There is a battle brewing between Grocery Store chains that will benefit savvy customers.

Recently, King Soopers made news in the Denver, Colorado area with its rewards program offering up to $1 off each gallon of gas purchased at King Soopers’ gas stations or affiliated Loaf n Jug gas stations.

Basically, each dollar spent when using the grocery store’s loyalty card, called SooperCard, earns one point. When you have 100 points, customers can get 10 cents per gallon savings on gasoline purchases. Safeway has a similar program.

King Soopers Gas $1 Off Program

The waves started coming when King Soopers upped the ante this summer.

Typically, customers with more than 100 points simply start earning another discounted trip to the gas pump. For example, a shopper who spent $200 on groceries would earn two fill-ups with a 10 cent discount. For many shoppers, this accrual rate is higher than how fast they purchase gas. The program rewards reset every quarter, so many households don’t use all of their 10 cent off gas rewards.

Recently, however, King Soopers changed the deal to allow rewards to accrue for multiple 10 gas discounts on a single fill-up, up to $1 per gallon discount.

Now, when that same shopper spends $200, they can get 20 cents off per gallon, or for every $1,000, a full dollar per gallon discount.

Safeway Also Offers $1 Per Gallon Discount

Things just got interesting. According to a flyer in stores, Safeway is offering the same gas discount as King Soopers, up to $1 per gallon off of gas.

As it turns out, there are some nuances to the program that can help savvy shopper save even more money faster.

For starters, Gift Card purchases earn 2 points per dollar. I never advocate buying something more than you would use anyway as a way to earn a discount. Doing so does nothing more than make you poorer while you feel good about it.

However, if you buy gift cards as gifts anyway, it makes sense to buy them at the grocery store and get bonus points earned for a bigger gas discount faster.

An even better deal is to look for gift cards to retailers you already patronize and buy their gift cards. It’s money you would have spent anyway, but now you get a bonus for it. Be careful. Don’t over-buy gift cards for more than you normally use just to get more gas rewards points.

Even Bigger Savings on Gas

With gas prices so high, any savings is good news, but using smart personal finance tricks can save you even more.

Combine your gas discount with a gas rewards credit card or cash-back credit card to reduce the cost of filling your car with gas even more. You could also use them to earn points to redeem, like with the Capital One Rewards catalog or the Citibank rewards catalog.

For example, buying 20 gallons at $3.00 per gallon costs $60.00. Use your dollar-off discount from the grocery store to save $20.00 on that tank of gas. Buy the gas with a 1 percent cash back card and earn 40 cents. All total, that $60 tank of gas ends up costing you $39.60, a savings of 33 percent on your gas purchase.

The best news for shoppers is that you won’t "lose" your gas rewards when the quarter ends since you can batch together multiple $100 worth of purchases, that $300 you spend between fillups becomes 30 cents off per gallon instead of 3 different discounted trips to the gas station.

This program is not a nationwide offering. The Safeway brochure says the offer is only good in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Texas, Virginia and Washington D.C. stores and gas stations. If you live in one of those areas, be sure to check the details and fine print and then enjoy your savings.

Gas Rewards Expire

There is a catch, of course.

Under the old grocery store gas discount program, your points expired each quarter. According to the brochure, they now expire the following month. So, if you earn 50 cents worth of discounts in July, you only have until the end of August to use your discounted trip.

Keep that in mind and be sure to fill up at month-end if you have rewards and a tank that’s less than half-full or your rewards will disappear.

Related posts:

1. Amazon Rewards Visa Credit Cards
2. How To Compare Rewards Credit Cards

Save $1 Gallon on Gasoline with Grocery Cards originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Earlier we discussed how I first found out about Credit Karma and how, as a seasoned financial professional, I was inclined to think that Credit Karma is a scam offer for free credit scores. I decided to do a review after being asked about it repeatedly.

Update: Read here about an opt-in service Credit Karma review credit monitoring as a free additional service.

There are multiple reasons for thinking this service isn’t legitimate, but the main one is that credit scores are not free.

