Free 10-year Term Life Insurance

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance is giving away $1 billion worth of life insurance coverage in 2008. Through a program called LifeBridge, MassMutual is offering a free $50,000 term life insurance policy (10-year term) for those individuals who are:

- age 19-42
- parent or legal guardian of a dependent child under the age of 18
- permanent, legal resident of the U.S.
- employed full or part time with annual family income between $10,000 and $40,000 per year
- in good health (as determined by their underwriting guidelines)

Only one policy per household is allowed. Death benefits are paid into a trust for the educational benefit of the insured's children.

A FAQ on this program is available by clicking here, and the LifeBridge eligibility form is here.

For those living in metro Atlanta, MassMutual will be taking applications in person on September 28 between 10am and 2pm at the Ben Hill United Methodist Church in Atlanta.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

I'm a fan of NPR, and my favorite weekly program is "the oddly informative news quiz" called Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! My wife and I have listened to this show for years, and I download the podcast weekly. The program is hilarious, and I often get strange looks from others at the YMCA as I laugh out loud listening to the program on my iPod while running on the treadmill.

Hosted by Peter Sagal with Carl Kasell acting as scorekeeper, the show is co-produced by Chicago Public Radio along with NPR, and live tapings are done at the Chase Auditorium in downtown Chicago most Thursday evenings. Despite having been to Chicago dozens of times, I've never been in town with a Thursday evening free. But as luck would have it, I'll be there next week for work and no plans that night.

Panelists for the March 6 taping of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! are Kyrie O'Connor, Roy Blount Jr., and Adam Felber, and tickets are $21.99. Being a cheap bastard, I Googled for information about discounted tickets and stumbled upon Goldstar, a website that offers such tickets to events in several cities, including Chicago. As a result, I picked up the last two half-price tickets available for $11 + $4 service fee each, and saved $14.00--thanks, Goldstar!

My wife would like nothing more than to have Carl Kasell's voice on our home answering machine, and the only way to make that happen is to be chosen as a contestant on this show. So if one of the producers (are you listening, Doug Berman, Rod Abid, Mike Danforth, Melody Kramer, and Emily Ecton?) would call me to confirm I've been picked to be a contestant... I'm waiting!

FREE Software from Microsoft and Intuit

Microsoft is giving away software?! It's true. They're giving away Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, but of course they're hoping that some percentage of customers will want to upgrade to their Professional version for $149.95.

Comparing the Express against the Professional version as well as Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting, though, and it's hard to understand why a small business would want to pay to upgrade unless they're in manufacturing, in which case you're probably going to want a more robust accounting product anyway.

For those who prefer to use Intuit's products, there is a version of their QuickBooks product that is free--QuickBooks Simple Start 2008. We've been accounting for our real estate investments in Quicken, but I'm going to try both Microsoft Office Accounting Express and QuickBooks Simple Start to see if either might be better.

Update on Saving with VoIP

With my Sunrocket deal expiring next month, it's time to switch VoIP providers. And just in time, ViaTalk is running a promotion offering unlimited local & long distance calling for $199 for 2 years with free router (but activation is $29.95 and shipping is $9.95) which comes to $9.95 per month. Until I can convince my wife to drop our "land line" in lieu of cellular only, this is hard to beat.

Save big by shopping online

Like many, I loathe shopping in retail stores and most of my purchases are made via the Internet. Prior to making a purchase, I follow several steps to ensure I'm getting the best deal and doing so has saved me thousands:

1) Conduct a Google search to find out if there's a coupon code or promotion available for the item I want to purchase or the merchant from which I'm planning on purchasing the item
2) Check eBay to see if someone has the item available in new or nearly-new condition
3) Search the SlickDeals and FatWallet forums to learn if anyone has found a better deal or an obscure rebate on the item I want
4) Look up the prospective merchant via one of several commission rebate sites and select the site giving the best cash back on the merchant who will get my business

For the fourth step, my sites of choice are Upromise, Ebates, and FatWallet. I checked my commissions from these sites in preparation for writing this entry and was surprised that my commission rebate checks totaled $636.82 over the last 4 years. I've received $392.82 from Upromise, $209.49 from Ebates, and $34.51 from FatWallet.

