I saw that I was mentioned, pseudo anonymously, by Brian Stelter in his media blog called TVNewser in a post about Mad Money. I wanted to welcome those of you who reached my humble blog on personal finance and hope you come back often. I’ll now go enjoy my fifteen seconds of fame and await the remaining fourteen minutes and forty five seconds. Cheers!

This offer has expired.

Do you buy groceries? Have you seen the skyrocketing price of gasoline? This card gives you 5% cashback on both. It also gives you 1% on everything else, 30 free phone minutes a month, and a whole host of other random credit card protections that you probably don’t care about.

Everything I’m going to tell you in terms of benefits is available from their application page, but keep reading for my personal experiences with them.

The 5% for gasoline is clutch, especially with gas over $2 a gallon. With 5% you are getting over ten cents back, which pushes the price under $2 (my psychological break point). I used to get gas at Costco because it was about 5 cents cheaper than the closest Exxon, but after 10 cents off the Exxon gasoline is cheaper.

The cash-back process is a little strange. The max cash-back is $300 (boo!) and you have to specifically request your checks (why?) and they have to be greater than $50. The cap isn’t the strange part, it’s the specific requesting of your check that doesn’t make sense to me. Just do it automatically so you don’t have to pay someone to take my call. A little known fact is that you also get 5% back on “eligible AT&T consumer products and/or services.” I have an AT&T Wireless cell phone plan and hopefully this will cover it, otherwise I get the typical 1%.

The free minutes and the other telephone stuff is pretty useless because I have a cell phone so that’s not a good reason to get the card. There is also an free annual review of your purchases which breaks down the categories in which you spent your money. You probably should run a budget and use that as an accurate measure of your spending, not this free annual review.

Also, Citi is very aggressive in trying to keep people on the program. I threw out the $15 check (I regret it because $15 is more than the typical $3 for signing up) so I’ll have to wait until they send it out again. I called and asked but the only thing the CSR can offer is a “rebate check” where you purchase something, send in a receipt, then get a check… too much hassle.

As always, comments are great appreciated.

I watched Jim Cramer’s Mad Money (on CNBC) tonight because I have heard the buzz (especially around his new book, Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World) and I’ve seen this guy’s ad on Yahoo! Finance more times than I can count. I have to say I might watch this guy more often because he gets to the point, gets to it quickly, and doesn’t waste my time. He also won’t let guests get away with spinning some crap and he’ll confront them, something I really appreciate.

One example of how bold he is when he talked to the CEO of Skyworks Solutions. He asked specifically for the CEO to address the rumors that Motorola had been canceling orders from them. It looked like the CEO was waffling a little, avoiding the question, telling Cramer the positives and all that crap… Cramer nodded and what not. Then, Cramer didn’t let him off the hook and asked him the question again. Then they discussed the balance sheet and Cramer thanked the CEO for appearing. He then gave a recommendation as follows: he’d take a little bit and keep an eye on it because when it did go up, it’d go like a spring. But, it wouldn’t do anything for three months. Not a glowing reco for someone who just appeared on his show, that’s good. It adds a little credibility at least in my mind.

I like the apparent honesty and how this guy doesn’t waffle. He says that he likes a company or he doesn’t, he says what he’d do… he doesn’t mess around. His straight up attitude is something I appreciate and I’ll be checking out this program more often. If nothing else, he’ll shed some light on some companies and industries I hadn’t even thought about… and that’s a good thing.

Updated: After watching the show more, and still enjoying it, I was getting skeptical of the lightning round … so I thought about it. Read the post titled Jim Cramer’s Mad Money – Lightning Round Legit? and let me know what YOU think.

And incidentally, to clear up any confusion… I am not Jim Cramer.

If you’re interested in some other of my Jim Cramer related articles, click here.

Other Jim Cramer Books:

Confessions of a Street Addict ($17.16, Hardcover)

You Got Screwed! Why Wall Street Tanked and How You Can Prosper ($13.60)

Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World ($17.16)

Neville’s a fellow personal finance blog writer who’s accumulated a little bit of scratch and decided to “invest” it in a hundred $1 scratch off lotto tickets. He fully realizes that he’s gambling and it sounds like he’s willing to share the fun of his “investment” with his readers. Watch the progression of his thoughts from first considering alternative investing to considering the odds of the endeavor to full blown acceptance of his place.

I suggested he do it “live” (in the comments) and it sounds like he’ll do it. It should be fun for all of us living vicariously. Maybe I’ll do it too… the idea is viral!

Looks like ING has probably lost a whole bunch of customers so they are trying to keep what they have left by upping money market account rates to 2.80%. As MM at PFBlog pointed out, there are four banks offering over 3.0% so this move may not result in any changes in people’s decision making. I recently opened an Emigrant Direct account because of their generous 3.25% rate and haven’t looked back yet. And with the Fed also expected to raise rates by a quarter point today, this increase by ING isn’t as significant as it sounds.