Credit scores are not free for you, they are not free for banks, they are not free for car dealers, they are not free for anyone. Credit scores are the “why didn’t I think of that” invention of the century where personal lending is concerned.

A company called Fair Isaacs takes information from the credit reports at any of the three major credit bureaus and then uses a proprietary algorithm to reduce dozens of pages or more into one single number called a credit score. It does not do this for free. Every time someone pulls your credit score, they pay. They may pay a lot or they may pay a little depending upon their agreement with Fair Issac, but they do pay. You can’t give something that costs you money for free unless you have another way to make more money than you are paying out.

Credit Karma Review of Free Credit Score

Since most free credit score scams are actually free trial offers that lead to an automatic recurring charge on your credit card, I figured that Credit Karma would want a credit card number before giving me my credit score. I know how to beat automatic charges on my credit cards, so I thought I would go through the process anyway and find out for sure whether or not Credit Karma was a scam.

The surprising thing was that they never asked me to enter a credit card number!

As you may recall, I had generated a limited use credit card number to enter, but I didn’t need it. Credit Karma asked for a lot of personal information, but never asked me to enter a credit card number nor any bank account information. In other words, they have no way to charge me for my credit score. It’s tough to scam someone when you don’t get any money from them.

That begs the question, is the credit score from Credit-Karma a real credit score?

Another credit score offering out there are calculators that “estimate” your credit score for you. The catch is that they estimate your credit score based upon the information that you provide. Chances are that there is no way you are going to enter all of the information that exists in your credit report, so it is not a very accurate estimate, no matter how good the credit score calculator program itself is.

That didn’t happen with CreditKarma.com either. Instead of asking me for my financial account information, they asked me for the same type of personal information anyone would need to pull a credit report and get a credit score on me. This does include your social security number and there is no way around that, so at a certain level, you have to trust that the Credit Karma website is legit. So far, I haven’t heard of any rumblings that this is all a very elaborate identity theft scam, although that is no guarantee of anything.

Credit Karma Complaints

The number one CreditKarma complaint is that the credit score is not a real FICO score. However, it is based upon your actual credit report data.

As it turns out, I was buying my car off of its expiring lease when I discovered Credit Karma, so I was able to compare the score CreditKarma.com said I had with the one my auto broker pulled in order to do my car loan paper work. The scores were close enough to be considered identical. (Scores actually very depending upon which credit bureau is used and even from day to day depending upon new information being reporting and aging of old information, but in this case they were within 4 points of each other.)

Now what would make Credit Karma the must have personal finance service for financially savvy people is that it does not just offer you your credit score for free once, but says that you can come back and update it as often as you like. I don’t know if there is a limit on how many times you can update, but I updated my free credit score from Credit Karma every month since May with no complaints.

In other words, I have gotten six free credit scores from CreditKarma.com without paying a cent, without buying anything, and without clicking on any advertisements. There are advertisements on the page, but unless they are the kind that pay just for showing up, they have earned nothing from me other than thanks and this review.

I recently setup an account for my wife (spouses can have very different credit scores even if “everything” is held jointly) and have started getting her free credit score as well.

I can’t say that I expect Credit Karma to be in business long. I doubt that it can earn enough money on what it is doing to make a profit. It might even get shut down by Fair Issac somehow since they don’t want people thinking of its flagship product as “free”.  If Credit Karma does succeed, then it won’t be long before copycats are all over the Internet. But, no matter how it turns out down the road, for now, Credit Karma is a great deal for people managing their money.

Related posts:

1. Credit Karma Review Free Credit Monitoring
2. Is Refurbished or Remanufactured a Good Deal?

Credit Karma Review – Good Deal? originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

If you are wondering if getting free money from the Federal Government by getting government grants is a realistic and true way to make money and profit by knowing what other people don’t know, then read Free Government Grants For Moms Dads Business and Others. You may also be interested in other personal finance tips and advice.

If you are already convinced that you can go out there and get your share of this multimillion dollar giveaway from the Federal Government just by finding and winning grants from the government, then read on.

