Angies List Promo Codes

Angies List promo codes are updated almost weekly and are a great way for you to save money when you sign up for Angies List. Here are the latest Angies List promo codes: (Updated February 2012)

• SAVE25 - Save 25% - Click Here
• BULX – Save 40%
• SMARTNOSETUP – Save 25%
• REPAIR – Save 40%
• LEAF – Save 40%
• DECK2 – Save 40%

To use one of these codes and save on your Angies List membership – Click Here

Angies List Savings

Sometimes it’s a little annoying how Angies List constantly claims to save people a lot of money on home improvement work, but after looking around the site I realized that their claim is true. Based on Angie’s List member reports from this year, the average cost of a plumbing job gone wrong is $1,016. Of course that one expense far outweighs the cost of an annual membership, showing the value that the service does offer. Here’s a quote from an Angies List member named Kathleen from Mount Prospect, Ill.

“With the very first company I hired, I saved more than four times the amount of my year’s membership.”

The money you’ll save with the promo codes above and the discounts you can get from highly rated service providers make it so that an Angie’s List membership can almost pay for itself. You can read more about the service in this Angies List review.

Angies List helps you find local contractors, but when they start gathering contractor reviews in a new city, they often make an Angies List free trial offer for new members. This trial membership lets you try out the service at no charge and the new members start entering reviews as they work with companies and rate local businesses.

Seasonal Promotions

One thing I like about Angies List promotions is that they’re usually based around some kind of seasonal home improvement work that you might need that month or time of year.

Spring

For example, in the early spring when the snow is melting and things outside are starting to green up their promotions are about flowers, yards, and landscaping. 

Sometimes they’ll have a spring cleaning offer for people starting to dig out and organize from the stuff they accumulated over the winter.  If you live in tornado alley, you’ll probably see an Angies List deal about tree limbs sometime from March – May during the peak of the spring storms.

Summer

As the summer heats up there’s usually an air conditioning promo code from Angies List and they also send along some tips on A/C maintenance.  Most of us are busy and put off cooling system maintenance but then when the first big heat wave of the summer hits AC systems go out left and right and all the heating/cooling companies are swamped.

Since the summer is a busy season for moving, some years you can get an Angies List coupon code based around moving services. For example, last year they highlighted the numbers of homeowners who get hurt trying to lift and move big pieces of furniture themselves and then offered a deal to help you avoid the strain of moving.

Fall/Winter

As summer ends and fall begins you’ll likely see a lot of promotions designed to help you get ready for the coming winter.  Angies List typically has the most useful promotions in the fall and spring, I guess because there’s always a lot of things you need to get done with your yard and house during those times.

For example, you’ll probably see some type of gutter cleaning promotion towards the end of fall and maybe something about aerating your lawn.  There are usually lots winterization offers like these:

• Water heater checkup
• Insulation testing
• Chimney cleaning
• Patch your roof
• Tune up your furnace
• Seal/Replace your windows

Event & Holiday Promotions

Another thing Angies List does with their trial offers and memberships is they’ll feature certain events.  We had a big set of storms come through the Midwest last year and they ran a storm promotion for a week or so.  Along with a promo code, Angies List also sent out articles with tips on homeowners insurance premiums, preparing your home for storms, and finding local tree services.

Every year so far they’ve run a holiday promotion where you not only get a membership discount but can also save money on gift memberships.  I actually took advantage of these and gave away free Angies List memberships last Christmas in a giveaway where a member of my email newsletter won a one year membership each day for a week.

Another kind of event you’ll see pop up every now and then is when the service is featured in the press or on TV.  Angies List has been in highlighted in Money magazine, Popular Mechanics, Kiplingers, the New York times, and on the Today show, MSNBC, and Fox News so far.  Each time they’ve run about a week’s promotion afterwards.

Useful Angies List Promotions

I already touched on this earlier but many times the promo code from Angies List comes along with useful information related to the promotion. For example, early in the summer they sent out the top 5 air conditioning tips – the tips were good but even just the reminder was probably more useful to me.

Some other examples of tips they’ve sent with their coupon codes are how to hire a good plumber, how to find a quality electrician, and homework to do before hiring a local contractor.  So the good news about all the different reasons they offer promotions is that there’s usually one going on!  I try and keep the latest promotions listed on this page.

Click Here to signup for Angies List with a promo code above.

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TradeKing Promotion – $50 Bonus for Opening Brokerage Account

TradeKing $50 bonus for new accounts runs through the end of this month. Online stock brokerage TradeKing is running this promotion for new customers that open a TradeKing account before the end of the month. You’ll get your $50 bonus after you make your first trade.

If you’re already a customer be sure to watch for the refer a friend TradeKing promotion because it’s pretty slick.  You can login to your account and recommend TradeKing to a friend or family member, if they like it and sign up then you both get a bonus.

TradeKing Promotions

Typically they pay you $50 for each referral but during the promotion they give both you and the person you refer $100.  In order to qualify for the TradeKing promotion they have to fund their account and make a trade. 

When I first opened my TradeKing account I didn’t fund it right away, and they sent out an email letting me know about their funding options of ACH, wire transfer, check, and account transfer from another broker.  So if your friends are busy and forget to add money they’ll probably get a reminder email from TradeKing.

