Lyft is a smartphone-based ride service that competes with traditional taxis. They are similar to Uber, but Lyft calls their fares “donations” and aggressively recruits casual drivers who can apply directly from their app. (Uber does a similar thing with their UberX service whereas their UberBlack and UberTAXI service employs professional full-time drivers.) Lyft drivers are screened with DMV and background checks, as well as provided $1 million in liability coverage. Riders pay entirely through the smartphone app. Drivers keep 80% of the total fare.

Here is a list of all the cities they serve. Right now Lyft is aggressively expanding and the following promotions are available:

• Download their iPhone app or Android app first.
• New users: Get free ride up to $25. Hail a pink-mustached car driven by a private individual in their private car. Cities. Get $50 off your first ride with promo code SLICKDEALS. If that doesn’t work, you can get a $20 ride credit via my referral link. If you live in a city where they are just starting out, you may also get a bunch of additional free rides for being a “Lyft Pioneer”.
• Residents of Pioneer cities get free rides for two weeks. Pioneer cities are places where Lyft is just starting out. If you join the app in a Pioneer city, you’ll automatically get a number of free rides (up to $25 each) valid for the first 2 weeks after you join. Currently, Pioneer is only available in Indianapolis, Minneapolis-St.Paul, Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, Denver, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Baltimore, Orange County, Sacramento, Houston and Columbus for a limited time. (I think Cincinnati, OH, Detroit, MI, Tampa, FL, and Tucson, AZ also qualify.) Details here. Launched 4/24 as part of “Lyftapalooza” were ALBUQUERQUE ANN ARBOR BUFFALO COLORADO SPRINGS CORPUS CHRISTI FRESNO JACKSONVILLE KANSAS CITY LEXINGTON LINCOLN LOUISVILLE MEMPHIS MODESTO NEW HAVEN NEWARK OKLAHOMA CITY OMAHA RALEIGH DURHAM ROCHESTER SAN BERNARDINO SPOKANE TOLEDO TULSA VIRGINIA BEACH.

Get free ride credits to other ridesharing sites including Uber, Flywheel, Gett, Sidecar, Silvercar here! It is pretty neat to summon a ride from your smartphone and track it by GPS as it gets closer to you.

Attention Target shoppers… Target is offering some special coupons if you text specific messages to them at 827438 (TARGET). They’ll reply with a link to a unique coupon code that you just show the cashier on your smartphone. This week there is a pretty good $10 off coupon if you spend $50 on food and beverage purchases, and then I got sucked down the rabbit hole and wanted to find all the other available codes (even though I’m really not an avid coupon person). Here are all of them that I could find:

• Text GROCERY to 827438 for a $10 off $50 coupon good on food and/or beverage purchases. Excludes alcohol, baby food, nutrition shakes and bars, pet food, Target Cafe and Starbucks Cafe. Expires 4/19/14. (GROCERY2 works as well.)
• Text OFFERS to 827438 for a link to sign up for future coupons offers on your phone. Obviously, this means you’ll get ongoing marketing messages from Target. Up to 5 texts per month.
• Text BABY to 827438 for a link to sign up for Target Baby Alerts. New subscribers get 10% off your first online baby order (excludes clearance items, diapers, wipes, training pants, and formula). Up to 6 texts per month.
• Text APPAREL to 827438 for a $5 off $25 coupon good on Apparel and/or accessories purchase. Men’s, Women’s, Kids all included. Expires 4/19/14.
• Text RECIPE to 827438 for a bunch of various food-related offers (this week $2 off $5 fresh fruit purchases, $1 off various easter and Target Pantry items). Expires 4/20/14.
• Text SPRING to 827438 for a bunch of various offers (this week food, detergent, toilet paper, diapers). Expires 4/23/14.
• Text THANKS to 827438 for a bunch of various offers (looks very similar to SPRING code above). Expires 4/23/14.
• Text BAREURHAIR to 827438 for a bunch of various grooming-related offers (razors, shampoo, toothpaste). Expires 4/23/14.

Messaging and data rates may apply. Text STOP to 827438 to end. All the coupons say “Limit one identical coupon/offer per guest, purchase total must be met for each coupon/offer individually.”

Some of these coupons you can just find on their Weekly Ad coupons page.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter is probably one of the most controversial best-selling personal finance books out there. Some people love it, others hate it. I am bringing this up because until 4/13 you can download a PDF of the book for free at RichDad.com. Specifically, you have to sign up for an account with your name and e-mail. Unless you really want a lot of spam, I’d use a disposable or temporary e-mail address. After verifying the e-mail I was able to download the PDF without issue.

I read and reviewed Rich Dad, Poor Dad in 2005, and while I do admit the book has many flaws I guess I still have a little nostalgic soft spot for it. Somehow his message of buying assets with your hard-earned money and not liabilities connected with a lot of people. Don’t get me wrong though – having read three other Kiyosaki books and listened to an audio CD series, my opinion is to skip everything else Kiyosaki sells! Just read the original. Don’t buy any other books or products, and please please don’t pay for a get-rich-quick seminar.

BiggerPockets.com is a popular discussion forum for real estate investors. Founder Joshua Dorkin and Senior Editor Brandon Turner have also written a couple of books about the subject. For a limited time, they are free in Amazon Kindle format.

• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Investing – “topics ranging from how to gain a solid real estate education, real estate niches, financing, marketing, and more”
• A BiggerPockets Guide: How to Rent Your House – “gain the knowledge needed to successfully rent your property out to quality tenants who pay on time, won’t trash the home, and will help you build your wealth.”