How To Find Government Grants

Do a Google search for government grants or US Government Grants and you’ll see that the top result is grants.gov

Notice that it is dot GOV and not dot com. If grants.gov is not your top search result, then you got a little too fancy with your search. Remember that nobody pumps up the real government grants webpage. There is no profit in that. If you want to shortcut the process, you can just trust me about the website and go to grants.gov directly.

(Do yourself a favor and open it in a new window so you can follow along here.)

While the Federal Government Grants webpage looks simple, reading a little bit of what shows up on the screen should convince you that this isn’t as easy as it looks. If it was, everyone would be doing it, right?

You’ll notice that the Grants.gov website includes not only regular government grants that they have all the time like grants to business owners, minorities, women, and for enterprises in specially designated area, but also all of the Federal Government grants from stimulus funds issued by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or Recovery Act. So, whether you are looking for normal grants or stimulus spending grants, they are all here.

Getting started finding grants can be tough. The Federal Government is very big after all, and they do offer TONS of government grants for all kinds of things from numerous government agencies.

The best way to get started finding government grants you qualify for is to take a look around at all of the different grants out there. So, click on “Find Grant Opportunities.”

Find Government Grants That I Qualify For

Now, the whole key to getting big money from the Federal Government in the form of grant money is to find which grants that you can qualify for. To find the grants that you qualify for, use the different search options in the middle of the Find Grant Opportunities webpage.

If you don’t know what government grants you qualify for, start by choosing either Browse by Category, or Browse by Agency. These choices allow you to dig through the thousands of government grant programs to find the ones that fit you. As you look through all of the many, many, available grant opportunities, make some notes about which ones you qualify for. With so much grant money available from the government, it might be hard to find the best grants again later.

For example, under Browse By Category, there are government grants for Business and Commerce, the Environment, Health, Education, and even the Arts. Also, there in the right hand column is the listing of all the new grants created by stimulus spending, and triggered by the Recovery Act.

When you have found a dozen or so grants you qualify, it is time to move on to How To Apply For Government Grants Step By Step

If you couldn’t find very many grants you qualify for (or if you did not qualify for any of the many government grants you saw) keep reading this series on Getting Government Grant Money for further tips that might help you find more grant opportunities.

Remember, these grants are given away by the Federal Government everyday, but only a select few are willing to learn how to find government grants, how to apply for government grants, and then how to win government grants.

If you are beginning to have some doubts about whether or not grants from the Federal Government are easy money that anyone can get as long as they know a few secrets, then read about Free Government Grant Money For Moms, Dads, Business Owners, Minorities, Women and More…

Related posts:

1. Free Government Grants for Moms and Government Grants for Dads
2. US Government Money Help

How To Get Government Grant Money Free Step By Step Instructions originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

When I write personal finance articles for Finance Gourmet, I put on my Financial Planner hat. Just a few short years ago, I was a professional financial advisor with all of the required securities licenses. I had my Series 7 License, my Series 66 License, and my Life and Health Insurance licenses as well. In addition, I was a Certified Financial Planner, or CFP if you prefer. Most of my clients were upper class, high-income, people with either a high-paying job, or they owned their own business.

As a result, most of the people I worked with day in and day out as a financial consultant were well educated, either through formal education, or as graduates of the School of Hard Knocks. They also knew a little something about money. While it might be those who don’t have any money, or those who really don’t know anything about personal finance who need the most help, they also are the ones who can’t or won’t seek professional financial advice.

As a financial adviser, you find out quickly that trying to “win” discussions with clients who believe something that is incorrect is not worth the effort. No matter how many facts or how much evidence you show them, they will not accept the truth. In fact, a lot of them will stop speaking to you altogether rather than abandon what they “know” to be true, because you are one of “them” or just too dumb to know about the really great thing they learned since it is “outside of the normal system.” It’s a little bit mean, but as we used to say, “You can’t fix stupid.”

Secret Federal Government Grant Programs Give Millions of Dollars Away Every Day

I don’t know if the guy with the green question mark covered jacket on late night infomercials was the first to get people all riled up about government grants with his manic insistence that the government just gives away millions, or billions, of dollars in grants every day of the week. (Presumably just on weekdays. This is the government, after all.) Whether he was the first or not, he was one of the first ones I saw on television.

