For those that are looking for a new discount brokerage, TradeKing is currently offering a $100 bonus for opening a new account with them. They offer $4.95 market and limit orders, both online and broker-assisted. No minimum balance requirements, no annual or inactivity fees. After talking with them, here are the offer details:

» Use the promotional code ‘(expired)‘
» Open with at least $1,000, and place your first trade by 4/15
» The bonus should credit ~2 weeks after your first trade
» You still need to keep $100 equity in the account for 6 months after your first trade to keep the bonus.

Per their fee schedule, they do charge a $50 fee for IRA closures or transfers, but there is no fee for an ACAT transfer out of a regular taxable brokerage account. This means that if you open this account and don’t like it, you can just move out all your shares of stock without having to sell them or pay transfer fees.

Here’s a possible plan for me:

1) Open with code and $1,000
2) Buy 1 share of EEM or other ETF at about $100 + $5 commission.
3) Take out rest of money except for maybe $25 in case EEM tanks.
4) Get $100 bonus, take it out too.
5) Treat it like I got a free share of EEM and move for free it to my Ameritrade I-Zone account if I choose, or just keep it there if I like the brokerage more than I-Zone (which also has $5 trades).

Seems like an easy way to try out another brokerage without any commitment

(Oops, gotta read that fine print. Their regular 3.25% APY is only good for balances over $100k. Bummer, I might have kept it open after the bonus period, but 0.3% stinks.)

Just got this offer in the mail. Go here for the offer details. You get 4.10% APY for the first three months, after which you’ll go back down to their standard money market rate, currently at 3.25% APY 0.30% for balances under $5,000. I went for it, and the $50 bonus showed up in my account a couple days after I opened the account. No waiting is nice. With $1,000 cooped up for 120 days (4 months, you get about $68 $51, which is a 15% annualized return! Offer ends soon on 11/15.

The fine print makes getting the bonus a bit confusing. There is only a $100 opening minimum, but you need a monthly average of $1,000 (or combined balances of $5,000) to avoid a $10 monthly fee. Also, you’ll need to keep the account open for 120 days to avoid a $10 early closure fee. Overall, not bad if you just put in $1,000 and take it out and close the account after 6 months. They only let you fund electronically with a max of $100, so either open with a check or send in a 2nd deposit after the confirm your account great enough to make your monthly average at least $1,000.

(11/5/05: I have streamlined the directions for new participants. Please follow the new directions for the Emigrant Direct $10 Opening Referral Bonus Promotion.)

I just got official word that I am approved for 1,000 Emigrant Direct Bonuses now (880+ left). So everyone that I said was not in the 1st 100, you’re good to go, please continue to e-mail me your 2nd round of e-mails. I’m going to streamline the process soon, but for now, go tell all your friends! =)

In another brilliant move to lose potential customers, Capital One 360 has changed the terms of their $25 Opening Bonus to a minimum opening amount of $250. It’s a bit sneaky, because they will let you to open with only $1, but you won’t get the bonus. Instead, they claim you’ll just get “a friend for life”. Uh-huh.

HSBC Banks’s Online Savings Account (features mentioned previously), an ING/Emigrant Direct no-minimum no-fees clone, is currently offering a $35 Opening Bonus for new customers. The bonus code, which is already part of the URL, is ‘ccs20‘ in case you need it. I haven’t opened an account here, and am debating whether or not the $35 bonus is worth for an account I may or may not use, but hey, free money is free money. Anecdotally, they are only doing a “soft” credit pull to check your identity, so your credit score likely won’t be hurt either. Offer expires 10/31/05.

I’ve been updating my list of the best 0% APR Balance Transfer offers about once a month as offers expire, but this month I actually came across a pretty good one – 0% APR interest for both purchases and balance transfers for 10 months with the Miles Card by Discover. No annual fee, and no balance transfer fees either. All the other Discover cards currently have balance transfer fees except for this one. I guess they’re pushing this card right now, so I’m not sure how long this will last.

On top of everything, you get 5,000 of their “Miles” after your first purchase. You get 1 Mile for each $1 in purchases otherwise. Airfare rewards start at $100 travel credit for 10,000 Miles. The nice thing is that you can actually get this bonus while also taking advantage of the balance transfer since both are at 0% APR for the 10 months.

Note that finance charges are applied using the “Two Cycles Average Daily Balance” method, which is a more costly method in applying finance charges for those who occasionally carry a balance, as compared to the “Average Daily Balance” method used by most credit card issuers. But, if you only carry a balance at 0% and pay it off in full at the end, then this shouldn’t affect you.

At current interest rates, for every $10,000 of balance you transfer you can arbitrage out $250-$300 out of this offer, plus you’re halfway to a $100 travel credit. Not bad. Or you could just get it and buy stuff interest-free for 10 months. Not that I condone that, of course.

Last month I got $241 in free money over a weekend. This week I got $198 more!

First, I finally received my $150 Visa gift card for applying to an MBNA Charles Schwab card:

This is going straight to buying new tires for my car. Don’t spend your free money on useless crap! Alas, the $150 offer is longer available. However, you can still get a $50: $50 Charles Schwab MBNA gift card offer.

Second, I cashed out another $48 from ex24.com for referring two MyMoneyBlog readers: (they each got $24 as well)
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I just got this in my Capital One 360 BrightSpots monthly e-mail newsletter:
“Sprint is offering a 16% discount on select PCS Services to all Capital One 360 Customers. Go to ingdirect.com/sprint to learn more. And if you’re already a Sprint customer, just dial #ING on your Sprint phone to reach a helpful Capital One 360 Associate from the hours of 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. We’re happy to work with Sprint and to offer you one more way to help you Save Your Money?.”

Nice! My brother uses Sprint PCS, I gotta send this to him. For example, if you pay $40 per month now, it’ll just be $33.60! That’ll save you $6.40 a month, or $76.80 a year. Wow, it pays to read those newsletters sometimes!

If you don’t have an Capital One 360 account, see this previous post for more information. You can also get $25 for signing up.

Here are the results from the Deals & Offers I have posted recently (see last month’s entry here). As usual, I try to only post the offers that I think are good enough to apply for myself:

Free Golf Balls from American Century Investments – Got the golf balls and prospectuses within 3 days. Nice! Not a bad company, but I still think I’d stick with T. Rowe Price for actively-managed mutual funds. Better management in my opinion and lower expenses.
Best of 0% Balance Transfer Offers – I already have both Citibank cards, and I recently cancelled the American Express one since I didn’t like the rewards program. Free money with no interest!
Free Financial Preparation Kit – Downloaded, printed-out, and… I still haven’t filled it out. Ugh, paperwork. Very good idea to do though.
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