I have not read either book (yet). According to the Amazon reader reviews, it looks like there is some solid beginner information inside both books along with numerous references back to their BiggerPockets website. I believe the first book is also available as pages on their website but it may be easier to read this way.

Download the books now while it is still free and read them later. As a reminder, you can read Kindle books on a web browser, Mac or Windows computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Amazon Mom is a program that has some nice perks for parents (open to anyone… mom, dad, grandparent, or caretaker). The main draw is the 20% off diapers & wipes (5% Subscribe & Save discount + 15% Amazon Mom discount) and the fast shipping.

If you already pay for Amazon Prime at $99 a year, you can sign up for Amazon Mom for free. New Prime/Mom members are eligible for a 3-month free trial of Prime (must not have had free trial previously on your account) where you’ll also get the free 2nd-day shipping of Prime but not the video streaming or free Kindle book borrowing. Canceling is easy, you can even cancel the trial ahead of time while still getting the remainder of your 3 months.

Right now, new Amazon Mom members with free or paid Prime who join between March 27, 2014 and April 10, 2014 get 50% off their first pack of eligible diapers. You can still use Subscribe & Save to lower the price even more. Details in link.

American Airlines has a new AAdvantage Passport Challenge where you can earn free bonus miles for various small activities:

• Play trivia and other games to earn up to 700 miles
• Share and complete social actions to earn up to 350 miles
• Take flights to earn over 9,000 miles

You’ll need a Facebook account, but it does present a good way to reset your miles expiration date at no cost. AA miles currently expire after 18 months of inactivity.
You should get 50 miles just for the Like, but I also did the first quiz “New American Trivia” to make sure I get some miles. You get less points if you missed questions, so here are answer hints:

• More 330 locations, more than 50 countries.
• Last 4 airports are Chicago O’Hare, Charlotte Douglas, Philadelphia and Phoenix.
• American Eagle
• aa.com/findyourway
• All of the above.

Update: I did the 2nd tail fin quiz too. They were the same for both of our accounts, so here you go: 323 121 322 132.

That was the low-hanging fruit, I skipped the rest for now. Per the terms and conditions, “Bonus miles will be awarded within 3-4 weeks after the promotion period has ended”.

Kapitall is basically a brokerage with a user interface like a video game. Their motto is “Drag, Drop, Trade. It’s that simple.” I don’t think the idea of equating stock trading with a game is a good lesson for long-term investors, so I’m not a big fan. In general, the more a person trades, the lower their returns.

However, Kapitall is offering a up to $200 bonus promotion that is worth mentioning. New customers who open and fund an account by March 31, 2014 can earn the following:

• Deposit $50-$999, get $50.
• Deposit $1,000-$9,999, get $100 and 1,000 Kapitall Koins.
• Deposit $10,000+, get $200 and 2,000 Kapitall Koins.

The $100 for $1,000 deposit is essentially a 10% bonus and I don’t see any minimum holding period or trade requirement. On a separate page. they do appear to add a 180-day minimum holding period for the initial deposit and one minimum trade. But if you want to withdraw your money, you’ll have to make a minimum of two trades (buy and sell).

$200 for $10,000 is only a 2% bonus but that’s still not a terrible risk-free return over 180 days when compared with current bank rates of 1% interest over a full year.

(Kapitall Koins are their form of reward points. As a reference, 2,000 Koins = 1 free trade worth $7.95.)

Fees and Commissions
Their commissions are $7.95 with no account maintenance fees and no inactivity fees. Paper statements and trade confirmations are $5 each so you should be sure to accept paperless statements. Here is the full fee schedule.

[Read more…]

Costco and Procter & Gamble have a mail-in rebate promotion for a $33 Costco Cash Card if you spend more than $100 pre-tax on any P&G products in March. Must purchase by 3/31/14 and postmark the rebate form by 5/1/14. You can apply for two rebates per household (for two $33 cash cards), but they must be on two separate $100+ receipts.

Stack the $33 rebate on top of the current coupon savings book valid 3/6/14-3/30/14, and you can get some significant savings by stocking up on items that you probably would buy eventually anyway. I have listed all of the participating brands below, and also added the coupons available during this period. I’m just going to print this blog post out as my shopping list. 😉

(Kind of makes you want to buy some shares of PG stock, eh? Well-known name brands and a 3%+ dividend yield!)

• Charmin ($2 off toilet paper coupon)
• Bounty ($2 off paper towels coupon)
• Puffs
• Tide
• Gain
• Dreft
• Downy ($6 off scent booster? coupon)
• Bounce ($1.80 off dryer sheets coupon)
• Cheer
• Cascade ($3 off dishwasher soap coupon)
• Dawn
• Joy
• Febreze ($1.50 off coupon)
• Swiffer
• Mr. Clean ($2 off Magic Eraser coupon)
• Gillette ($8.99 off blade/gel combo coupon)
• Braun ($35 off shaver coupon)
• Venus ($7.49 off blade/gel coupon)
• Crest ($4 off coupon)
• Glide
• Oral-B ($20 off toothbrushes, $8 off heads)
• Duracell ($3 off 9V batteries)
• Secret
• Pantene
• Head & Shoulders
• Fekkai
• Olay
• Tampax
• Always
• Metamucil
• Prilosec OTC ($6 off coupon)
• Pepto-Bismol
• Vicks
• Align
• ClearBlue
• Iams ($10 off dog food coupon)