My Personal Finance Journey

Category Archives for Make Money

Promote Yourself or Your Business with FREE Business Cards

I wanted to share a wonderful find that I discovered about 5 years ago, and have now used successfully four times!

What is it?  FREE business cards from Vistaprint.com

Business cards are truly a great thing – good for networking, retaining people’s contact information, advertising your business, or making yourself stand out at an interview by being more “professional.”

I have used/designed free business cards from Vistaprint for the four applications shown below over the past several years:

  • Created a personal card with my contact information and a summary of my skills/qualification to be used at networking events and during interviews.
  • Created a card with my web address for this blog in order to post on bulletin boards to advertise.
  • Created a card for the pet waste removal service I started in 2006.
  • Created a card for the eBay business I started in 2004 reselling people’s items.
Quick Note: If you are thinking of starting up a website for your business or personal use, I would recommend buying the domain and hosting with GoDaddy.com. I have worked with them on all of my sites, and they are always very user friendly. The link to their special offer is shown below!

Go Daddy $7.49.com Sale

To get your own free business cards, just follow the simple steps below:

1) Click on the picture/link below to go to the Vistaprint site

2) Within in the site, go to the business card section, and select that you want to create a free business card. There are several restrictions that Vistaprint keeps you to in order to make it possible to have free business cards – you can not print on both sides of the card and the background design has to be kept as the default tree/country scene.

3) You can then click through the options and build your card line by line. Quick tip: make sure that you don’t fill the card up too much so there is sufficient free space around the outside of the card.

4) When you are finished, proceed to the checkout process, opting out of any of the additional advertised products/services. The total will be around $7-$9 for shipping/handling fees.

5) The business cards will then be shipped to you within several business days!

Couldn’t be easier, right?! Right!
Keep on learning!

Jacob

To receive future updates on topics such as this one, click on the link below to subscribe:

Subscribe to My Money Blog

What Moving Expenses Can I Deduct on My Taxes?

If you’ve recently moved because of a job relocation (greater than the required distance by the IRS), you have no doubt wondered what expenses are eligible to deduct on your taxes associated with the move.

To answer this question question in the most straight-forward, no frills way possible, I put together the list of eligible deductions below to help you save money moving:

  • Hotels/lodging en route to your new home. Save your receipts.
  • Gas expenses incurred en route. Save your receipts.
  • Household goods relocation services/fees associated with your move. Save your receipts.
  • Mileage added to your car during the move. For 2009, the standard deduction rate was $0.24 per mile (see link below). For example, in my move from VA to PA, the distance was 293 miles. 293 mi x $0.24 per mi = $70.32 to deduct on my taxes.

2009 IRS Standard Mileage Deduction Rates

There you go! Plain and simple for you!

To learn about additional tax techniques, subscribe to my blog using the link below:

Subscribe to My Money Blog

Keep on learning!

Jacob

$75 Bonus Free Money – Citi Forward Visa Credit Card

I just redeemed my ThankYou Points I received through this credit card offer last night for $75. Not bad at all!

Here’s what to do to get it:

1. Go to the link below and sign up for the Citi Forward Credit Card. Note that this credit card has no annual fee, so this is basically free money!
https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=960

2. Once you receive your card in the mail, perform the following to earn a total of 11,100 ThankYou points!
          a. 6,000 ThankYou® Points after you make $250 in purchases within the first 3 months
          b.5,000 ThankYou® Points when you sign up for Paperless Statements within 3 months of account opening
          c. 100 ThankYou® Points each billing period when you pay on time and stay under your credit line

3. To redeem your points for the $75, follow the instructions on Citi online account webpage, go to the ThankYou website, and order 1 $50 pre-paid Visa debit card and 1 $25 pre-paid Visa debit card for 7,000 and 3,500 points, respectively.

They will then ship your cards in the mail and they can be used like cash wherever Visa is accepted! Good luck! Let me know of your success stories!