But would you move your money from a 2.80% account to a 3.25% account? If you had $10,000 in there the difference is only around $45. If you had $1,000 then we’re only talking $4.50 in interest when Emigrant Direct’s account opening process still has some kinks. So this stop-loss move may be successful on some level.

From my perspective, ING has to be willing to match Emigrant Direct and stop these shenanigans. With electronic banking, moving funds after the account has been opened is simple, safe, and fast. ING is just showing weakness by trying to stop people from leaving instead of increasing rates beyond Emigrant in order to gain new customers. ING doesn’t have brick and mortar banks… its rates should be better than Emigrant’s! (at least ING still has their $25 referral bonus)

I had a tough time coming up with at title because this is really just bringing to light an article I read about a guy trying to get register-working employees to even check his signature on a receipt with the back of his credit card. I first saw this posted at Slashdot and this article is hilarious. Next time you see another article about ID Theft and how you should sign the back of your credit cards, think about this article.

This is also the second time he’s done this, read about the first time in this article.

Whether it’s medical benefits or free cash via a retirement account, I think many people underutilize the benefits they receive from work. I know I don’t think of using my free checkups/physicals until I have to re-enroll for the next year (coming up soon in July). Not only have you already paid for these benefits, it’ll help you live a healthier and fuller life!

Medical:
Every medical plan includes a routine examination and physical every single year at usually no cost to you. Ever hear of those stories where the doctor caught something that could’ve been much worse in a routine physical? All you have to do is schedule an appointment, go in, and get yourself checked out. As you grow older, other preventative maintenance examinations are also included. If they don’t find anything out of the ordinary, that’s great. If they do? Then they’ll have caught it as early as realistically possibly, every year. In addition to these, your plan may include chiropractor’s visits or other sorts of doctor’s visits you wouldn’t even have thought of. Take a look at your plans and see what you can get for free.

Dental:
Again, a free dental cleaning every year. You may absolutely hate going to the dentist but if you go every year then small cavities are caught before their large cavities and anything else that could be problematic can be detected early. Plus, if your teeth are cleaned infrequently then it’ll take a much harder scrubbing to get them clean.

Vision:
If you’re enrolled in a vision plan, typically a yearly exam is also included for free. Get those eyes checked and be able to see correctly. Some plans also include a free pair of glasses or a number of pairs of contacts each year for free (think of it really as paying up front).

401k:
I didn’t want to leave “free” benefits without talking about the free company match contribution to a 401k. As much as it’s been brought to the forefront by mainstream media, lots of people still don’t contribute to their retirement plans! My company will fully match the first 2% and 50% of the next 2% of your contribution. At my company, that contribution is fully vested immediately (some plans require a longer time period, 5 years seems to be typical) so it’s worth it even if I intended to leave tomorrow.

Have I missed any? Let me know!

So on the front page of Yahoo! Finance there’s an article by Kay Bell from Bankrate.com titled “15 common tax-filing mistakes you can avoid” (article removed from site) that posted yesterday. Most of these errors are simply careless. It’s like when you took that arithmetic test in elementary school and did all the math in your head because you thought you were smart. You are smart… you just mess up sometimes. With Free Tax Filing (endorsed by the IRS!) and lots of free e-Filing methods, there is almost no excuse for any of these “mistakes.”

Here is the list:
1. Making math errors
2. Not including Social Security numbers
3. Not signing and dating your return
4. Not using the preprinted label and envelope from the tax package
5. Forgetting about interest and dividends
6. Forgetting to claim charitable donations
7. Not including all your forms
8. Not properly tracking your investment basis
9. Using the EZ form when a longer form could cut your taxes
10. Making the check out incorrectly — and forgetting to sign it!
11. Forgetting to bunch your deduction
12. Not taking all the credits you’re eligible for
13. Using the wrong tax table
14. Missing the deadline to request an extension
15. Not putting the proper postage on your return package

I put in red every “common mistake” that is automatically avoided as a result of using tax filing programs and using e-file. The only ones I can see that you might mess up on is not bunching your some of your deductions and tracking your investments. It makes no sense not to use a free program (you can even print out a return if you want to tempt fate and try to make errors 3 and 15) and I don’t see a benefit.

TurboTax does everything online so you don’t need to download a program you’ll never use again. (Read a review of TurboTax) Don’t want to send anything unnecessary online? Try TaxAct. Download some software and run it all locally. (Read a review of TaxAct)

There is no reason why you shouldn’t do your taxes electronically and there are at least 15 common reasons why you should.