I got burned many years ago as a 15-year old by the lure of “secret financial information” or “unknown ways to make money or save money.” Using well-known (to the scammers) tricks of the trade to entice the naive, inexperienced, and just plain unintelligent, they made me salivate at the prospect of buying up fancy cars, expensive jewels, and maybe even big houses at police auctions for just pennies.

These things were all the result of busting crooks and seizing the property of drug dealers. The cops, the ad said, didn’t keep this stuff. They sold it at police auctions! But, most people didn’t know about police auctions, so the smart, savvy, insiders, were able to snatch up great deals. The ad said that there was a money back guarantee. How could I lose?

When my mother wouldn’t write a check for me (even if I gave her my own money), I rode my bike to the grocery store and bought a money order. I was “lucky.” I actually got something in the mail instead of my money just disappearing into a Post Office Box somewhere. However, that is where my luck ended. What I got was a plain paper booklet that told me where to look to find police auctions and other government agency property auctions.

As I read it, it dawned on me that I had been had. Sure, there were government auctions, but they were not a secret, not even close. In fact, the best way to find “amazing police auctions” was to LOOK FOR THE ADS IN THE NEWSPAPER advertising them! An ad in the newspaper? That doesn’t sound like much of a secret.

I soon found out the real reason few people ever went to police auctions. They don’t often have anything “good” and when they do, there are suddenly plenty of people there to bid on that.

Money Back Guarantee Is Not Worth The Paper It’s Printed On

The second lesson I learned was that “Money Back Guarantee” doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it does as an honest, upstanding person. The money-back guarantee with my purchase was probably legit. I don’t know, because to fulfill the requirements to get a refund would have taken more time, effort, and money than the original wonderful money making opportunity cost me in the first place. To redeem the guarantee, I had to register for and attend at least 3 police auctions, in at least 3 different jurisdictions, in at least 3 different months. I bet you can guess how often they were supposed to refund people’s money, even if they were honest enough to do it at all.

How To Find Government Grants You Qualify For and Get Your Share of Free Money From the Feds

Why did I tell that story in an article about how to get millions of dollars in Government Grants just by learning about some secret, insider, information about a way to get a too good to be true deal from the government just because nobody knows about applying for these grants, which makes them so easy to get that you would be dumb not to find out about it right away?

Oh, and by the way, there is a money back guarantee.

Hopefully, this helps those of you willing to be helped.

How To Avoid Being Scammed and Conned Out of Money By Promises of Free Government Money For Moms, Dads, Entrepreneurs, Education, Veterans, Women, Minorities, and so on…

For those of you who KNOW that free government grant money is out there waiting for you if you are just smart enough to know what to look for and smart enough to know how to apply, then I offer you this chance to prove to yourself what the reality is before you send anyone any money.

Remember how it turned out that police auctions aren’t secret? Government grants aren’t either.

Here are the Step By Step Instructions To Get Government Grant Money For Free

Related posts:

1. How To Get Government Grant Money Free Step By Step Instructions
2. US Government Money Help

Free Government Grants for Moms and Government Grants for Dads originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

In order to make it worthwhile to get airline miles without being a frequent traveler, it is important to take advantage of every mileage program bonus, special offer, deal, or coupon. For United Airlines Miles, one of the great ways to earn miles free and easy is to join the United Dining Rewards Program, which offers miles for every dollar spent eating out at restaurants.

Signing up for Mileage Plus Dining is free and easy for Mileage Plus Rewards Members. Just go to the United Airlines Miles Plus website and login with your Mileage Plus Member Number. Find the link to dining rewards and click the button to sign up.

The program works by allowing members to register credit card numbers with the Dining Rewards Program. Then, whenever you dine at one of the participating restaurants, you earn points on United Airlines for free just buy paying for your tab with one of the credit cards you registered.

To really make this offer pay off big, use the best rewards credit cards in your wallet. Since United Dining miles are not related to your credit card account issuer or bank, you still earn your regular credit card points and credit card miles. It is a double-dip earnings situation.