$100 Bonus to sign up for a FREE Bank of America MyAccess Checking Account

So I just signed up for this bonus yesterday through Bank of America. The offer is good through February 28th, 2010, so sign up for it as quickly as you can!

Details – To get the $100 dollar bonus, go to the website below and sign up for a MyAccess Free Checking Account with Bank of America. When you sign up for an account online, you avoide the monthly maintenance fee as well!

https://www6.bankofamerica.com/applyonline/process.action

You must then reference offer code AOU261209 when opening your new MyAccess Checking account. This offer is only available to new customers who open a qualifying personal checking account with a minimum balance of $500. Additionally, the new checking account must be open for at least 30 days and you must make a minimum of 1 transaction with your new Bank of America check card. Bank of America will then deposit the $100 bonus directly into your new checking account within 90 days of its opening date.

It’s that simple! Good luck! Let me know if you have any questions.

Get $25 of Free Money when you open an INGDirect Checking Account


Another great promotion from INGDirect bringing us some free money on this fine Monday night.


Details – To receive the ING Direct $25 bank bonus, just open an online savings account with a minimum opening balance of $250, and you will receive the $25 cash bonus. You’ll get a very nice interest rate through your FDIC-insured Orange Savings Account, which has no fees.






To receive the $25 ING Direct online savings account bonus, you must be referred by a current customer. Please email me at jazzdog059@aol.com for a referral code. Please include your full name so that INGDirect can you send you an email with the correct link.

Get $50 to sign up for a new PNC Bank Checking Account

I just heard about this promotion for free money on the radio tonight, and so I had to check it out!

Details – Open a free checking account with PNC Bank using their website below, set up a direct deposit of at least $400 from your employer, and you will be credited your $50…not bad! I would recommend doing this is it is easy to switch deposit accounts with your employer. I’m going to do this tomorrow at work!

https://www.pnc.com/webapp/unsec/Blank.do?siteArea=/pnccorp/PNC/Home/Personal/Checking/Checking+Offers/Bonus+Days&WT.ac=BONUS_0110_P_MH

Select fine print details shown below


The payout of $50 will be credited to the eligible account within 30 days of the first Direct Deposit, which must occur before 3/31/10. The payout will be identified as “Direct Deposit Reward” on your monthly statement. A qualifying Direct Deposit is defined as a Direct Deposit of a paycheck, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income electronically deposited into a Free, Performance or Performance Select Checking account or the Spend Account for Virtual Wallet. The minimum amount of any single Direct Deposit must be at least $400. The Direct Deposits must be made by an employer or an outside agency. Transfers from one account to another or deposits made at a branch or ATM do not qualify as Direct Deposits. Offer available to new PNC Bank checking account customers only who must open the account using the on-line application. Offer only available to residents of: DC, DE, FL, IN, KY, MD, NJ, OH, PA, VA.

One thing to keep in mind if you are searching for checking accounts that offer bonuses for opening:

Many offers only give you the free money bonus is you either 1) keep the account open for a set amount of time, or 2) make a minimum number of debit transactions each month. As you might guess, keeping up with these required transactions can be tedious. Micromaximus is a good website for helping you manage your rewards checking accounts by automatically making the transaction each month.

One of my favorite topics: Is it worth it to go to an expensive college?