The premise behind Upromise is terrific--it was started to give families an easy way to save for college. You can even link a 529 plan from Vanguard or one from 8 states so that funds are automatically transferred to your child's 529 account. Some of the companies offering cash-back through Upromise include Exxon, eBay, McDonald's, CVS, Wal-Mart.com, and many others.

Should you choose to sign up for Ebates, do so by clicking here so you'll get a $5 bonus for signing up; I get a $5 referral bonus as well. As long as your cash-back amount is greater than $5, you'll receive a check each quarter. Just a few of Ebates' participating retailers include iTunes, Sears, REI, OfficeDepot, NetFlix, and Gap.

FatWallet has both forums as well as offering commission rebates, and I've recently found that they often give 1 to 2 percentage points more than Upromise or Ebates. Many of the participating retailers overlap those that participate in the Upromise and Ebates programs, but several of those offering a higher commission rebate include Target, Newegg, Apple, Kmart, Snapfish, and uBid.com.

A new entrant and competitor to the previously mentioned sites is Jellyfish which gives commission rebates but also has a live show 24/7 that is basically an online version of the Home Shopping Network with fluctuating prices. Again, it has many of the same retailers participating, but I noticed that Jellyfish is offering a 7.5% rebate from Target vs. only 4.4% from FatWallet and 4% from Ebates & Upromise. It's certainly worth a look.

2007 Entertainment Books now 50% off

I typically save the cost of my Entertainment Book with one or two purchases, and now you can save even more with 50% off the price of the 2007 Entertainment Book. Prices for several cities are below:

Dallas... was $27.00 now $13.50
Seattle... was $37.00 now $18.50
Atlanta... was $27.00 now $13.50
Chicago... was $27.00 now $13.50
Orlando... was $32.00 now $16.00
Boston... was $32.00 now $16.00
San Francisco... was $32.00 now $16.00
Washington DC... was $32.00 now $16.00
Phoenix... was $32.00 now $16.00
New York City... was $32.00 now $16.00

This promotion ends April 30.

FREE TaxCut Premium Federal + FREE DeductionPro

With apologies to my non-U.S. readers, through a promotion with travelocity, H&R Block is giving away its TaxCut Premium Federal along with DeductionPro software for free [all credit goes to slickdeals.net for identifying this offer].

Those readers living in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming (all states with no state income tax) should have few reasons to buy tax software this year. The same goes for those in New Hampshire and Tennessee since you only pay state tax on dividend & interest income.

19" LCD Monitor for $100 from Office Depot after rebate

I've been looking for a cheap LCD monitor to replace my wife's huge CRT monitor, and tonite I found it. Office Depot has the Norcent 19" Widescreen LDC monitor for $149.99 online with a $50 mail-in rebate and free delivery.

I'm still waiting for a deal on Turbo Tax Premier (most of the specials are for Turbo Tax Deluxe).

Last day for free $10 from Google

Save $10 on your first purchase of $10 or more when using Google Checkout.

Note: You don't need to make a purchase today; you just need to sign up by the end of the day today (February 14, 2007). Purchase must be made by March 31, 2007.

Hopefully getting it right: Valentine's Day

While it's true that once you have kids life is never the same, perhaps it is never more true than on Valentine's Day. I'm so very fortunate to have married a woman who gets the "male logic" that February 14 is just a randomly selected day, and so Valentine's Day can really be celebrated on any day should this date be inconvenient. And so given the complexities of finding a baby sitter and getting a dinner reservation on Valentine's Day, we are going to celebrate it this Sunday evening instead.

As a guy, this is the most intimidating holiday of the year. It has the potential to make my wife see me as man she fell in love with or... not. So my goals on this particular day are to: 1) love and treat my wife as I always wish I did, 2) not fight, and 3) never raise the bar lest I be screwed next year.

So with flowers ordered and the card purchased, there's only one thing left to do, and that's to make the dinner reservation. No, we won't be catching a flight to eat at a White Castle, but I did check DinnerBroker and iSeatz to see if any good restaurants had discounts available. Not finding what I wanted, I went to OpenTable and finding our favorite restaurant available, I booked our reservation.

