions all the time for free rentals and there is a site out there that tracks and publishes them. So - next time you're headed to the grocery store, stop over at InsideRedBox and write down a couple of the codes they've got published. Then - when you're at the store, grab a free video rental! If you don't have a RedBox kiosk in your grocery store, you can go HERE to find out where the closest kiosk is.

Website Recommendation: GrandCentral.com

This may be old news to some of you - but it's a site that I just learned about in the last couple of weeks so I thought I'd share it with you. GrandCentral is a company that has recently been acquired by Google (that should tell you something about the site right there - Google doesn't buy companies that don't have something special to offer). The site offers users a FREE centralized phone number. You can then set-up your Grand Central account to ring any of your phones - cell, home, work, etc. - when that one centralized phone number is called. You can also set up the site to screen your calls for you, route different calls to different numbers depending on who's calling, get voicemail that you can listen to over the web, and even play the 'this number has been disconnected' message when you get called by telemarketers or someone you don't want to talk to. It's pretty powerful and I haven't even explored all the features that the site has!

Britney and I were talking about it this weekend and thought of another pretty cool use for the site. If you have friends, relatives, etc. in another state, sign up for a number that's local to those people. They can call the local number and the site will forward the call on to you - at no cost!

Up until recently, the site has been closed to new users. Last week they opened it up for everyone, so go get your number before they're all gone. Sign-up link is HERE.

Free $25.00 and a Chance at an Infinite Return!

I've talked in the past couple of weeks about venturing into the world of social lending and so far, so good. I've got $500.00 in loans over at Prosper.com and my average rate of return is over 16%. I'll let you know if anything starts going south and people start defaulting.

Today's deal comes from Prosper's main competitor - LendingClub.com. LendingClub is offering a promotion of $25.00 for opening a new account. The site operates much the same way as Prosper - people can lend and borrow money from each other rather than through a bank. It gives lenders a chance to get better returns and borrowers a chance to get more favorable terms than they might get elsewhere. LendingClub's special deal is an effort to get more people borrowing and lending. Here's how to take advantage of the deal:

1. Go to LendingClub.com and sign up to open an account and become a lender.
2. After entering some basic information about yourself, LendingClub will send you an email to verify your account.
3. After verifying your account with the link they send in your email, go back to LendingClub.com, log in, and enter your bank account information on the Bank Account page.
4. In the next couple of days, LendingClub will either add a few cents to your account or take a few cents from your account and you will need to go back to LendingClub and verify the amounts added/taken away (usually it's like two 15 cent credits/debits). This is how financial sites verify that you are the owner of the bank account that you listed and is standard for online financial sites - nothing to worry about!
5. Once your bank account is verified, fund your LendingClub account with $1.00.

That's all there is to it. The promotion states that new accounts that are funded with $1-$999 are eligible for the $25.00 promotion. The site will credit your account within a week of the $1.00 going into your account. Free money!

Now - you could stop there if you just want to get the cash. But - if you're willing to actually fund a loan on the site, you have a chance for an INFINITE return (you invested $0 and any amount that you get in return would equal an infinite return!). LendingClub allows lenders to fund loans in $25.00 increments (Prosper requires $50.00 increments) - so if you want to try to get more than the free $25.00, turn around and lend out that $25.00. You get to shop around and find a loan that you're interested in making based on the proposed interest rate, borrower information, etc. Lend that money out and give the site a test drive. It costs you nothing and offers the rare chance of getting an unbelievable rate of return!

By the way - I realize that you actually invested $1.00 (not $0) - but as soon as the promotional funds hit your account, you can transfer that $1.00 back to yourself - so you really have not invested anything at all!

Website Recommendation: File2HD.com

I hesitate a little bit to post a recommendation for this site simply because I know that not everyone that reads this blog is computer saavy. Let me preface this recommendation by saying that if you're not at least a little bit comfortable with computers, this site won't be useful to you. If you are, however, this site is pretty cool.

File2HD.com lets you save files off of websites onto your hard drive. This site does things that you can't do on your own by just right-clicking and selecting save. For example, you can enter a MySpace page and tell the site that you're interested in saving the audio files off the site and it will give you the ability to do so. That is something that, without the help of a tool like this, is virtually impossible to do. All you have to do to use the site is enter a website and tell it what type of file you're interested in saving (audio, images, etc.). File2HD will examine the page you entered and gather all of the data that can be saved off of the page. I use it all the time to do things like save pictures and music.