Redeem credit card points for hotel stays and use your United Miles for free airfare, and you have a two-for-one free trip, all by just registering your credit card numbers and eating at restaurants you would probably eat at anyway. Of course, you can always select something from the Mileage Plus Reward Catalog instead.

Current United Dining Rewards Special Offer

Right now, and through the end of March, earn double Mileage Plus miles eating out with the United Mileage Dining Miles offer. It works just like it always does. Eat at any dining establishment listed in the Dining Rewards restaurant list and instead of regular number of miles earned, you earn double miles. It’s a great way to rack up United points fast and free.

You have to register for the special double miles dining deal, even if you are already signed up for United Mileage Plus Dining. It is a separate add-on registration, probably to help determine how many people just float along in the program and accidentally earn miles when their credit card just happens to get used at a restaurant, and how many people actually read the United rewards emails about dining that they send out with special offers.

To register, you have to answer a few really simple, basic questions about how many kids you have, your age range, and so on.

United Dining Rewards Restaurant List Participating Locations

Sure, all of those personal finance books or retire rich books tell you to stay at home to eat and brown bag your lunch to work, but taking advantage of offers like this will allow you to have fun and live a little while still practicing smart personal finance advice strategy.

The list of restaurants that participate in the United Airlines Dining Rewards Mileage Plus program is updated frequently online. In the Denver area, for example, new restaurants often are added within just a week or two of opening. There are both high-end fine dining restaurants and fast food restaurants, and everything from local Mom-and-Pop places to national chains like IHOP.

Just search the dining miles rewards restaurant list online by entering your zip code to get all the food places near a location that offer miles to diners. Match them up with a special credit card offer earning extra points at restaurants, for example, and you can earn enough free stuff to pay for annual fees or even earn cash back in your own pocket, all courtesy of UAL Dining Rewards.

Related posts:

1. United Rewards – Mileage Plus Dining from United Airlines
2. Capital One Rewards Catalog – No Hassle Miles – Travel Rewards

United Dining Rewards Earn Airline Miles for Dining Out originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Thinking about giving someone a gift card for Christmas? You are not alone. Last year, billions of dollars of gift cards were purchased in the days and weeks leading up until Christmas. In fact, Google reports that searches for "Gift Cards" continue to rise until December 26th when they finally peak. I guess some people are looking for after last-minute gift ideas.

Not long ago, Gift Cards replaced the gift certificate as the present to give to someone that either you don’t really know what to get for them, for people who are very picky (and thus better off picking out their own gift), for people you don’t want to bother shopping for, and for people on your gift list who live far away because gift cards can be shipped easily and cheaply tucked into a Christmas card.

Reports about gift card tricks and things to beware of when buying gift cards have those with savvy financial planning skills looking for unbiased financial advice about whether or not giving gift cards is a good idea. Fortunately, in most cases, giving them as presents works out just fine for everyone.

Gift Cards Losing Value

There are some concerns regarding Gift Cards, particularly around the "features" that cause them to lose some of their value over time. Fortunately, the most egregious of these terms have been pretty much weeded out by continuous news coverage and frequent sob stories regarding small children, or little old ladies whose gift cards ran down to zero value while they were unable to shop.

Even so, many gift cards continue to come with a provision that has them expire after a certain amount of time, or to slowly lose their value each month. The truth is that there is a very legitimate reason for treating gift cards this way. A gift card is a debit, or liability, for the business that issued it. Since they were already paid cash for the card, and they are obligated to redeem the card for an equal amount of goods or services, a gift card acts like an IOU on the books of a business. However, unlike other debts, the business has no way of projecting when, or if, the liability will ever come due. Carrying around $1 million worth of liabilities for gift cards issued so long ago that there aren’t very likely to ever be cashed in, is a headache for all kinds of companies. The expiration date, or the countdown value draining ticking time bomb gives the accountants an end date when they no longer have to account for the possibility that cards will be redeemed.

