Sharebuilder is Costco’s “Service of the Month” for December, and they are running a promotion offering $90 Costco Cash for Executive Members ($70 for Gold or Business Members). There’s no reason not to go for the $90, since you can’t lose with Executive membership – They’ll pay you back any of the $50 extra you don’t gain in purchases. You do need to open an account and make one stock purchase.

Don’t have Costco? You can find a bunch of regular $50 Sharebuilder promotional codes here. Now, unless you really want to use Sharebuilder as your broker, there are two options to get your bonus, as selling stock there costs $15.

1. Instant Gratification:Open with $5. Buy $1 of stock and pay $4 for commission. Wait for your bonus. Let the $1 in stock just rot there.
2. Delayed Gratification: Open with $50. Buy $46 of a quality stock like Berkshire Hathaway and pay $4 for commission. Get the $50 (or more), and treat it like you just got free stock. Just sit back for a decade or two while it grows and grows. Details on this method here.

If you choose the latter and are going to open with at least $20, you can try to combine this with the $20 back from eBates. You can only get one eBate rebate, but myself and others have successfully gotten multiple Sharebuilder bonuses by applying again after getting the first bonus. Others simply opened up multiple accounts for others in their household: spouse, kids, parents, and so on.

As promised, this is a quick update to the Citi Credit Protector $100 Gas Rebate offer. If you signed up, don’t forget to cancel your 30-day trial. The number again is 1-888-592-7344. If you haven’t, the offer is still available.

Here is a scan of my rebate form. It’s for the $100 all at once, and it says nothing about having to remain a member to redeem. I called to confirm and they said that receipts before your sign-up date are not valid (makes sense). I did a lot of driving over Thanksgiving and easily spent $100 in gas, so I’ll be sending in my rebate form in tomorrow. Hopefully this will be another easy hundred bucks to fund my gifts… uhh, Roth IRA! 😉

Payouts for my Emigrant Direct Signup Bonus went out last week for verified Form #2 submissions in October. If you?re interested in opening an account with Emigrant Direct?s 5.05% APY with no minimums, why not get yourself an extra $20 out of it?

Here’s a great find – learn a new language for free (well, your taxes may have paid for it) at FSI Language Courses:

These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain. This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. It is an independent effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages.

Included are Arabic, Cambodian, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese. If you have problems downloading like I did, try using Internet Explorer and Right Click > “Save File As…”. The audio should show up in mp3 format. Thanks to DumbLittleMan for the tip.

As part of the Discover Mall Holiday promotion, they are offering $20 for each $200 spent. However, there was no mention of what would happen if you returned the items after you “spent” the money. Since credit card companies are usually masters of the fine print, I figured they had some sort of mechanism in place to prevent this. Nope.
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Today (11/21) only, SunRocket is offering 2 years for $199. This “special” seems to come around every other month or so. I’ve been using SunRocket instead of a landline for over a year now now and I remain very satisfied for the price – check out my SunRocket Review for details. My faxing now works 95% of the time.

Added: You can also get two years for $199 from ViaTalk VoIP.

Update: The below promotion is now expired. The New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN now offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping and 1X point on everything else. The annual fee for this card is $175 but it is waived for all new cardholders. You can also get unlimited additional gold cards for an extra annual fee of $50 but this fee is waived for the first year as well.

I just got my first statement, and it looks like I have received all the free bonuses promised from the New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN. I am going to put this $100 and $50 gift card towards holiday gifts 🙂 For all the details, I have organized this and other free $100 bonuses into one central post.

Yep, Amazon is giving out a free trial of Amazon Prime for up to 3 months to lots of people, which includes free 2-day shipping on most items with no minimum purchase. Click here to see if you qualify. Hopefully you’ll be greeted with this image:

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Get a free $20 Discover Gift Card instantly by spending $200 on your Discover Card at select malls from November 1 through December 31, 2006. Just take your receipts totaling $200 to the customer service desk of any of the participating malls to receive your Discover Gift Card. You can get up to 5 gift cards per account. Link via SlickDeals.

All Discover cards should be eligible for the promotion, including some good cards I’ve mentioned before – the Discover Miles Card which offers 0% on purchases and balance transfers for 6 months and Discover More Card, offering 0% APR on balance transfers and purchases for 15 months, along with no balance transfer fees for initial balance transfer. More details here (opening bonus with the Miles card).

Now, I don’t have to tell you bright folks that spending $21 more than you would have otherwise to save $20 is not a smart thing to do, right?

Everyone who sent me their Form #2 in September for my Emigrant Direct Opening Promotion should have been paid. If not, please e-mail me. If you’re interested in opening an account with Emigrant Direct’s 5.05% APY with no minimums, don’t miss your bonus of up to $20?