The ultimate 99 cent value meal

After years of hearing my wife rave about how great the food is at Taco Bueno, I enjoyed my first meal there on a family trip to Dallas/Fort Worth at Thanksgiving. My wife swears by their bean burritos while I wolfed down a couple of crispy beef tacos. They were good--better than Taco Bell's, so I decided to have another after finishing my two. Fortunately at the top of my receipt was a "Free Beef Taco" coupon for completing a survey. It required me to call a 1-800 number, answer a few questions, and then enter a 4-digit code. I'm a cheap bastard, so I spent the 60 seconds punching responses into my cell phone and got my code.

I walked up to the counter and ordered my free beef taco. I handed the cashier my coupon, fully expecting that I'd missed the fine print and would be charged tax or be told I needed to order something else, but no. I was handed my beef taco along with... you guessed it... a "Free Beef Taco" coupon at the top of my receipt for the free beef taco I just received. It is the ultimate value meal--an all you can eat beef taco buffet for just 99 cents.

My family and I returned to D/FW just before Christmas to give my brother and sister-in-law a hand with their new responsibility. While there we had an opportunity to again eat at Taco Bueno. My wife was craving their bean burritos while I was eager to find out if they still had their 99 cent buffet. They did. It became a game to me, so after buying my first beef taco I used their "Free Beef Taco" coupons the rest of the trip to satiate my hunger. And perhaps because I was respectful to the cashiers, they never hesitated to take my coupon and offer a new one in return.

Free 2GB online backup with encryption

I got the blue screen of death as I was drafting a new post this evening. This required me to manually turn my computer off with the power supply switch as even the reset button wasn't working. I waited several seconds and hit the switch again to turn it on, but to my chagrin nothing happened. No whirring fans, no spinning hard drive, no blue LED light emitting from the case... nothing. I tried in vain to flip the switch off and on again in the foolish hope that the power supply would mysteriously heal itself.

Fortunately I have my critical documents encrypted and backed up online with my free 2GB account at Mozy. In full disclosure: if you click on the Mozy link, sign up, and perform a backup, I get an extra 256MB of free backup space--but so do you! Mozy has a lot of neat features, and I particularly like its ability to automatically perform a scheduled backup.

As for my PC, thank goodness for eBay. I'm assuming that my power supply is fried so I pulled it, got the manufacturer & part #, and ordered one on eBay for $30 less than what I was able to find from any retailer on Froogle.

Cost of bottled water vs. tap

I often buy consumables that I wouldn't otherwise when I travel for business. I'm not suggesting I splurge on extravagances, rather these purchases are circumstantial. For example, I seldom use breath mints at home, but I always have a roll of peppermint or wintergreen BreathSavers in my pocket when I'm on the road.

Another item that only gets purchased when traveling is bottled water. I support home town companies, so my bottled water of choice is Dasani. I usually buy the 20 ounce size for $1.06 with tax.

We've all heard that bottled water is 99% profit, but what does the water itself actually cost? I decided to grab my most recent water bill to find out.

My household consists of myself, my wife, and 3 & 1 year old children. Here is a typical month's water usage and costs:

Fully allocating sewer services into the cost, a gallon of tap water = $ .00784. Yes, a gallon of tap water is less than 1 cent.

How does that 20 ounce bottle of Dasani compare? Dasani is $6.78 per gallon, so its gross profit margin relative to my cost of tap water is 99.9%.

Saving thousands on furniture

I bought my first home when I was 20 and living in Dallas/Fort Worth. Well, actually my home was a townhouse, but it was mine nonetheless. I had flight benefits with my job and heard stories of coworkers traveling to High Point, NC, to save big money furnishing their house. As a bachelor, big money and furnishings were mutually exclusive. I went to a furniture liquidation warehouse and bought a matching couch, loveseat, and chair for under $300 which reflected my taste in decor... something Vern Yip would call bachelor tacky. This experience was my basis of knowledge for the cost of furniture.

