Dirt Cheap Phone Plan - A La Carte with Ting

Ting is one of the first A La Carte cell phone plans and hopefully the trend catches on. An A La Carte plan allows you to choose exactly how many minutes, texts, and how much data you want then pay for that respectively. Do you use your phone for mainly texting and data? Then choose 100 minutes for $3 a month. Yes, you heard that right... you can get 100 minutes for $3 a month. With Ting you can customize your plan exactly how you would like so that you only pay for what you end up using. You can bring your own device over or choose one of their many phones. Since there are no contracts with Ting you won't receive the standard carrier 2 year discount so you're probably better off buying a phone off of Craigslist. If you know of other A La Carte or cheap cell phone plans feel free to post them in the comments!

Free Starbucks Stars

Free Starbucks Stars (How-To)

This is a great way to get some free Starbucks Stars just by waiting in line at the store. Stars are accrued when a transaction is made on a registered card. When you buy a cup of coffee or muffin you'll receive one star for the transaction... not one star per item. It's this mindset that allows this to work. What you need to do is buy two Starbucks gift cards then register them online at www.starbucks.com. Once your cards are registered then proceed to a Starbucks location and ask them if they could please transfer the balance of one card to another. Generally they ring this up as a transaction where you purchase store credit with your registered card which nets you a gold star.

Benefits of Starbucks Gold

If you are not sure what these stars are used for or why you would want them then here is a quick breakdown of Starbuck's Gold Program.

• Free drink or food reward every 12 Stars
• Personalized Gold Card
• Special Offers just for you

Transfer Money for Free (Dwolla)

About Dwolla

Dwolla is similar to PayPal in that you can transfer money from one individual to another. The major difference between the two is that Dwolla is free for transfers under $10 and only a quarter for transfers over $10. In addition to that by inviting friends to Dwolla you can save $10 in transactions fees which is basically getting 40 transactions for free!

Is Dwolla Secure?

Dwolla is about as secure as any other site you trust your credit card with these days. The company is from Iowa and the Iowa government allows its citizens to pay their cigarette stamp taxes with Dwolla. My logically train of thought is that if the Iowa government is that supportive then it can't be too bad. They've shown in the past to take preventative measures including starting a service called Grid so that users can avoid entering their credit card information.

Summary

If you're looking for a cheap way to pay people money and receive payments then Dwolla is currently the way to go! The only limitation is that it is only available in the USA.

Free Gift Cards for Sharing Location Data (Panel App for Android)

The Premise

There's an app for the Android market called Panel which offers rewards and prizes for sharing your location with it. After installation it runs in the background and silently sends your location data to their server every hour or so. If you're close to a company that they partner with then you may receive a survey for bonus points. The idea of the app seems like Big Brother trying to keep tabs on you... but it's not too much different than checking in with Facebook or Four Square. The only real difference is that with Panel the people running the company will get a more holistic idea of where you go during the day instead of just where you eat or stop in at.

Free Gift Cards

Panel will tell you about how many points you should receive per day and then translates that into a general yearly number of points. They're very straight-forward in how much gift cards cost ($5 Amazon card is 5,000 points) and truly don't try and trick you. It seems that with running Panel for a year (and factoring in bonuses) you could end up with somewhere around $20 to $50 in gift cards. Really it's not too bad for doing absolutely nothing.

Things to Consider

Some things that you'll need to consider is that now a company knows how you spend your day. They'll have a general idea of when you're home and when you're at work. A lot of the surveys you receive revolve around "Where were you at 6:45 pm on May 19th?" then proceed to give a list of stores that you were nearby. If you're willing to give this information out for about $50 a year then I'd say download Panel and start saving!

Bing Rewards Bot (New Reward Site)

Bing Rewards Bot

Looks like these sites just keep popping up all over! Everyone wants points the easy way without actually having to search using Bing. Here is the newest Bing Rewards bot website called... drumroll please... Bing Rewards Bot! Yes... I wish I had thought of that crafty name as well but since I didn't I'll just have to recommend it to the sites readers!

Why It's Fun

What makes this one different from any other search out there? Images. This allows you to set the time and category that is searched so you can finally see with your eyes what you've been randomly searching for. I've always wondered what "Hijivi" looked like and now I finally know! Did you know that "Yakafoyes" is kind of spelt like "Yaka Fruit"? Did you know that there was yaka fruit? You'll understand these jokes if you use any of the Bing Rewards Bots because they search for the most absolutely ridiculous stuff that three out of four times isn't real. Anyways I hope this one will actually bring some fun and joy to your life because it sure has to mine.

Discount Gift Cards

There are many websites around that both sell and buy gift cards. They make their money by buying gift cards for 40% - 80% of the value then selling them for more (but still less than the gift card is worth.) While it may be difficult to remember to check all of the websites out there (ABC Gift Cards, Cardpool, etc.) thankfully there is a website that aggregates all of them together so you'll only need to check one place. Gift Card Granny provides an amazing service that lets you easily sort the available gift cards so that you can buy the ones with the largest discount.

When buying gift cards there are a few precautions that I'd recommend that you take.

1. Check the balance AS SOON AS you receive the gift card.
2. When you have time take the gift card to the store they're from and put them on a different card.

If you follow those two steps then there's virtually no chance that you'll end up with a worthless gift card.

Bing Rewards Hack (with Bing Rewards Automator)

My previous post titled Bing Rewards (With Hack) went over the benefits of using the Bing Rewards program to its full potential. Since that article was published there have been numerous other ways to enjoy gaining Bing Reward points including an app for Android phones. The app is called Bing Rewards Automator and is free to install. There is a Pro version as well which includes an auto search which performs the searches at a specified time during the day which literally takes all effort out of it.