You ever wonder what it takes to get into the television audience of any of your favorite shows? I always think of those cooking shows where the camera pans the audience of starving attendees and wondered what it took to be a part of that evil evil experience. Or, what about getting onto a show where the participants get all sorts of free goodies from guests? Television tapings are almost always free and usually the demand is much more than the supply of tickets so you have to be patient (or able to wake up early and be lucky) if you want to get to see a show, but invariably, from what I’ve heard, a lot of these shows are very entertaining between the actual taped segments (during the commercials). I scoured the websites of all the major television studios (and some of the bigger name shows individually) and here are their ticket policies:

Oprah – As you’d expect, the demand far exceeds the supply and they do most of their stuff on the phone so be patient.

ABC – The View and Good Morning America in New York; According to Jim, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Dancing With the Stars, Jimmy Kimmel Live and more in Los Angeles.

NBC – Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Saturday Night Live in New York. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Last Call with Carson Daly, and others in Burbank, CA.

Food Network – For Emeril Live, there is a once a year lottery (info from last lottery) that gets announced on the website. There isn’t any other information for tickets to other live tapings so you’ll have to navigate to each show’s page for more info.

Rachael Ray – She’s blowing up! Getting on her show is fairly straightforward so follow the link for more details.

Martha Stewart – That link may not work in the future but basically navigate to marthastewart.com, find her show section and there is a Get Tickets link where you can find out more details.

CBS – Want to see the Price Is Right before Bob Barker calls it quits? Check out their ticket information page. How about Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson? All you have to do is navigate to the page on CBS’ website that is for the show and there should be ticket information if it’s available.

I was unable to find any official information on the TBS or CW websites for their policies.

There are smaller private outfits that offer tickets to shows as well including Audience Unlimited (NBC links to them but they are not affiliated with NGC) and TVTix, so do some searches online and you should be able to find something.

Oh, and if you know of any other resources for scoring free ticket information, please do share!

I have several copies of You Call The Shots by Cameron Johnson (read my review) to giveaway and you can be one of the lucky winners! To make this more than just a “leave a brief comment, win a prize” contest, I’m going to ask that you list one topic you wish personal finance blogs would write more about. It can be as specific or as broad as you want, as long as it’s interesting. Be funny, be creative, be outlandish, but don’t just leave a “I hope I win” comment before next Wednesday and you’ll be in. Laffy taffy type jokes are an acceptable substitute as long as they haven’t appeared in the 500,000 unique visitors contest comments before.

This contest is now over.

H&R Block gave me five 256MB USB keys to give away right before I left for China and so I didn’t get the opportunity to list the competition and be able to mail them out so I’ll be holding the competition right now. To enter, simply leave a comment on this post and be sure to leave your email address in the form, I’ll pick five lucky winners at the end of the week and send along your shiny new USB keys.

Good luck!

Now, what trumps any of those three options is your local public library but usually the selection is limited to older movies (not the new releases) because that’s usually free (tax dollar supported, but incrementally free) and free is better than paying. But, barring an awesome library system where you get the newest releases…

Many of my friends have a Netflix account and there have been weeks we’re I’ve gone over their houses and the stacks of Netflix movies haven’t even been moved, let alone been watched. That’s the main knock against services like Blockbuster Online and Netflix, if you’re busy and don’t watch movies, then why pay $20 a month to basically hold onto the few movies that you do watch?

That’s me. I know that if I ever signed up for one of those services, and I’ve used their trials, I’d be just like my friends with stacks of movies that might get watched within a week or two of receiving them. Maybe. Do I really want to pay Netflix $4.99 to be able to hold onto one movie a month and borrow a maximum of 2 a month (that’s their latest promotion)? Of course not… not when I can hit up a Red Box vending machine, likely with a Red Box free day movie rental coupon code, and get the movie the day that I want to watch it. If I don’t have a code, it’s a whole dollar!

The only negative is that selection will vary (thought you can check online at Redbox.com) so sometimes if you want a particular movie, you might not be able to get it but that’s hardly a huge price to pay to watch a movie for a buck.

If you have a valid university email address, you are eligible to get a free subscription to New York Times Select ($50 value) via this signup link. After you enter your email, they will send you an activation email with a link that you must click. From there, it’s a little confusing because they send you to a login page, from there you need to click on the Upgrade button to upgrade to the New York Times Select subscription. The next page is just your typical signup page and after that you’re all set. Free New York Times Select, just like that.

Not much beats free, so enjoy!

(Dang, I was beat to the punch by a lot of places, including the Consumerist, this is what you get for being busy)

Just an update to those of you who had been asking me whether my $100 gasoline reimbursement check had arrived from Citi Credit Protector – yes it has (today actually).

And in fact, if you want to check on the status of it at Rebate Status. What’s funny is that I had been trying to check the status but since they keyed in my last name wrong (they transposed some letters in an obvious typo), it wasn’t showing up. My fiancée’s rebate status had been updated accurately and showed up as CP Email Gas Coupon ($100), mail date of February 1st.

At the time of the mailing (or within days of the mailing), I had already canceled Citi Credit Protector so I do not believe membership is necessary to be eligible for the promotion. My fiancée is still part of the Credit Protector program and working off their $50 promotion.

Gotta love them credit card insurance promotions!

If you’ve been in the market for cards that offer 0% on balance transfers, you’ll probably see that a lot of cards now have decided to instead only offer 0% on purchases instead (such as this 0% on purchases for 15 months offer by Blue from American Express). Now, I don’t know what has led to this increase other than the cards wanting to end the whole 0% balance transfer arbitrage game but here’s a little way to turn your offer of 0% APR on purchases into a 0% balance transfer offer.

• Sign up for Google Checkout as a vendor. You will need a website with a privacy policy, you can just start a site with Blogspot.
• Send an invoice to yourself.
• Pay the invoice with your 0% on purchases card.
• Laugh at the card company’s feeble attempts to stop 0% balance transfer arbitrage gaming.

This will only work until February 2008 because Google Checkout has waived all the processing fees until then. If you’re concerned about reporting this an income, Google doesn’t track payments from the perspective of reconciling income (just like eBay doesn’t care how much you sell), and since in theory you’re paying yourself, it’s not really income. If you’re concerned about the tax and legal ramifications, I recommend you contacting a tax attorney on that.

Here are some good no annual fee, 12+ month 0% on purchases offers (if you’ve exhausted all the 0% balance transfers, which is pretty hard to imagine):

• Blue from American Express – 15 months
• Discover Business Card
• Citi CashReturns Card – up to 12 months

The giveaway of two copies of Health Care on Less Than You Think ends at midnight tonight, so leave a comment on that post and win a book!

With only 19 entries, that’s better than a 10% chance you’ll win a copy of Health Care on Less Than You Think! (read the review)