Welcome to Mound of Money

Note: Deal is EXPIRED as of July 3, 2009.

If you’re truly a cheapskate, you’ll maintain your own vehicle. I try to do as much as i can like spark plugs, wires, electrical , etc. Why pay an independant mechanic shop $40-$100 (depending on location) an hour to work on your car? If you’re making $100 an hour (after taxes), I guess its worth it to take your car to the shop. Here’s a coupon for “Auzozone Friends and Family”.  Save 20% on pretty much everything except online purchases and fluids. Enjoy!

Autozone Friends and Family Coupon Save 20%

ING Direct is one of my favorite banks becaues of the free ACH transfers, relatively high rates, and ease of use. It also has a very low instance of account fraud – an important aspect of any online bank.

I have lots of bank accounts because I keep my eye out for low hanging fruit like account opening bonuses. In 2008, I earned $1000+ in account opening bonuses.  Here’s one for you:

ING Direct Electric Orange $50 Bonus

As always, be familiar with the fine print, and enter reference code EM287 when prompted for the $50. If you don’t already have an ING direct savings account, you’ll need to open one first.

1. Click ‘Apply Now’
2. Open your Electric Orange
3. Activate your Electric Orange MasterCard® Debit Card
4. Use your Electric Orange Card to make at least 3 signature-based purchases in the first 45 days after your account has been opened
5. Your $50 bonus will be automatically deposited into your Electric Orange 50 days after your account has been opened

Beware: This will result in a hard pull on your credit report. Also read my post: ‘Bumping Hard Inquiries’

Title says it all (except for the fine print).

Link to Fridays BOGO Entree Coupon

Enjoy.

Remember that car you were thinking about buying? Credit inquiry. New cell phone? Credit inquiry. What about that store credit card to get a lousy 10% off? Credit inquiry.

Soft inquiries (inquries you initiate not for credit)  such as pulling your credit report do not harm your score. Credit inquiries resulting from you requesting credit hurt your score. These are “hard inquiries” and most people think they won’t go away until they naturally fall off your credit report (2 years by law). There is a way to get the inquries off sooner.

Each credit reporting agency (CRA) such as Equifax (EQ) Trans Union (TU) or Experian (EX) has slots in wich they put your inquiries, hard or soft. Basically bumpage is filling all the slots for credit inquries with soft inquiries. The new soft inquiries “bump” off the hard inquiries and raise your credit score.  NOTE: This will not work with Experian.

Don’t worry if you only have a couple of hard inquiries on your report. Use bumpage if you have MANY inquiries you’d like to get off relatively soon. If you pull every day, it should take about 90 days to bump your hard inquiries. It takes a little determination, but 90 days is a lot better than two years. I used this tactic after my App-O-Rama (signed up for 20-30 credit cards at once for 0% offers and bonuses), and healed my score in short order.

A cheap way to pull your credit report is using National City Identity Protect. They allow one pull every 24 hours.

Watch out for “choppage” and “splittage.” They’re beyond the scope of what we’re talking about here, but learn more by reading this post.

Jamba has BOGO smoothies until 7/12/09. Just drink both of them yourself. They’re that good. Enjoy!

Jamba Juice Buy One Get One Free

The companies that manufacture razors make a killing. Have you seen how much a pack of those 4 blade razor heads cost? It’s rediculous! Here’s a way to still get that great shave, but for much less.

Shave as normal, but afterward, take a blow dryer to your razor. Folks who do this report a much longer razor lifespan. The reasoning behind this is that drying the blades immediately after use reduces corrosion on the blades. Most of the damage to the blade isn’t caused by your hair, its caused by corrosion. Eliminate the corrosion, and you’ve got a sharp blade for a long time.

I only wish I would have known this before I spent all that money on an electric….But I’ll go to Wal-Mart tomorrow and pick up some Mach 3 blades. I’ll design an experiement (my physics professor would be so proud) to see how well it actually works. Be on the lookout for another post about saving on shaving.

Oh, and here’s a decent deal on Gillette Mach3 blades. 8 for $7.12…Not bad for nearly a decade of shaving bliss.

Every once in a while, I splurge on eating out rather than munching on frozen dinners.