Fast forward 10 years, and I'm married and living in Orlando. Informed that it was time for a new couch/sectional to go with our new home, I went furniture shopping with my wife. You can imagine my shock in discovering that a 3-piece sectional can cost more than a car... at least the last car I'd purchased (an '88 Volkswagen Fox wagon, quite the chickmobile). I was further surprised to learn that most people can't pick up furniture on the day it's purchased. Remembering, "Happy wife, happy life," we agreed on a style and fabric, and 6 weeks later the furniture arrived.

After moving back to Atlanta a couple of years later, I made a business trip to Greensboro, NC, and decided to make the 25 minute drive to High Point to see what was in the furniture capital of the world and if prices really were better. I visited two stores, Boyles Furniture and Furnitureland South (FLS), to check the price on a Stanley bedside table to match one we'd picked up at closeout from a Sears Homelife that was going out of business.

My first stop was to FLS, home of the world's tallest highboy and a showroom (+ Mart) with over 500,000 square feet of space. I spent an hour wandering around the Mart building and found the bedside table in the Stanley line I wanted. I was surprised to find it 40% off retail, and so I asked a salesperson to check the price. It was correct. She also asked my zip code and calculated that shipping would be ~ $60 but that there wouldn't be sales tax because I was having the item shipped out of state. I took the salesperson's card and left for my next stop.

I didn't have much time at Boyles because I'd spent more time at FLS than planned, but I knew the drill. Rather than going to find the furniture, I immediately asked for a salesperson and had her look up the price of the item I wanted. I was happy to learn that the price was closer to 50% off and that Boyles was offering free shipping on orders over $500. Shipping was about the same otherwise. I took her card, thanked her for her time, and left to catch my flight.

After returning to Atlanta, my wife and I decided to purchase the bedside table from Boyles. We also purchased a dresser and bed from the same line. We have since made several trips to the Triad (Hickory, Greensboro, and High Point) area to furniture shop, mostly at clearance and showroom sales. On our last trip we went to the Furnitureland South Clearance Center and paid less than $100 for a $600 mirror that came from the same Stanley line and completes our bedroom.

If you're out of the bachelor tacky phase and wanting to save thousands of dollars on nice furniture, it's worth a call or click to furniture shop in the High Point area. Here are some sites for reference:

• Boyles
  
• Furnitureland South
• Hickory Furniture Mart
• High Point Furniture Store Directory
• Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Factory Outlet

And until the end of this month, Boyles is offering free delivery on orders over $2,000 for those east of the Mississippi. Those west may have free or discounted shipping depending on the manufacturer.

It never hurts to ask

I'm often surprised at people who are willing to take what life gives them, which runs the gamut from "Well, I was born poor, so I'll just stay poor," to "I was given a dumpy hotel room, so I'll just take it." Nonsense. Whether it's learning how to get out of poverty or getting a nicer hotel room, it never hurts to ask.

I arrived into San Francisco last night during a month when hotel occupancies may hit 60% if they're lucky. Granted, knowledge is power, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a seasoned hotelier to know that demand for hotels in San Francisco is soft in the middle of January when temperatures are unseasonably cold (in the 30's), the midwest is covered in ice (limiting the ability or at least the desire of corporate road warriors to travel), and a nice 4* full-service hotel like The Argent is available on a Monday for just over $100 a night.

Upon checkin, the front desk agent asked the usual questions. As I offered her my credit card for incidentals, I asked one of my own, "Do you have an upper floor corner bay view room with a king bed?" I'd booked a room with two double beds because the rate was cheaper, but I prefer a king bed. The front desk agent's response was one I've heard innumerable times, "In fact we do. Would you like one key or two?"

And for those like me whose favorite hotel brand is Westin because of their heavenly beds, heavenly showers, and smoke-free air, you'll be happy to know that The Argent will soon become The Westin San Francisco Market Street.

Saving $ on telephone costs with VoIP

In 2004, Comcast was my telephone, high-speed Internet, and cable service provider. Because these three services were bundled we saved money over BellSouth, but the telephone bill was still ~ $45 + an average of $15 in long distance charges. For years I'd tried unconvincingly to persuade my wife to ditch our landline telephone and just use our cell phones to save money, but safety (being able to dial 911 & have them know our address) and inconsistent cellular coverage were always barriers.

