Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan: Free $25 To Start

Posted on April 7, 2010 // 8 Comments

The Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan is again offering a $25 refer-a-friend bonus if you open an account and deposit at least $25 by June 30, 2010. You can be a resident of any state, and there are no application or annual fees.

Rated a Top 529 Plan by Morningstar
In a recent article The Best and Worst 529 College-Savings Plans by Morningstar, the Ohio CollegeAdvantage plan was rated in the top 5 plans:

Features they liked included having a wide variety of investment options (including active/passive, multiple age-based options, and even ultra-safe CDs), as well as low total expenses. In-state resident can also deduct up to $2,000 of contributions per year, with excess carryover allowed.

My Personal Experience
So far, I am quite impressed with the Ohio plan. The website itself is functional and fast, there are a variety of investment choices (cash, index funds, active funds), they are upfront with the fees, and the expenses are very competitive – either the lowest or near the lowest in the nation. There are no inactivity fees, minimum balance fees, or other bogus fees.

I have gotten the $25 bonuses plus several referrals, with no complaints from the people I referred. I have also started an auto-debit from my checking account for $50 a month. Right now, half of my 529 is in the Vanguard inflation-protected bond fund. This is an investment option that is unavailable in most state plans. I did an analysis of conservative inflation-linked 529 investment options here.

I feel that since college is only at most 18 years away with a big lump-sum payment, I would prefer less volatility while marching towards that goal. This is in contrast to saving for retirement, where I currently have 35 years until I turn 65, and hopefully another 20 years after that as well.

Referral Bonus Instructions
Currently the newly referred person gets $25, and the referring person gets $50, and I’d love for you to help fund my kid’s college dreams. 😀 Here’s how:

  1. You can enroll online or via mail. The online process was quick and easy, and I didn’t have to mail in anything.
  2. The first step is to input your personal info and choose a login/password. Next, you’ll verify your e-mail and complete the application.
  3. After that, you’ll choose your funding amount and select an investment fund. Your initial deposit must be a least $25, and is funded using the account/routing numbers of your bank account. At the bottom, you will need to enter a referral code to get the bonus. Enter 2439350.
  4. In 1-3 days, your initial deposit will be taken from your bank account, and in 5-7 business days you will get your $25 bonus. The $25 will be deposited directly into the 529 account, and will be invested in the same thing as your initial deposit.

If a child has two parents, one parent may sign-up and then refer the 2nd parent to get another bonus, while both can list the same child as the beneficiary. If your child is not born yet or does not have a Social Security number yet, you can choose yourself or another family member as the beneficiary, and then later on fill out a Change of Beneficiary form.

Here is a screenshot of me getting my $25 bonus successfully and as promised:

Filed Under: College & Education, Deals & Offers, Family, Investing //

Cell Phone Carriers: Money Back Guarantee Comparison

Posted on April 5, 2010 // Leave a Comment

Sprint recently announced an improved 30 day ‘money back guarantee’ on new activations. You basically get virtually all fees associated with your phone returned to you, if you return your new phone within 30 days. You don’t pay activation fees, taxes, restocking fees, etc. Via Engadget.

If a customer isn’t completely satisfied, they can get reimbursed for the device purchase and activation fee, get the early termination fee waived, get a full refund for service plan monthly recurring charges incurred and get all associated taxes and Sprint surcharges associated with these charges waived. In addition, Sprint will waive the restocking fee for new customer exchanges as part of this policy.

They also provided a chart comparison the money back guarantees of the major cell carriers, which is informational even if it is obviously skewed in Sprint’s favor.

If you are thinking of adding a new line, don’t forget to see if you qualify for a corporate or student discount, often just using an e-mail address. Read the comments for more reader-submitted tips as well.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Frugal Living //

National Park Week: Free Admission April 17-25, 2010

Posted on March 31, 2010 // 2 Comments

Entrance fees to all 392 national parks will be waived during National Park Week, April 17th to 25th. Parks will also offer additional family friendly activities and special offers on tours, lodging, food, and souvenirs. A listing of parks and promotions is available at www.nps.gov/npweek.

Normally, 146 of 392 national parks charge entrance fees ranging from $3 to $25. The other 246 do not charge for admission. [Press Release]

*Fee waiver includes: entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Free Knife Sharpening at Sur la Table

Posted on March 25, 2010 // 7 Comments

Through April 30, you can bring up to 2 knives per person to Sur la Table and have them sharpened for free. A good way to keep quality knives for a long time, as I hear those sharpening steels often aren’t enough. You may need to leave them there for a couple days. Locations mainly in larger cities, lots in CA.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Sharebuilder – 5 Free Real-Time Market Trades

Posted on March 22, 2010 // 9 Comments

Here’s a another Sharebuilder promotion, which will give existing customers 5 free real-time market trades. (New customers should grab their free $50 sign-up bonus with code 50WCFA first and then come back).

Log into your account, click on the “Accounts” tab and then the “Promotions” tab below it. Enter the promotion code HVC09NY and you should see the following confirmation:

Thank you your promo code has been accepted. Happy New Year!

You should also receive e-mail confirmation. To double-check, visit this page when logged in and you should see 5 free trades good until 8/1/10. Credit to flaredup from FW.

These real-time market trades are handy if you want to sell any of your shares, especially any small positions you have, without paying $9.95 a pop.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Free Book Download: Elements of Investing

Posted on March 19, 2010 // 27 Comments

Vanguard is offering a free PDF download of the recently published book Elements of Investing by Malkiel and Ellis. It looks like it might have been meant for Flagship members, but is currently open to everyone. From the Amazon reviews and table of contents, Elements of Investing is targeted at investing beginners, intended to provide a brief overview of basic investment principles like diversification and focusing on the long-term. Thanks to 2million for the tip.