This is not a new practice. Gift certificates had expiration dates printed on them as well. The problem that gift cards had was that the expiration date, or the terms of use that stated when and how the gift card lost value were either printed in fine print on the back (that no one read) or, even worse, not on the card at all and part of the terms and conditions that were published elsewhere on the website or contract / agreement that one had to specifically ask for. So, when people went to use their gift cards, they were surprised, and very angry, to find out that they had lost value or expired.

Top Christmas Toys Gifts 2009

Gift Cards Very Profitable

Gift cards are very profitable for businesses. Much like mail-in rebates, a lot of gift cards are never redeemed completely. Many people who get a gift card go to the store and pick out something that costs less than the total value of the gift card, so that they can get it for "free". The remaining amount on the card is often forgotten all about. Even if the person finds the card in their wallet or drawer at a later date, they likely remember that they already used it, and just throw it away. Or, the remaining value is so small as to not make it worth the hassle. All of this unused money adds up to big profits for businesses and retailers.

The major credit card issuers have an even better deal going. By offering card redeemable anywhere MasterCard or Visa are accepted, they can sell even more cards, and they have to do even less to process and account for them. Some banks let you double dip for more credit card rewards points by giving you miles or points for the full purchase price of the gift card.

In order to not kill the golden goose of gift cards, most merchants have much kinder terms regarding their cards. They either don’t lose value over time, or lose their value much more slowly. Many cards have no reducing amount feature and just have a regular expiration date, which people tend to view more favorably.

So, if you plan to give gift cards this holiday season, there is no need to worry as long as you are buying them from a reputable merchant. After all, it is worth much more to Best Buy to keep selling gift cards for years to come than it is to screw over a bunch of people this year and get a little extra profit, but a bunch of publicity that will keep gift givers from buying their cards next time.

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Give Gift Cards for Christmas The Finances Pros and Cons originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Black Friday has come and gone. Cyber Monday is history. Yet, online shopping continues in full force. Various reports suggest that online shopping has increased dramatically this year, likely due to the increasing usage of broadband connections in the home, and the draw of huge savings secretly located on the Internet if you can just find the right combination of coupon codes, discount websites, and wholesalers online. However, as always, when it comes to personal finance what you don’t know can hurt you. Make sure you understand all of the details regarding online shopping for bargains. Otherwise, you may get burned.

Amazon Makes Online Shopping OK

Not long ago, online shopping was the exclusive providence of very specific people, typically techies, and ultra-bargain shoppers who linked together in electronic discount finding groups reminiscent of the old coupon clubs. A few appearances on Oprah by folks like "Coupon Mom" helped drive online shopping and deal finding to the forefront of the American consciousness. But, what finally pushed online shopping over the edge from the wary, angst filled, activity it used to be to a common shopping method used by teenagers, little old ladies, and the technological inept alike was the legitimizing factor of Amazon.com.

When Amazon burst onto the scene a decade ago, it was a revolutionary idea. Selling books online meant that not only could Amazon offer deep discounts on books, but it could also stock many more titles than local booksellers could on their shelves. Even the big national chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders couldn’t compete with how many books Amazon sold. The offer to order a book for you began to pale by comparison. Instead of waiting for the bookstore’s regular shipment of books to include the book title you were looking for, you could order the same book from Amazon and have it delivered directly to your house right away.

For a while, books, were one of the things that was OK to purchase online. There were many things that made them safe. First, any book Amazon.com sells is exactly the same as the books on the shelves at Barnes and Noble. In other words, there is no concern about quality or some sort of bait and switch scam. Secondly, shipping costs were relatively low. The savings offered on the price of the book was larger than the cost of sending it in the mail, which meant a good deal, was still a good deal even with shipping. This was no small factor as online pet supply websites found out when it turned out no one was interested in buy 50 lb. bags of dog food online due to the ridiculous shipping costs. Finally, Amazon had good customer service. Products could be returned, and exchanged, and over time, the company became a household name, erasing the fear of giving out your credit card number online.

Once Amazon started selling products beyond books, the barriers were officially broken, and online shopping was a common thing among all groups of people.

