Ryan McFarland

Palm is running a “best, worst, and funniest pick-up line” contest. According to the official rules you can get multiple entries by logging in often. The grand prize is a trip to Vegas for six people. There are three Caribbean cruises for two. And every day they are giving away a Palm Centro. The contest closes on May 17th.

Tranform Your Home (a Renuzit product) is running a contest that one lucky winner will receive a $20,000 home makeover. I spent a bit of my free time the week in DC watching HGTV and you’re all well aware of the home improvement projects that Cena and I have been taking on. Having twenty thousand dollars to work with would go a long way. It looks like you have to submit a video (under 2 minutes long) or a photo and text (less than 250 words) to the site (Be sure to follow the official rules.) to enter. The contest ends June 8th, 2008.

If i were to win $20,000 for a major remodel i would probably work on the boiler room’s transformation to a bathroom. I can’t find in the official rules what kind of a makeover the house gets. Are we just talking about paint and decorations? Is this s furniture update? Or is this a tear down the walls and reconfigure a room kind of a project? In the rules it says “If Tanya Memme is unavailable for home makeover consultation, no substitution or compensation will be awarded.” Ugh. So you could be the grand prize winner and actually get nothing if she can’t fit it into her schedule? And who is Tanya Memme? There is a second prize of $3,000 and third of $2,000. With just two or three thousand dollars i could make a big impact on my plans for that bathroom.

˙ǝɯos ǝʞɐɯ ˙ʎlǝʇɐl ɹɐlndod ʎllɐǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʇxǝʇ (¿dn ǝpısuʍop ɹo) uʍop ǝpısdn ˙ʎɐp s,looɟ lıɹdɐ sı ʇı ˙ƃuıppıʞ ʇsnɾ ɯ,ı ʎlsnoıʌqo

Text flipper.

Most of the prizes are suited for website owners but with over $14,000 in value, the Craziest Internet marketing Contest has stuff that even non-owners of websites might enjoy. An iPod, logo design, and t-shirts. For site owners there are hosting plans, site reviews, site designs, ads, and much more. Check it out and sign up to win.

Win!

•		A custom lawn and garden consultation and plan from Justin Cave, landscape consultant and host of HGTV’s “Ground Breakers.” With years of experience in every aspect of landscaping, Cave will focus his expertise and enthusiasm on developing a plan for our winner to turn their yard into an incredible outdoor living space.
•		$3,000 cash to be used towards carrying out your recommended lawn and garden plan.
•		Mustang™ ZT 50″ Zero-Turn Riding Lawn Mower with innovative zero-turn technology, and a time-saving 50″-wide mowing deck.
•		TB1086 XP Series™ 21″ Rear Wheel Drive, Self-Propelled Mower with increased traction, precise speed control and increased maneuverability.
•		Troy-Bilt Pony® Garden Tiller for preparing finely milled, well-aerated and ready-to-plant garden beds.
•		TB70SS Straight Shaft Trimmer that converts into a blower, an edger, a hedge trimmer and more.

That’s over $17,000 worth of prizes and all you need to to is give them a little information about yourself! Only one entry per person per household per day (enter daily!). Enter at the Troy-Bilt sweeps.

Today was payday so this evening i sat down and paid some small balances off. I did a little shopping at Costco while on my extended layover in Seattle and put $60 on one of my cards as a result. I also was able to pay off my Alaska Airlines credit card so as of now i’m only paying interest on my business credit card balance.

Cena charges all of her expenses to her Alaska Airlines card and pays it off every month. She racks up the miles on her account that way. I might move in that direction.

If you are shopping for a credit card with a mileage perk, cash back, or a great balance transfer offer shop around on YourCreditNetwork. They have upfront information about annual fees, interest rates, cash back rates and other details. When i do my next round of cleaning up credit cards with unacceptable terms or interest rates this is where i’ll do my comparison shopping.  Having all this information in one place is almost like saving a whole year of credit card offers rendered down to information you can understand!

For now i’ll keep plugging away at the debt. I should have it completely erased in just a few more months!

There’s a new idea on online auctions being done by Bidaroo.com. You sign up and place bids on items. The maximum bid accepted is 80% to 90% off of the product’s retail price. So for instance, they have a Nintendo Wii on the front page and the maximum bid accepted is $30. When the auction ends the highest unique bid wins. Let’s say i bid $25.64. If anyone else bid $25.64 both of our bids would be rejected. If anyone bid higher then me and wasn’t eliminated by having someone else negate their bid then they receive the item. Seems like a good way to get a nice item at a low price. They also have a maximum number of bids that are accepted. Only 47 bids are being accepted for the Wii. Bidaroo even donates a portion of your winning bid — a minimum of 25% — to the charity of your choice. On top of that, the shipping is free for all auctions!

Sounds pretty dang cool. So what’s the catch? You have to pay for each bid you make. On the Wii example above you have to pay $9.99 for each bid you make. So if i were to win the auction i would pay less than $45 for a $300 item and have it shipped. If i lost, me and 46 other people are out $9.99. So it looks like Bidaroo would actually make $200 in profit from the sale. That comes out to win/win for Bidaroo and for the auction winner. But many bidders lose not only the bid but also a chunk of cash. It is a gamble for bidders so adds a bit more risk and excitement to the auction.

Probably not the right system for me but it could be a way of getting a high priced item for way less money for people interested in betting on the unknown.

For quite a few years I have used TurboTax to electronically file my federal taxes.  Unfortunately i have too much income to qualify for the free electronic filing so i have had to pay to file for the past few years.  TaxAct has no ceiling on the amount you make to qualify to file for free.  Their business partnership software is one third the price of TurboTax’s.  I’m trying it out right now for Zoom Bikes.

One of the finance blogs that i read occasionally (The Finance Journey) mentioned a site called Quizzle. This is a source for you to look at your Experian credit score for free. Experian credit scores are based on a scale from 300-900 so it differs from the FICO score you would have. Mine is currently a 774 out of 900. I’ll be sure to pop in every now and then to get a peek at it compared to the score i revealed to me via Wamu.

If you want to use it they also have a budget service that lets you plug in annual or monthly expenses to review your overall budget outlook. I don’t like that you can’t break out the income figures (like my paycheck vs. bike shop or web design) but otherwise it works pretty well. They seem to have focused heavily on a fancy interface but that definitely makes it slow to enter figures, change categories, and generally work with the options they have.

When i started working for the city in mid 1999 my office was downtown. I’ve moved my office three times since then. I’ve also had three computers. But one thing hasn’t changed. One piece of office equipment that was in my office is still in use today. A Dymo label maker.

Their printers use a thermal process so you never have to buy ink. You do have to buy special thermal stickers though. They print fast. I’ve honestly been impressed when i have had a few dozen address labels to print off. We bought a second one when one co-worker had a separate office at the pool. We use them to label file folders and if we run out of envelopes with the city return address we just print off one of our own.

As soon as we have our home office established i will put one on our list of things to buy for at home. I didn’t know that the new ones are able to print online stamps or postage printing. With the number of things that we ship out through our Amazon and eBay sales it would save us time. We wouldn’t buy the address label sheets that we print out our return address info with our inkjet printer. My file cabinet could finally get the organization it needs. And the postage printing could save us hours and hours per year of standing in line waiting to mail something.