This is one of my favorite financial topics to investigate and talk about for several reasons – 1) due to the insanely high costs of private education these days and 2) because at the company I work for, there are many people from expensive schools that enjoy sharing their stories of debt. So, let’s get started.
The question on the table is “Is it worth it to go to an expensive college?”
As usual, the answer to this, I believe, is that it just depends. Some jobs, such as financial banking and other jobs of that nature, almost require it as a prerequisite to work at the company that you went to one of the Ivy League schools. However, for most other types of jobs, this is not the case.
So, let’s start by comparing the cost to attend a top private school versus a not-so-prestigious state funded school. We’ll expose the costs by talking about two imaginary folks – Jane and Jon. Jon went to the state school. Jane went to the private school.
Jon and Jane were both top notch students in high school. They made straight A’s, took all sorts of AP classes, and did volunteer work. Both students basically aced their ACT and SAT tests, so they really had their pick of wherever they wanted to go for college. 
In the end, Jane decides to go to Harvard. Jon decides to go to the University of Arkansas. Jane has to take out a loan to cover the $50,000 per year tuition to go to Harvard. Jon gets a full ride to the University of Arkansas, and on top of that, the University will pay him a $10,000 per year stipend as well. Jon and Jane both graduate in four years time, and at the end of that, their balances are shown below.
Jane = -$200,000 in debt to the bank, assuming that interest starts to accrue after college is over
Jon = +$40,000 from the stipend he received
After school, Jon gets a job as an engineer/project manager at a company making $45,000 per year. Jon wanted to work at a pharmaceutical company or investment banking company, but couldn’t find any companies to work for interested in hiring Arkansas grads because there are no companies like that in that area. Jane gets a job as an entry level research scientist at a pharmaceutical company, making $70,000 per year. This is her 1st pick, top choice for the job she has always dreamed of!
Both Jon and Jane have $1,500 per month in living expenses ($18,000 per year). To keep things simple, let’s pretend there are no taxes. Jon takes the remaining $27,000 and invests the money in equity funds for retirement. Following my rules for which accounts to contribute money to that I previously posted, we can deduce that Jane will invest 6% of her income in her 401k to take advantage of the company match ($4200), leaving her with $47,800 per year left. Let’s assume that she will take this entire amount and pay off her student loans. Once Jane pays off her loan in 4 years, she will have a net worth of $0 and then will begin to invest the entire amount of her salary after living expenses ($52,000) in equity funds for retirement.
All else being equal, this pattern continues to occur and we assume they receive an equal 12.4% annual return. How long will it take for the net worth of Jane and Jon to become even?
After running the calculations, the answer to this is very interesting. They will both have an equal net worth at the age of retirement – Age 65. Fantastic!!!!

So, this bring us back to the original question of is it worth it to go to a top private expensive college. The answer seems to be NO from a purely financial perspective.
The case is made further for going to a cheap public school when you examine the fact that you can go to many state schools on the East Coast such as Penn State, Rutgers, and University of Virginia where companies recruit that also frequent top private institutions. At these companies, if you have the same degree, you will get paid the same. So, a scientist from Harvard would get paid the same $70,000 as a scientist from Rutgers. 
Awesome!!!! You learn something new every day.
Keep on investing!
Jacob

$25 Reward for Signing for Shell Discover Gas Credit Card

Found another good offer for a $25 sign up bonus for the Shell Discover Gas credit card. Just buy two gas purchases on the card within the first 60 days of opening, and you will get a $25 statement credit. Not bad! The link where to apply for a card is shown below.

http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/shell/shell-crd.jsp

Make $30 in 5 minutes – Sign up promotion with Chase Amazon Visa Credit Card

Found another nice credit card sign-up bonus promotion the other day. Go to the link below and sign up. Make one purchase on the card and receive a $30 bonus within several days. No annual fee either so it is free money! Further details are shown below.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cobrandcard/marketing.html

Amazon.com Rewards Visa® Card from Chase FreedomSM
  • Get $30 back: Your Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card will automatically be credited $30 within a few days of your first purchase with the card. The discount will appear as a credit on your credit card statement.
  • Get Instant Credit: Instant use of the card after approval.¹ Shipping to a new address? Update your Address Book before applying.
  • Earn Rewards Points: Earn points on every eligible purchase²; 3 points for every $1 spent on Amazon.com, 2 points for every $1 spent at gas stations, restaurants, and drug stores, and 1 point for every other $1 spent.
  • Redeem Your Points: Choose rewards for as few as 2,500 points! Redeem for $50 cash back with 5,000 points. View Rewards
  • No Annual Fee

Earn points on every eligible dollar spent At the places you spend the most
3 points
2 points
Gas Stations, Restaurants and Drugstores
1 point
Anywhere else Visa credit cards are accepted!

1 … 13 14 15
>