Not All Shopping Websites Are Like Amazon

Unfortunately, this familiarization with online shopping via a retailer like Amazon has made many Americans let their guard down when it comes to buying online. It is important to remember that not all merchants are Amazon.com. In fact, precious few are. That means that you need to find out all the facts about who you are buying from FIRST before placing an order, no matter how great of deal it is.

Top Things To Know About Online Shopping Websites

1. Return Policy – Not just that they accept returns, but the details as well. Who pays for shipping? How long is the return period? If it is also a brick and mortar store, can you return items to the store? Is there a restocking fee? Most importantly, under what conditions can something be returned? Many sites allow returns, but only for defective items. That means if you don’t like it, or it isn’t what you thought it would be, then that is just too bad.
2. Shipping and Handling Charges – Even on Amazon.com you have to be careful of this one. Amazon lets anyone sell on their website. Unfortunately, it sorts prices based on the cost without shipping. That means that the vendor who sells for $9.99 plus $8.95 shipping is listed as cheaper than the vendor who sells for $12.99 plus $2.99 shipping.
3. Is It Really Amazon – Speaking of Amazon. The website doesn’t always make it easy to tell if you are buying a product from Amazon, or from some third-party using Amazon as a store front. It matters because they have very different return policies and shipping time frames.
4. Who Is It?  – Amazon isn’t the only website that makes it harder to see who you are actually doing business with. Don’t check out the main website to see if they are legitimate, check out the actual seller. There is a big difference between how legitimate eBay.com is and how legitimate one of its storefront sellers is.
5. Privacy Policy – Will your name and address be sold on lists as a sucker who buys stuff online from unknown websites? You can never know for sure, but make sure you check the privacy policy to ensure that the vendor at least cares enough about their customers to make it look like they care.

Lastly, never forget that identity theft and credit card numbers are tasty targets for scammers. Protect them as much as you can by not signing up or registering for websites with your real name and address until you are actually ready to make a purchase. Whenever possible, use a temporary credit card number for all online transactions to avoid nasty surprises later.

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2. Top Deals Websites to Save Money Shopping

Online Bargains Aren't Always Great Deals Check The Details First originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

The Internet is a treasure trove of useful information, but it can also be a swamp of deceptive or unhelpful websites as well. Internet sites that list great deals on products and services are a good way to help save money during the recession. However, you need to find real deal listing websites and not just websites that offer regular prices and normal sales with commission-based links. That makes those websites money, not you.

A real hot deals website will have deals from all over, not just certain stores and shopping sites. Coupon codes and free shipping codes will be included for free on deal postings without having to register or being directed to another site.

Also, most of the best deals websites have a forum where users can post comments and discuss the deals. The forums are a great way to see just how good a deal is, whether you find it on that site or somewhere else. Deal site users are savage and they will quickly point out the flaws in any deal that looks good, but has a catch.

As an added bonus, some of the most honest, hard hitting reviews on the Internet can be found in these forums. Don’t look for reviews, just look for commentary on the deals. If there is a great price on a TV, you can be sure that there are plenty of users weighing in on whether or not it is worth the money, even at the discounted price.

Here are some great deals websites that I’ve been using over the last few years that always seem to come through with the best hot deals out there.

Top 4 Hot Deals Websites

1. Slickdeals.net – Only the best deals make the front page, but there are hundreds posted each day in the forums. Users can vote thumbs up or down to help rank deals.
2. Gottadeal.com
3. DealNews.com
4. Woot.com – Woot only offers one deal a day, so it can be hit or miss whether there is anything you want. But, for the 2 seconds it takes to check every day, you will find some of the best deals online. They do offer a lot of refurbished products, though, so make sure you read the whole description and decide is refurbished worth it.

Do you have other hot deal websites that you use to save money?

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Top Deals Websites to Save Money Shopping originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

The economy is a little shaky, but you still have needs and wants. Everyone else is in the same boat, including businesses who still have to sell products if they want to make a profit. If you have a good cash reserve and the opportunity arises, now could be a good time to get a great deal on things like electronics, washers and dryers, televisions, kitchen appliances and so on.