I've used the Yahoo instant messenger voice feature since 1999, so I was aware of and tried to keep up with advances in voice over IP (VoIP) technology. One company I kept an eye on was Vonage, which launched in 2002. By 2004, Vonage had several hundred thousand customers and was reported to have good call quality along with the "best of the worst" in customer service and was the only VoIP provider able to handle 911 calls. Like most VoIP providers, Vonage also offered unlimited local and free long distance (for North America) calling. The one caveat to being able to use a VoIP provider is that you must have a high-speed Internet connection.

I ran the numbers and thought we could shave half off our telephone charges by switching to Vonage. I shared the information with my wife, and to my surprise, she agreed to switch as long as it had no impact on her when she picked up the telephone to make a call. Fortunately I'd installed a 66-block in the house earlier that year (using Phone-man's website as a guide), which was going to make it really easy for me to connect the VoIP router to my home telephone wiring.

On June 17, 2004 I submitted the paperwork to Vonage for transferring my telephone number from Comcast, and by July 1 the process was complete. My telephone charges fell from over $60 per month to just $27.24. And I never had a problem with Vonage.

Over the summer of last year, I was reading in one of the FatWallet forums about SunRocket having a $99 per year special. While I was happy with Vonage, my loyalty is in saving $, so I again ran the numbers. The $99 SunRocket special was for the first year only + a $39.95 equipment charge = $138.95 per year or $11.58 per month, a savings of over 50% vs. Vonage. It was a no-brainer--I switched and have been happy with SunRocket.

I bring all of this up because I read that via:talk is running a buy 1 year get 1 year free special for $199 with no equipment fee. From what I've heard, via:talk seems to have a good quality product, and telephone service for $8.29 per month is pretty hard to beat.

Midnight temptations

NO--not those kind of temptations! I wanted to follow up on my post 1 year ago today where I discussed Woot and a few other reasons I'm up after midnight. In the last year, much has changed.

Two of the 5 sites I previously mentioned, 1deal1day and SnapGone are no longer operating. Though both sites lead you to believe they'll be back soon, their landing pages haven't changed in 6+ months.

Fortunately Woot, MidnightBox, and steepANDcheap are very much alive & well, and in the last year there have been two new additions: StrongIdea and Tanga.

If you're looking to save your way to the poor house, these sites offer some swinging deals. Woot has gotten the lionshare of my $, though I've also made purchases from MidnightBox and StrongIdea. My sweet deals last year were a chest belt heart rate monitor and watch for $30, a Toshiba DVD player with HD upconversion and HDMI output for $40, and a pair of binoculars with built-in digital camera for $25.

If you're looking for an evening distraction and living in the Eastern Time zone, check out Tanga starting at 10:00pm followed by MidnightBox at midnight, and then Woot posts their new item at 1:00am. steepANDcheap lists a new item as soon as their previous one sells out, and sorry--I have no idea when StrongIdea lists new items.

Free Domain Registration

I've been kicking around the idea of starting a blog completely devoted to fiscal discipline (i.e., being frugal) and unencumbered by my political and religious diatribes. If I do this, the blog probably won't be hosted through Blogger to allow me to own the domain name. So being the cheap bastard that I am, I did a Google search on "free domain registration", and I wasn't surprised to learn that a company is doing this. I was surprised to find out who: Microsoft!

Microsoft is only offering this promotion while they beta test some Office Live tools, but hey--free is free!

My deal of the year

My personal computer is a MicroCenter PowerSpec that I bought a year and a half ago to replace an older PowerSpec that had lost most of the functions of its integrated devices -- the on-board video, modem/ethernet, and serial ports were all dead. I had chalked this up to bad luck and was seduced into getting another PC from this same manufacturer by price. My current PC worked okay for the first six months, and then it began to intermittently reboot. I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to get this repaired because I had a lot of data on it and didn't want to have to back up 60GB worth of files, so I tolerated this annoyance. As the warranty expired at the year mark the problem got progressively worse, and now a day doesn't go by that the computer doesn't shut down with a memory dump or just reboot. I thought the problem might be too much heat in the case so I installed a set of fans in an empty 5.25" drive bay as well as another one on the back of the PC, but the problem persists.