Its obvious to some, but many years ago, I didn’t know the rule about using a coupon on the first date. I learned the hard way. That being said, I took my wife out to dinner last week for half price. No, I didn’t use a two for one hamburger coupon from Carl’s Jr  (although I do have some lying around). I used Restaurant.com. Restaurant.com sells ‘gift certificates’ good at a participating restaurant. Most of the Restaurant.com participating establishments are mom and pop type places or small chain restaurants.  The gift cards are more like coupons, but I’m not complaining. $25 off of $50 makes for some cheap surf and turf.

…But restaurant.com makes people buy those $25 off of $50  ‘gift certificates’ for about ten dollars. So, its not really half off – unless you have a coupon code. Some people would say half off of the regular price of $10  would be a good deal, and jump on it, being happy to get a $25 certificate for $5….But I typically hold out for the 80% off  restaurant.com coupon codes, bringing the price to $2 for the restaurant.com certificate. Then, comes the low hanging fruit: clicking through fatwallet.com gives 20% cash back. Price for our $50 dinner? $26.60. Not exactly half, but close enough.

For Restaurant.com 80% off, use coupon code ‘dish’. Expires 6/25, but don’t worry, there’ll be more codes later.

In an effort to stimulate the wallets of car makers and dealerships, congress passed ‘Cash for Clunkers’.  ‘Cash for Clunkers’ will give between 3500 and 4500 toward the purcahse of a new vehicle. Qualification for ‘Cash for Clunkers’ is based on the age of your trade in vehicle, and its NEW EPA estimated combined fuel economy. Passenger cars must be 25 years old or newer, and get 18MPG or less according to the NEW EPA estimates. To qualify for the full ‘Cash for Clunkers’ credit, the new car must get 10MPG better than your old car. To prove you aren’t trying to game the system, ‘Cash for Clunkers’ requires that the vehicle be continuously registered and insured by YOU for the previous 12 months.  Note, there are slightly different rules if you’d like to purchase a truck.

What does this mean for the consumer? Time will tell, but I imagine the deep discounts being offered for the purchase of new cars will dwindle. The dealerships know ‘Cash for Clunkers’ will drive in new customers, and they know the customers will have at least 4500 to put towards a new car. Armed with this information, the dealerships may be able to raise their prices a little.

Is ‘Cash for Clunkers’ actually a good deal? It depends. Do you have a car that is essentially worthless? Is the replacement vehicle you are looking at a super economy car?

As an example, my  Toyota Camry gets 18MPG according to the EPA. It’s kind of falling apart (What can I say? Its paid for!) and wouldn’t fetch much on the open market….maybe $1200. If I were to buy a 2009 Nissan Versa for $7800 and use ‘cash for clunkers’ to trade in my Camry, the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ transaction would break down like this:

Stripped downVersa      +7800
‘Cash for clunkers’         -4500
Taxes & Registration     +800 (varies by state)
Total =                             4100

This is simplified, because it doesn’t take into account the current value of my car, the savings of gas, and any differences in insurance costs. Is 4100 a good deal on a new car with a warranty? (Reminder: my Camry has many expensive repairs needed regularly). I think its a great deal. But will the majority of americans buy a stripped down economy car with their ‘cash for clunkers’ money? I doubt it. Folks will want to drop at least 20K on a new car.

One thing I see as sorely lacking is the ability for consumers to purchase a used car with better gas mileage. Is the intent to incentivise better gas mileage, or is the intent to line the pockets of the auto industry?

All I’ve been hearing for the past year is the economy sucks…blah blah blah…

 People are scaling back on all sorts of things. One thing you may have cut from your budget recently is travel. You may think vacations are, by definition, quite expensive. In actuality, a getaway can be quite a bit cheaper than expected…especially when it comes to hotel accomodations.

Have you used Priceline yet? USE IT!  If a hotel needs to fill rooms, they offer unbelievable discounts. On it’s own, Priceline can be a little scary, because they don’t show what hotels participate in a given area nor do they tell you what the minimum price is that  a hotel will accept. You only know the hotel AFTER you’ve paid for your stay. That’s why I use biddingfortravel.com along with priceline. You go there, look up the area you’ll be staying in, and it shows not only what hotels have been accepting offers, but also shows what other’s have been bidding. It’s the best way I’ve found to get great deals on hotels.

Go to biddingfortravel.com, read the posting guidelines, and save some cash.

Mound of money is just getting started.  Our goal is to show you how to spend a little and dave a lot!