Not long ago, big box electronics shops like Circuit City began competing against the lower prices and better deals found online by offering just as good of prices.  However, that meant they didn’t make very much profit because of the overhead of running a store.  They countered that by aggressively selling extended warranties to their customers.  Soon, virtually all of the profit from an electronics chain was from warranties. 

Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for everyone else, customers soon caught on and came prepared for the warranty hard sell and more importantly, came prepared to say know.  In the process they saved themselves from wasting a fortune, and at the same time put Circuit City and others out of business.

That doesn’t mean that retailers have stopped trying to sell extended warranties, far from it.  Particularly on electronic goods, appliances, and televisions, most purchases come with at least a quick offer to purchase a warranty, if not a much harder sale.  Either way, extended warranties are almost always a bad deal for consumers, not because a warranty is a bad idea, but rather because they are almost always overpriced. 

The ones that are not outrageously expensive generally have “features” that make them unattractive as well such as getting a percentage of the cost based on how long you’ve used it, or worse, getting an “equivalent” replacement that usually isn’t.

But, thanks to a company called Square Trade, you no longer have to choose between worrying about what happens if your new purchase breaks, or overpaying for some 50/50 shot on an extended warranty.

The premise behind SquareTrade is that it is possible to make money on warranties by aggregating failures and spreading out risk like insurance companies.  Then, selling the warranty at a fair and reasonable price assures that more warranties will be sold.  Since nothing happens to most items, there is plenty of money to be made without treating anyone like a sucker.

The best part is that instead of having to keep receipts and paperwork and hope you can find them if something goes wrong, you setup an account at Square Trade and use it to manage all of your warranties in one place.

Chances are a Square Trade warranty will cost you half of what the retailer is offering you and unlike the retailer warranty, there is no high pressure to buy now.  Sleep on it and buy the warranty in the morning if you think it is still a good idea.

Now, you can be covered, and not get robbed.

Don’t forget to see if you credit card offers some form of protection for your purchases as well.  Generally, this will be for a much shorter term than an extended warranty, but it never hurts to know what savings you could be getting there as well.

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Save Money on Warranties with Square Trade originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

You want to travel, but with the recession, you want to travel cheap, or travel for free.  Here is one way to help.  United Airlines offers a non-flight way to earn free Milage Plus points without flying that can add up fast and help get you those last miles you need to get a free flight.  Its a dining rewards program called United Mileage Plus Dining.

The best part is that it is really easy and you don’t really have to do anything once you set it up.

Basically, you go to Mileage Rewards Dining website and create a Dining Rewards password to go with your United frequent flyer miles number.  Then, you register your credit cards with the dining miles rewards program by entering the credit card number, expiration date, and so on.

Once your credit cards are registered, then you earn miles whenever you eat at a participating United Mileage Plus Dining restaurant if you pay with any of the credit cards you registered.  That’s it!  It couldn’t be any simpler.

You don’t have to remember a coupon, you don’t have to remember to tell the waiter, or give someone your Mileage Rewards number or anything.  It’s all electronic behind the scenes.  You pay like normal, and voila, free points in your account. As a double bonus, this has nothing to do with the regular credit card rewards points you are earning.  So, for example, if you buy dinner with your Capital One Rewards Credit Card, you still earn Capital One No Hassle Miles for the dinner PLUS the United Miles.

For each dollar you spend, you get one free United frequent flyer mile.  But, from now until June 30th, you get double points on the Dining Rewards program so that is 2 free miles per dollar spent eating out at restaurants.  Depending on the kind of person you are, this can add up to big points.  Eat out twice a week at $40 each and that is 160 miles earned per week without flying anywhere!

If you take clients out for meals, try and setup your meetings at restaurants in the program and you can earn points for those meals too.  Pretty soon, you’ll be setting up your free vacation.

There is no cost and no charge to register your credit cards, so I registered every credit card I have.  I never even look at the list of participating restaurants.  I just go out to eat where I want to eat and just by coincidence hit rewards restaurants all the time.

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United Rewards – Mileage Plus Dining from United Airlines originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com