Hack the planet(’s bank account)

Lookee loookee, it appears that FNBO Direct, which is offering a very competitive 3.50% APY on their online savings account, is also offering a $25 promotion if you open an FNBO Bill Pay account.

Commerce Bank is running their Summer Reader Program promotion where they will deposit $10 into a new or existing Young Savers Account if you read ten books. Simply fill out the Summer Reading Brochure and bring it to your local Commerce Bank for the $10 promotion.

Terms & Conditions:

$10 will be deposited into a new or existing Young Savers account. One coupon per Customer. Cannot be combined with any other offers. Valid through September 30, 2008. Bring form of ID for child for a new account opening.

When it comes to flying, I skip all the headaches involved with frequent flyer miles and fly with an airline that doesn’t hassle me with any of that - Southwest Airlines. They, like Airtran and several other airlines, do a points system where you get a point for a one-way ticket. During some promotional offers, they will give double points to get more passengers in on an expanding hub. Fortunately for me, Baltimore, MD’s Baltimore Washington International Airport is one of these hubs and several years ago they were offering double points (four round trips, regardless of the miles, meant a free ticket!).

Why do I stick with Southwest? Hassle-free. Some people complain about their open seating policy (they’ve since adjusted it) but I didn’t have a problem, the faster you get on, the faster we get going. They don’t ding you with fees left and right like paying for drinks or a pillow or even to check luggage. And, as it turns out, frequent fliers on other airlines now have to pay new fees to use their miles!

What happens when I have to fly other airlines? I get their cards and I accrue the miles, usually turning them into magazine subscriptions or something other meaningless little prize. Perhaps it’s not the most efficient but, to be honest, I don’t enjoy dealing with the new business model of airlines - nickel and dime-ing you to profitability.

Washington Mutual recently increased their one-year (and 13 month) Certificate of Deposit rates to 4.50% APY, which appears to be in lock-step with their 3.75% APY online savings account. WaMu has been in the news lately for liquidity issues, an acute problem that brought down other banks recently, but they are FDIC insured up to the standard $100,000 so you won’t have to worry about losing anything.

Hat tip to Bank Deals!

Did you know that expired coupons are valid at commissaries and base exchanges for six months after their expiration date? Me neither! So rather than recycle them, send them to someone you know or send them to The Happy Housewife. She’ll send them along to her and she’ll send them to the troops. Contact her at coupons4troops (at) comcast (dot) net for details.

Hat tip to Chief Family Officer for this hack!.

AdPerk is a service where you can earn credits towards free magazines when you watch short commercial videos. After each video there is a captcha you need to enter within a time limit (30 seconds I think) to get credit. It’s a really easy to way to get free legitimate subscriptions. I currently am reading Popular Science, Good Housekeeping, and Ode thanks to Adperk.

The current offers are a subscription to Parenting, Ode, and Field & Stream. Their queue of potential offers includes Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Popular Science, Cosmopolitan, and several others.

The last Bank of America Checking (aou260508) bonus just expired so it’s time for a new bonus code! This is an offer for Bank of America credit card holders.

1. Open a new MyAccess Checking account using code: CH75TAD (make sure that code appears on the page)
2. Fund the account with $25 within thirty days.
3. Receive $75 within ninety days.

Offer expires November 30th, 2008.

Shadowe2001 on the Slickdeals forum found a way to get Amazon.com Prime for 3 months. Add $100 of qualifying textbooks into your cart and you will be offered a trial membership of Prime for three months. Be sure to go into your account and turn off the automatic renewal or you’ll be billed in three months for the service.

You will need a non-registered email address, a non-registered credit card, and $100 of textbooks in your cart to qualify. You can active Amazon.com Prime and then not purchase the books. Read the thread for more details.

Looks like rates are moving upward this month! WaMu jumped over all competitors and currently has the highest rate of 3.75% APY for their online savings account. Other banks have upped their offers as well and you now have at least three banks with offers over 3.50% APY. The HSBC Direct offer is valid until at least Sept. 15th and the WaMu and FNBO offer are both good indefinitely. Sadly, high yield saving account pioneers ING Direct and Emigrant Direct (increased their rate by 0.25% on Friday though!) lead up the back of the pack having not raised their rates.

Concerned about banks failing? (Some have speculated the generous offer by WaMu is because they are facing a liquidity problem) All of these banks are FDIC insured so your funds up to $100,000 are safe.

My wife and I don’t go to many movies in the theaters these days because the cost of doing so has just gotten pretty ridiculous. I recently saw a movie theater in Baltimore, the Landmark Theater in Harbor East, charge $10.50 for a ticket. Those are New York City movie prices in Baltimore! While the Landmark Theater is certainly very nice on the inside, ten dollars for a movie is pretty ridiculous.

Our local theater in Columbia, MD is a Regal Cinemas with reasonably comfortable seats and matinee/student discount ticket prices of around $7. You can buy movie vouchers from Costco for $6.50 a showing if you have a Costco membership. I recently joined the Regal Crown Club for kicks and found that the benefits were pretty solid.

First, the reward schedule is a bit unique but essentially you get a free ticket for every 120 points. A point is earned each time you spend a dollar. If a movie at regular price is $9, each point is worth about a nickel. Each movie ticket purchase is about 35 cents (so you save more with Costco tickets).

However, you get a free small popcorn every Tuesday and you get free stuff at 40 point increments. At 40 points you get a small popcorn, at 80 you get a small soft drink. So at 120 you get a ticket, at 160 you get a popcorn, at 200 you get a drink, at 240 you get another ticket. Joining the club gets you slightly more “stuff” than buying the tickets alone.

Couple that with a Citi mtvU card that gives you 5% cashback at the movie theater and you’re talking even more savings!