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As my daily spender, I use the Chase Freedom credit card. It earns me 3% on many of the things I buy most. Without warning, I received two shiny new cards in the mail stating now I have the Chase Exclusives Freedom card. Upon further investigation, I found there is almost no difference between my old chase freedom card and my new one…except the chase exclusives does not report a credit limit – which may hurt your FICO score.

Not all cardholders got the same deal. It seems because I had a Chase checking account, I received the exclusives card. Those that didn’t have a chase checking account got “upgraded” to a version of the card with an annual fee. If people were smart enough to use this card as their daily spender because it offered just about the best benefits around, they’re probably smart enough to change their card or cancel it all together before the annual fee is charged. They have a while to decide to keep the card, however. The annual fee is waived for the first year.

Bank of America is offering $100 to new checking customers. With a minimum opening deposit of $250, you get $75. Then, if you pay two bills within the first 30 days, you get an extra $25. Payment to your account will post within 90 days. Of course, this is a gimmick to get people to sign up, and fall for all their traps to assess fees to your account. For example, the MyAccess Checking Account has a $8.95 monthly maintenance fee unless you use direct deposit into that account (one direct deposit per billing cycle).

So, use ING Direct or Paypal to deposit money into your Bank of America MyAccess checking account once each billing cycle to avoid the fees. a few months later, cancel the account. Next time they offer a similar promotion (you’ll be eligible in another 6 months), repeat the process. With ING Direct, you will need to push the money (initite the deposit from ING’s website) to the Bank of America account. The amount can be quite small, like $1.

Bank bonuses are a wonderful thing for those that know the rules and avoid fees. Everyone that doesn’t understand the rules of the game ends up paying for your bonus. Enjoy your $100 bonus from Bank of America and don’t forget to enter code WIWGASINT. This will likely result in a pull on your credit report. Is the $100 worth it? I think so.

If you’re already using the ‘bumping‘ strategy of pulling your credit report regularly to eliminate hard inquiries, then you may have noticed this process takes a LONG time. It can take three months to see any results from pulling your credit report once a day.

Why not pull several times a day? All it takes is using multiple services to pull your credit score daily, and you can bump your hard inquiries in a fraction of the time. Here is a list of credit monitoring services that allow daily pulls:

• Service…………………………………………………..Pulls from………………………….Cost
• National City Identity Protect ………………..(Pulls all 3 bureaus)……………..$9/month
• Credit Karma ………………………………………(Pulls Trans Union only)………..Free
• Privacy Matters 123 …………………………….(Pulls all 3 bureaus)………………$30/year
• Truecredit ………………………………………….(Pulls all 3 bureaus)……………..$15/month

This list is not comprehensive, and is subject to change, but you get the idea, for about $55, you can remove hard inquiries from your credit report in 30 days or less.  Again, this does not work with Experian, but does work with Trans Union and Equifax.

Viva la bumpage.

A few days ago, when I was talking about bumping hard inquiries off your credit report, I mentioned choppage. Choppage is when soft inquiries are cut off of your credit report (usually in a large block). The soft inquiries are good, because they fill the spaces of your hard inquiries. So, you can see why choppage can harm your efforts to bump hard inquiries.

Choppage typically happens when there is a long line of identical pulls on your credit report. So, if you’ve been using national city, like mentioned in the bumpage post, and you have 60 days worth of pulls with nothing in between, your credit file may get chopped.

One potential way to avoid a chopped credit profile (and speed up the bumping process) is to pull from a few sources. CreditKarma pulls Trans Union, you can update daily, and best of all, its free. Truecredit.com allows daily pulls (all 3 bureaus), and is $15/month. Privacymatters123 allows daily pulls (all 3 bureaus), and is $30/year.

Probably the best way to avoid choppage is to take a break from pulling your credit report every once in a while.

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.