Here are some finance-related audiobooks from Audible.com (owned by Amazon.com) that are currently free with no trial required. Download them now, listen to them later. Via gymsock of SD.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change – The Stephen Covey classic.
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us – A book about leadership by Seth Godin.
• Bound to Rise (Or, Up the Ladder) by Horatio Alger – If you like rags to riches stories where hard work and grit pay off, he’s your man.
• FREE: The Future of a Radical Price – “Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.”

Coupons.com is – surprise! – a site that offers digital and printable coupons online to many major brands. They also have a “Savings Club” where you pay $30 a year and get access to bigger coupons and a Coupon Finder tool. To celebrate their anniversary, they are offering a free 1-year Savings Club membership with the promotion code BIRTHDAY. The only catch is that you must provide a credit card and if you don’t cancel, the next year will be $30 charged on your card. You can cancel anytime during the free first year with no charges.

Despite a few tries, I am just not cut out to be a extreme couponer. Perhaps it’s our small family or the fact that I’m unwilling to drive out of my way to chase down sales when there is already a Costco, a supermarket, and a weekly farmer’s market just minutes away from my house. I’m not judging though – I’m happy that others can save a lot of money with coupons.

Here’s a link for a free 2-year subscription to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine from RewardsCountry. There is a short survey on the second page, mine was something about watches. There is no credit card required so they can’t auto-renew or charge you later, and I’ve had good luck with many of these free magazines, so it may be worth the 2-3 minutes of your time.

SmartMoney magazine is already gone (at least in print, will still have articles online), so perhaps you’ll have an antique to show your grandkids. I’m actually looking forward to my WSJ weekend subscription substitution.

Back again for limited time. LivingSocial is spreading into being a central site for ordering takeout and delivery from local restaurants. Right now they are offering $10 worth of food for only $1. Check out their restaurant list first before you buy. Entire value must be used in a single order and is only applicable to your sub-total. I ran a quick test order and they don’t appear to add a surcharge although delivery fees vary, also food prices may be higher than in the restaurant.

Since I last wrote about them, ThredUP.com has recently transitioned from a clothes swapping site to essentially an online consignment store. You send them your “like new” used clothes and they sell them to other people online for you and take a cut.

Right now, ThredUP is offering up a free $10 store credit if you sign up through a referral link, and the referrer gets $10 store credit as well. That’s mine, if you use it please feel free to leave yours in the comments if you’d like. The good news is that the credits count towards shipping costs, and you can also stack the coupon code AUGUST20 for another 20% off. The bad news is that shipping runs $6.95 (free shipping with $40 order), which means with the free $10 you could either get a $4 item shipped for free or you could get $40 worth of clothing for $22 including shipping… but ideally you’d refer enough friends and family to get more completely free clothes including shipping. Here’s a screenshot of my cart:

At first glance the clothing prices seem rather high to me… keep in mind I never go to Gap Anything and many of my clothes are 10+ years old. This seems like it might work for those that don’t want to rummage around at garage sales, which is what I plan to try. 🙂

Anyone use ThredUP to sell their old clothes on the new consignment site (not the swapping boxes)?

You can get 500 bonus US Airways miles when you download their web browser toolbar called the Dividend Miles StoreFront Assistant, install it, and make at least one search. Note that some people have reported getting the miles with just a download, no installation required. In any case, you can uninstall it later.

To qualify for the initial download 500 bonus miles offer, make at least one search or purchase using the Dividend Miles StoreFront Assistant. Bonus offer is valid only for the initial download and install of the Dividend Miles StoreFront Assistant. Not valid on subsequent downloads or installs.

Sprint is running a promotion offering a $100 Reward Card from American Express when you buy any smartphone and start a new line of service. $36 activation fee is also waived. This is on top of the current discounted prices for a 2-year agreement, meaning a new iPhone 4S now costing $149 would be only $49 after the $100 gift card. (The $99 refurbished one would essentially be free.) Sprint has to sell something like $15 billion worth of iPhones in the first 4 years, so it looks like they are clearing out the iPhone 4S inventory..

Valid during 8/14-8/26, online only. Requires 2-year Agreement and new line of service. Account must be in good standing for 30 days to receive card. Card will arrive in 8 to 10 weeks. You can get one $100 gift card per line with a family plan with multiple phones and multiple lines. Android phones like Galaxy Nexus and Samsung Galaxy III are also eligible.

Keep in mind the monthly data plan costs, and don’t forget to add any employee or student discounts available with can be substantial. Compare with other good iPhone options like the Virgin Mobile iPhone $30 plan and the Straight Talk BYO iPhone $45 Unlimited plan.

Update: In addition to reader reports, I just received my own multiple $25 bonus gift cards as shown below. $25 bonus on loading $200 per card is back for month of August!

AMEX now has their own reloadable prepaid card, creatively named the American Express® Prepaid Card. Features:

• no credit check,
• no monthly fees,
• no upfront purchase fees,
• no inactivity fees,
• and no overdraft fees if you try to spend more than what is on the card

You can load the card for free via online bank transfer, and it ships fee via USPS 1st class mail. In fact, this card is likely better than most other prepaid cards on the market that are branded by Suze Orman, reality TV stars, or music moguls.

Right now, if you reach the 2nd page of the card application process (click on “Get your card now”) they will offer you a bonus $25 gift card for loading $200 onto the card, no promotional code required. (They may ask you to log in if you have an American Express account, or you can switch to Incognito/Private Browsing mode/clear cookies and they won’t ask you.) You should see this in the top right corner:

Offer is available to all, non-targeted. Expires 8/31/12. $50 or more must be loaded at the time of initial purchase. “Limit one $25 gift card per new Card user named on a Card.” You are allowed 3 prepaid cards per person, so that’s a potential bonus of $75 if you have 3 different names on each as these are designed to help manage spending for a family or household.

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Cozi is an online/mobile organizer specifically made for families to help keep track of appointments, activities, shopping lists, etc. I downloaded the app to check out it; It’ll be interesting to see if this beats the huge calendar on the fridge.

Right now, they are offering a “back to school” promotion for those that sign up before August 31st that includes a bunch of family-related freebies and coupons. Included is a free 6-month ShopRunner membership (limited quantities), 10% off at Zulily, $10 off Brenthaven bags, and more. I’ve been using Shoprunner and the free 2-day shipping with no minimum order is definitely a nice perk.

Usingmiles.com is a website that tracks your various frequent flyer miles and other loyalty points. Like other aggregation sites, you must trust them with your logins and passwords so that they can monitor things for you. I don’t know much about this company personally, although they have gotten nearly $3 million in venture capital according to TechCrunch and are endorsed by Flyertalk founder Randy Petersen.

There are a few competitors in this space such as Awardwallet.com, but most of them require some sort of annual payment in exchange for letting you know if your miles are about to expire. So it’s good news that right now you can get free lifetime Premier membership (otherwise $29.99 a year) via one of these links with a promotional code embedded:

• LFLYER via LufthansaFlyer
• MIL1CLICK via MilitaryOneClick

Premier membership includes the miles expiration alerts and also the ability to search for award seat and hotel room availability. I’d grab it now, as expiration date is unknown. Keep in mind that certain airlines like American Airlines and Southwest tend to block these tracking sites even if you provide them your login info. I’m trying it out right now and the user interface does provide a polished feel.

If you already have an account, you should be able to upgrade using one of the above links, or try using the promo code TBP.