Sorry for posting a site that isn't applicable to everyone, but this is a cool tool for those that can figure out how to operate it so I wanted to go ahead and share. Drop me a note if you can't figure it out and I'll try to help.

An Idea for an Online Business

Believe it or not, I was actually asked to speak to my Sunday School class last week on the topic of personal finance. I am betting that invitation had more to do with my parents being the teachers than any expertise I might have in this area - but I was asked nonetheless. One of my primary recommendations was for people to start a home business - both for the income stream it may generate and for the tax advantages. I've had my CD business for nearly 8 years now and it has helped with my Roth IRA, vacations for my family, and a lot of other things that my primary income would not cover. The problem that people have with starting a business is that they often can't come up with an idea. Today I'm giving you a business idea for free.

Two days ago I posted about two sites that give you money for your old electronics - SecondRotation.com and TechForward.com. Given that both of these sites will tell you UPFRONT what the value of the electronics are, you could actually start a business buying electronics on Ebay, Craigslist, Freecycle, etc. and 'flipping' them to these companies that buy the devices. You buy the device and immediately sell it to SecondRotation and/or TechForward and pocket the difference between what you pay and what you sell it for. Pay for the items with your credit card and you can theoretically start the business with no money out of pocket.

If I wasn't already busy with my job and the CD business, I'd give it a shot. If anybody actually tries it, let me know how it works out - and don't say I never gave you anything!

Get a Better Credit Card

I love going to Costco. I've mentioned the benefits you can get from shopping at warehouse clubs in some of my earlier posts. Yesterday, however, I had an annoying experience at Costco that reminded me to post about something that I've been meaning to discuss and that some people don't know.

I was going through the checkout line and gave my American Express card to the cashier (Costco only takes cash/debit or American Express). The cashier made some kind of motion when she saw my card and the next thing I knew, some lady appeared at my side trying to push the Costco AmEx card on me. I felt really bothered by the fact that the cashiers were summoning these shills over whenever someone paid with a card that wasn't the Costco branded card. It felt to me like they were using semi-private information (what kind of card I use) for their own benefit. I didn't like it one bit.

Anyway - the lady gave me her best pitch, trying to get me to sign up for the card. She was telling me about how I could get 3% back on gas purchases (except when I purchased from their competitors at Sams & BJs!) and 1% on other purchases. I listened to her explain all the benefits and then simply told her that I was sorry - my current AmEx has better benefits. She told me that this was not possible since their card was the best consumer AmEx card. That's exactly my point - I don't have a consumer AmEx card! I have a business AmEx card and you can have one too. Anybody can have a business AmEx - all you have to do is fill out the application and list your business as a sole proprietorship with one employee (yourself). You use your own Social Security number as the tax id. That's all there is to it!

Most credit card companies give much more favorable terms on their business cards since these often get issued to companies that are large and have many employees. Your sole proprietorship (You Inc.) can reap the same benefits that these big companies get and most people don't take advantage of this. I've got two business cards myself for my side business and I don't plan on ever going back to the consumer cards - the benefits just don't stack up!

I Just Made $100 in 5 Minutes

Here's a great way for you to put $100 (or more) in your pocket and it only takes about 5 minutes. Have you been getting the ads in your mail for all the cable/internet/phone packages on the market? I get at least one a week from both Time Warner and Windstream. Any time I see that kind of aggressive marketing, a bell goes off in my head. These two companies are in a war for customers and this is an opportunity for me to reap some benefit as a result.

What did I do to get the money? I called my current cable/internet provider, Time Warner, and asked for their cancellations department. When the cancellation department came online, I simply told them that I'm interested in cancelling my service with them because I got a better deal at Windstream. Immediately Time Warner offered me a deal that keeps my service exactly as it currently is but will cost more than $100 less over the next 6 months. If they had not offered a better price, I could have either gone through with the cancellation (which would have been a pain), told them that I needed to double check with my wife before placing the final order (which would have gotten me off the phone and I wouldn't have lost anything), or told them I had a bad connection and called back in hopes that I got a different person who may be willing to negotiate.

You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain when dealing with these companies. Cable/Internet/Phone service is rapidly becoming a commodity and these companies are facing shrinking margins. At this point, they are in the volume business and that means they need to keep customers at almost any cost (since keeping current customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones). Give it a try - it worked for me!

Oh yeah - don't think I won't be calling back in 6 months when my bill goes back up. This could be a $200 deal before it's all said and done!

