Archive for March, 2007

If you are a coffee lover like myself then you will want to swing by your local Dunkin Donuts today (March 21st).

Dunkin’ Donuts wants to help customers put winter on ice. On Wednesday, March 21, the official first day of spring, Dunkin’ Donuts will host its first-ever all day, nationwide “Free Iced Coffee Day.”

For 24 hours on March 21, customers can visit any participating Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant in the country and receive a free 16 oz. cup of Dunkin’ Donuts’ premium iced coffee.

The fine print:

Offer good at participating locations. While supplies last. Offer good only Wednesday March 21, 2007. Cannot be combined with any offer. One free small 16oz iced coffee per person per visit. No purchase necessary. Beverage substitutions not available.

So get your caffeine fix for free!

Free Iced Coffee Day

For all those who have procrastinated doing their taxes (like me) H&R Block and Travelocity are teaming up to offer a free download of their TaxCut Premium and Deduction Pro software.

Unfortunately it does not come with state tax forms or a free E-File, and both of these prices seem inflated compared to other offers. To add a state is $24.95 and it is $15.95 per E-File (so $31.90 to E-File both Fed and State). So if you plan on mailing in your Federal Taxes and doing your state taxes elsewhere (or live in a state with no tax) then this is a pretty good deal - or even if you just want to check your results against another program.

WARNING: Remember to remove the “Extended Download Protection” from your cart or it will cost you $5.99!

Download TaxCut Premium and DeductionPro

The Chase Freedom Card is currently running a promotion where you will receive a whopping $250 after your first purchase. This is one of (if not the) best initial purchase offers I’ve seen for a credit card promo.

However, please note it appears this offer is for new customers only!

The fine print:

You will receive $200 in bonus rebates which can be redeemed for a $250 check. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks after your first purchase for bonus rebates to post to your account. First purchase includes purchases, balance transfers, or any checks that are used to access your account. To qualify for bonus rebates, account must be open and not in default at the time of fulfillment. The bonus offer is valid only for first-time cardmembers with new accounts. Only one bonus per account. Existing cardmembers/accounts are not eligible for the bonus offer.

Other card benefits:

• 3% cash back at grocery stores, gas stations, and quick service restaurants
• 1% cash back on all other purchases
• No annual fee

Chase Freedom Card $250 Bonus Link

MyFico is currently offering 20% off all of their products with the coupon code 6YEAR. You can get your FICO (your actual number that lenders use - not FAKO like most other sites) credit score here as well as your credit report and other credit monitoring services.

MyFico 20% Off Link

You can also get your credit report free once a year from all 3 agencies from the following website. Be sure it is the below URL as there are a lot of scam links going on that play off the free credit report name. I highly recommend you take advantage of this.

www.annualcreditreport.com

Well my area finally got some RedBox machines. For those of you who don’t know what RedBox is, they are DVD rental machines placed in select grocery stores and McDonalds. For $1 you can rent any movie in the machine for 1 night. 2 nights is only $2, and so on.

Certainly much cheaper than Blockbuster but the selection is limited. To see what is most likely in your local RedBox, or if there are any local RedBoxes visit www.redbox.com.

Also, there are quite a few free rental coupons out there for RedBox - simply punch the code in the machine and you will receive a movie free for a night. Inside RedBox has a running list of all free codes with user verifications:

Inside RedBox

I’ve previously written about the benefits of Pentagon Federal Credit Union’s mortgage program Just thought I would give anyone looking to refinance or purchase a home that they have lowered their rates to 5.85% for a 30 year fixed mortgage.

PenFed Rates

I live in a moderately sized single home community consisting of about 175 relatively new homes. Currently our home owners a association dues are $187 a year which covers the upkeep (mowing, fertilization, etc) of the common areas.

I just received a letter from them indicating the 2 signs in the front of the community are in distress and we have 3 options to vote upon:

• Repair the signs at an approximate cost of $1,000 - $5.75 per household.
• Replace the signs with the same design at an approximate cost of $5,000 - $28.75 per household.
• Replace the signs with a new design at an approximate cost of $15,000 - $86.50 per household.

Okay, so I’ll admit I’m not really up on my community sign pricing… but does it really cost $15,000 to design and build 2 signs? Am I the only one who finds that ludicrous? I guess we’ll see when the voting is tallied.

Taxable Accounts:

$8,862.65 - Liquid Savings - 5.05% APY HSBC Savings Account
$14,081.16 - Stocks - Misc. Direct Investments
$5,814.55 - Stocks - Ameritrade Izone
$3,006.56 - Stocks - Zecco
$2,559.82 - Bonds - TreasuryDirect

$34,324.74 TOTAL

Retirement Savings:

$14,783.11 - ROTH IRA - Vanguard
$2,203.73 - ROTH IRA - Scottrade
$38,379.63 - 401K - T. Rowe Price

$55,366.47 TOTAL

Debts

$3,428.24 - Student Loan - AES (3.625%)
$7,665.00 - Credit Card BT - Discover (0%)
$7,519.00 - Credit Card BT - Citi (0%)

$18,612.24 TOTAL

Housing / Automobiles

$270,017.51 - Mortgage - Countrywide
$339,900.00 - Approximate Home Value
$11,065.00 - Approximate Car Value - Edmunds.com

$80,974.49 - TOTAL (Approximate Equity)

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