So as I mentioned in a note a few days ago, I've been reading the FatWal!et forums (specifically, Hot Deals) for a while with an eye towards finding a swinging deal on a new computer. Last week I read a posting indicating Office Depot had a 19" CRT monitor for $24 AR (after rebate). While I'd prefer getting a new 19" LCD, I knew I couldn't beat $24 for a monitor so I checked online to see if my local store had one of these available for pickup... and I lucked out--they had only one. Just before clicking "purchase" I scanned through the FW postings again and noticed that there was a coupon code good for $30 off, so I went back to my online shopping cart and added the code... it worked! After tax, I'm amazed that I'm paying less than $2 for taking this monitor off their hands.

Now all I needed was a new computer, and FW came through for me again. I read where CompUSA was going to have a great sale over the MLK weekend. Their loss leader was a Compaq Presario SR1710NX with everything that I needed for $374.99 + $22.50 tax, but then the rebates kicked in--a $200 CompUSA rebate along with a $50 Compaq rebate, bringing the price to $147.49 AR. At this price, I couldn't resist and picked one up on Sunday.

I might be surprised, but I'm guessing that this new 19" monitor + Compaq Presario for less than $150 will be my deal of the year. And yes, with this much $ at stake, the rebate forms are in the mail.

I think I'm a cheap bastard, but I don't come close to these guys...

I'm ordinarily a very frugal person, and perhaps I'm wired more differently than I think. I prefer to do auto repair work myself on my 10 year-old car that has 150k miles, I'd rather eat in than out, and it pains me to pay retail for anything. Yes, anything. And yet in the last 8 years, my wife has helped me understand and quantify the value of my time. When we were first married I used to drive 5 miles out of the way to save 10 cents a gallon on gas. If a store was selling something for $10 less after rebate than another store, I'd buy from the store with the rebate... even though it was often more expensive up front than the other retailer, but in my mind I rationalized that I'd save $10 with the rebate.

One of the first lessons about the value of my time happened shortly after we'd been married, and I ran out of gas. Yes, I was trying to get to the "cheap" gas station, but in doing so I passed a half dozen other stations and spent 2 hours stuck on the shoulder of I-75 waiting for AAA to arrive. I didn't plan to tell my wife about the incident, but I suck at keeping secrets from her. So after telling her the story, our conversation went something like this...
Wife: What would you have paid not to have dealt with running out of gas and waiting 2 hours on the side of the freeway?
Me: $100
Wife: How much were you going to save?
Me: [Thinking. 18 gallon tank X ten cents a gallon cheaper...] $2 at the most
Wife: So in trying to save $2 you lost 2 hours of your life that you'll never get back, and those hours were worth $100. Learn anything?
Me: Yeah, sometimes men prefer dumb blondes to smart brunettes
Wife: Not if they like sleeping in bed with their wives, they don't
Me: I need to go walk the dogs

Now when the gas tank is low, I fill it. It still bugs me if I pay more than I think I should, but as a means of pacifying this angst, I got a AAA Visa card that gives me 5% cash back on gas purchases.

On the subject of things being cheaper with rebates, I've come to learn that having ADD -and- filling out & submitting rebates by their deadlines are often incompatable. I've been "screwed" numerous times by missing a due date and just recently submitted a rebate and forgot to put a stamp on the envelope, thus missing the dealine. I still find it hard to pass up a great deal like the 19" monitor I picked up for $24 after rebate (I'll share the story about this in a couple of days), but I now try to avoid purchases requiring rebates.

So all of that is background for why I've been reading the FatWal!et (FW) forums over the last couple of months. I appreciate the mission of getting the best price and admire the passion of many of the "OPs", or Original Posters, i.e., the first users to alert others to a deal. These guys are militant about getting a bargain. They drive all over town to check inventory (lest they alert an employee to a closeout deal in which case the employee may claim the item is OOS--out of stock and buy up the inventory for themselves), have special credit cards so they can be refunded the difference if a purchased item goes down in price within X number of days, set up systems for managing and tracking rebates, frequent retail stores that give 110% price match guarantees, and do just about anything to get a free item. I'll confess to taking part in a few shenanigans in order to get a blowout deal, but I'm a dwarf amongst giants in the land of FatWal!et.