Free Platinum Status at Hyatt

For the second day in a row I'm linking to an offer for free status. Hyatt has a promotion now for free platinum status (their 2nd highest level) just for registering for a new Gold Passport account. It's absolutely free and is good through March 31st. If you stay at a Hyatt between the time you register and 3/31, the status lasts until February 2009. The link for the offer is HERE.

Now - what if you don't plan to stay at a Hyatt and don't have any use for status with them? There's another good reason to register. Hyatt Platinum members get a one-year free membership in Clear. Clear is the fast-track program that's being implemented at airports across the country. Clear members register their information, Clear checks it with the government, and you, as a member, get to bypass those ultra long security lines in airports. A year's membership costs $128.00 - so it's worth getting for free!

Social Lending - Status Update

As I said in my post last week, my online savings accounts are rapidly dropping their rates in response to the Fed's interest rate cuts. My BEST rate is now all the way down to 4.1% over at ETrade. So - in search of higher rates, I decided to pursue the social lending angle. You can read more about what that is here.

Here's where things stand so far. I decided to go to Prosper.com (primarily because I was already a member and had the bank account money transfer already set up) and I deposited $500.00. My criteria for making a loan was that I would not go below an A credit rating (AA is the highest and it goes A-B-C-D-E from there), I would only lend to people that owned a home, and I would lend in $50.00 increments. That essentially means that I would fund 10 loans. All loans at Prosper are 3 year loans.

I've got to admit - I'm very pleased with the results thus far. Across the 10 loans I've bid on, my average interest rate for the whole suite of loans is 19.89%. I realize that this is a riskier investment - but my lending standards are pretty high (high credit rating, home ownership, no defaults in the past 7 years, etc.) so I feel like the odds of borrowers defaulting is pretty low. In fact, if two of the ten loans default (which would mean now I'm only earning 19.89% on $400), I would still come out ahead of any investment of $500 earning less than 11.3% interest and there's none of those out there right now!! If three loans default, I'm ahead of any $500 investment earning less than 6.5% interest - also almost impossible to find right now.

I'm feeling pretty good at this point. Not good enough to move more cash into play at this point - but I may be doing so in the near future if the payments all start pouring in on time!

Friday Night Lights - There's More You Can Do

The campaign to save Friday Night Lights looks like it's picking up some momentum around the internet. There are rumors out there that the show may be moved to one of NBC's affiliate networks (Bravo, USA, etc.) rather than completely cancelled. That's fine with me as long as the show isn't taken off the air.

SaveFridayNightLights.TV has another campaign going - one that proved effective last year when fans saved 'Jericho' from cancellation by CBS. Jericho fans contributed money and bombarded CBS headquarters with packages of peanuts (why peanuts? I really don't know). In similar fashion, this website is collecting PayPal donations and will be sending 6-inch plastic footballs to NBC with 'Save Friday Night Lights' printed on them. Take a look at the site and give a little money. So far, they've got enough to send nearly 2100 footballs!

FYI - you can make a PayPal donation via credit card even if you don't have a PayPal account!

Get 50 Free Pictures from SnapFish

Most of the deals I see for free prints from the online picture companies are for new customers. Here's an offer of 50 free prints AND free shipping for anyone - new customer or old. Here's what you do:

1. Go to this website: http://www1.snapfish.com/hpprintsjumpentercode/t_=8552477

2. Enter the following: model number c717nr and serial number 0000000000

3. Log in to your account (or create a new account if you don't have one)

4. Select or upload your 50 photos

5. Use coupon code PRINTFREE at checkout and you'll get free shipping!

This offer expires at the end of February, so don't miss out!

Stop Getting Phone Books

I remember, once upon a time, when you got a new phone book once per year and/or when you moved to a new residence. Those days are apparently gone. I swear I get a new phone book about once per month. I've got a giant stack of them under the island in my kitchen and I hardly, if ever, use them. These days, they even come in different sizes. I have a miniature version of the yellow pages that contains the exact same listings just in smaller print! Amazing. With the advent of the internet, who needs the print versions anymore. If you need a number, go to YellowPages.com or WhoWhere.com or 411.com.

If you want them to stop dropping new phone books off at your house every month (or however often you get one) and you live in an area served by AT&T (formerly BellSouth in my area), here's the number to call: 1-800-682-4000. Save a tree, some ink, some gas and some room under the island in your kitchen!