Burton Malkiel is also the author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, the classic book that was the very first investing book I read when I started this blog in 2004. Perhaps his new book will be the start of a great financial revolution for you as well?

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Sprint Cellular Discounts for Credit Union Members

Posted on March 15, 2010 // 41 Comments

I was browsing my local credit union’s website when I saw a banner for discounts on Sprint discount service at CUsaver.com. It advertises:

  • 10-15% off wireless plans
  • Waived activation and upgrade fees

You can view the discounted plans and phones on the site, which appear to be available to members of any credit union. It would be worth a try so see if the discount may be stackable with other discounts. To get the discounts, you must either call them or enter your phone number and they’ll call you back.

This seems like a great alternative if you can’t get in on a student or employee discount from a major cell carrier.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Frugal Living //

Best Banks With Consistently High Interest Rates

Posted on February 26, 2010 // 33 Comments

It’s one thing to find a bank with a high interest rate, and another thing to have that rate stay high. Many banks post teaser-like rates to attract deposits, and then hope you’ll be lazy and stay while they gradually become uncompetitive. A post yesterday on the NY Times Bucks blog explored ways to counter this.

Bankrate does a quarterly ranking of top banks with consistently high yields, which is “based on the number of times within the quarter that an institution’s yield was among the top 20 for the product category and the relative position of the yield in relation to the others in the product category.” But that’s only one quarter. So the Times asked them which banks have been on top for every single of the last eight consecutive quarters (Q1 2008 to Q4 2009). Good idea!

The next natural question: Which of these banks has the highest rates now? So I visited each site and found the current rates (as of 11/12/13) for their highest yielding savings account (or money market) and their 12-month CD. Since some of the rates were tiered, I picked the rate for a $10,000 deposit and also included the minimum balance needed to avoid fees. Here are the results, sorted by top overall yield:

Banks
Online Savings / Money Market
12-month CD
0.86% APY / 0.86% Intro ($5k+)
0.60% APY
Discover Bank
0.85% APY / 0.70% ($10k+)
0.95% APY
Ally Bank
0.85% APY (No min)
0.98% APY
Stonebridge Bank
1.25% APY ($1k+)
1.50% APY
Intervest National Bank
1.13% APY ($500+)
1.50% APY
American Bank
0.90% APY ($10k+)
1.30% APY
MetLife Bank
0.85% APY ($10k+)
1.15% APY
First National Bank of Baldwin County
0.50% APY ($5k+)
1.35% APY
M&T Bank, NA
0.50% APY (No min)
1.10% APY
UmbrellaBank (now Beal Bank)
0.50% APY ($1k+)
1.06% APY
0.15% APY ($10k+)
1.11% APY
Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

AT&T Wireless AutoPay $20 Promotion

Posted on February 26, 2010 // 10 Comments

Looks like AT&T Wireless is offering folks a $20 gift card if they sign up for automatic payments on a Mastercard. Good for covering part of those iPhone monthly fees!

You will receive a confirmation email in 1-2 days and your Gift Card will arrive in 4-6 weeks. It’s that easy! Log in today.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Quicken 2010 50% Off Coupon Code

Posted on February 19, 2010 // 3 Comments

Quicken also sent me a 50% off link to all their 2010 products. Offer good only until 2/22/10. The following Special Offer Code was included in the e-mail: 6321762157. Download version might be better if you plan on returning?

Note: Offer applies only to purchase of Quicken Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, or Rental Property Manager when you order directly from Intuit by February 22, 2010, 11:59 PM PST.

If you’re not 100% satisfied, return Quicken 2010 software with your dated receipt within 60 days of purchase for a refund of the purchase price (return shipping and handling charges are not included).

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Giveaway: QuickTax Platinum Tax Software For Canadians

Posted on February 18, 2010 //

I don’t know how many Canadian readers I have, but I do have one free copy of QuickTax Platinum ($69.99 value, download version) available to give away.

The Platinum version is the most fully-featured “personal” edition, and includes assistance with investment gains/losses and rental property, as well as RRSP guidance. Other than that, I don’t know much about QuickTax, other than it is made by Intuit and thus looks a lot like TurboTax in the US. However, there doesn’t seem to a similar product by H&R Block for the Canadian market. Who is their biggest competitor then?

To enter, simply leave a comment with a valid e-mail in the proper field below by Midnight Pacific on Sunday, 2/21. Real name not necessary, you can even leave the actual comment box blank. One entry per reader. I’ll randomly pick one winner. Thanks!

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Taxes //

Cheap Baseball Tickets Now on StubHub

Posted on February 15, 2010 // 7 Comments

Walletpop had a good article last week about cheap major league baseball tickets being available on StubHub.com. The season hasn’t started yet, so planning ahead and grabbing $2-$10 tickets can make for some reasonably cheap fun. I also found an upgrade to some nice box seats for only $40.

Stubhub’s service fee equals 10% of the full price of all the tickets in your order ($5 minimum per order), and there is also a $4.95 delivery fee (per order). Yes, it’s a bunch of fees, but just look at the total price and you can still find some deals. I’d like to see all the baseball stadiums someday, although I’m falling behind as the Astrodome and old Yankee Stadium have already been replaced! Fenway Park is my current favorite, although Wrigley Field is the next one I most want to visit.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //
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