In the past, we’ve seen the most TradeKing promotions in the Spring and the Fall so are probably your best chances to take advantage of the sign-up bonus.

TradeKing Service

TradeKing was picked as the best discount online broker by Smart Money magazine for two years in a row (2006 – 2007) and as the best in customer service in 2008. TradeKing also scored well in Barron’s in 2008, earning a 4-star rating and beating brokerages such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and Charles Schwab.

It’s good to see they’re consistent with their emphasis on serving investors, they were named the top online brokerage for customer service in 2010.  Kiplinger’s also featured TradeKing as one of the best online brokers for 2011.  

If you’re curious about what makes TradKing so popular with online stock traders, I did some research and listed below some of the reasons I found that TradeKing gets such high marks:

• Low Trading Costs
  • Smart Order Routing excecutes each trade at best price
  • No extra charge for broker assisted trades
  • Reimburse your commission if they don’t get you best available price
• Educational Resources
  • Webinars
  • Video tutorials
  • Podcasts
• Trading Community
  • Online community of stock traders
• Tools
  • Tax Manager
  • Technical Analysis
  • Detailed research reports
  • Streaming quotes
• Options Trading
  • Option trading strategies (multi-leg chain, strike price, & spread)

TradeKing Education

The cool thing about the educational content at TradeKing is that it’s free and open to all investors, not just members.  They cover the topics you’d expect – stocks, options, ETFs, bonds and mutual funds but you can also tailor the information you’re reading based on your skill and experience investing.  So new investors won’t be tripped up by more advanced topics – and experienced traders can read about higher level strategies for stocks and options without having to wade through introductory info they already know.

Something they’re really proud of, that I haven’t made much use of, is their Trader Network – kind of a social network for investors where you can share experiences, ideas and strategies.  I can say that their webinars are really useful.  They have to read through some mandated disclaimers at the beginning of each webinar but once you get past that first minute or two they cover some pretty useful topics.

TradeKing Mobile

The TradeKing BlackBerry app was a big hit for some of the members.  If you’re like me and don’t have a Blackberry this didn’t do you much good but a while back they did come out with a TradeKing iPhone and iPod touch app.

If you’re not in front of a computer all day like I am then I guess these apps can come in handy. The iPhone app let’s you see your balances & holdings, place orders, and make stock & option trades.  It also has news features where you can read market commentary and news and see quotes and charts.

Both the BlackBerry mobile application and the iPhone version are free, there are no minimum balances or trading activity levels required to use them.

TradeKing Bonus

Back to the sign-up offer. It doesn’t sound as though you’ll be able to get the $50 bonus directly through the TradeKing site. There is no promotion code that I’m aware of, you’ll need to sign up using this link through the end of this month and make a trade to get your $50.

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myFICO Promo Code

myFICO Coupon Code

MyFICO is celebrating its 9th year, and for a limited time myFICO is offering a promotion coupon code for 30% off your online credit report.

So what is so great about myFICO? MyFICO is the consumer division of Fair Issac “the company that invented the FICO credit risk score that lenders use” and the only place you can get your FICO scores (the same scores the lenders use).

myFICO Promotion Code

From now until the end of the month, you can save 30% off ALL myFICO products and services. The details of the myFICO promotion are as follows:

• Save 30% on all myFICO credit products (free trials excluded)
• Use coupon code: myFICOis9
• Promo runs now through end of the month

How to Get your Credit Report

Use code: myFICOis9 to receive 30% off your credit report. To get your discount you must first be registered. You can choose either or both Equifax and TransUnion credit reports.

• Step 1 requires you to fill in a login (your email) and password–which must be at least 8 characters.
• Step 2 shows the cost of the credit scores you are ordering on the right side of the form. Enter the coupon code in the box area, the code is case sensitive. Click to apply the myFICO promotion discount code.

Your credit information will be available online for 30 days from the purchase date, and can be printed; information includes your address, employer, and financial accounts. If you’ve been wanting to check your FICO credit score, this offer is a good one. MyFICO offers credit reports and credit scores from two of the three major credit bureaus — Equifax and TransUnion. (Experian does not offer FICO scores to consumers).

Products and Services

myFICO also offers several Products and Services including Score Watch®, IDFreeze®, Suze Orman’s FICO® Kit Platinum, FICO® Standard, and FICO® Quarterly, as well as online mortgage relief, how to get a loan, get a credit card and dispute credit report mistakes.

FICO Standard – This is their basic service, it gives you a look at your FICO score and also goes into some detail about what the different components of your score mean.  Probably the most useful feature, other than knowing the score itself, is that this service gives you some insight into how potential lenders might evaluate you based on your score.

FICO ScoreWatch – This service gives you two FICO scores & credit reports every year from Equifax. It also keeps you up to date on how your credit score is changing.

FICO Quarterly Monitoring – The quarterly monitoring service is kind of like a checkup every three months.  Each quarter you get to see your credit score and check out your credit report.  It also highlights anything that’s happened since the last report that may be impacting your score.

Suze Orman’s FICO Kit – If you’ve never heard of Suze Orman, she’s obsessed with personal finance and has been writing books about it for years.  She also has a TV show where she talks about consumer finance topics and answers users questions. 

After working with thousands of people in debt, Suze Orman sat down with myFICO to design a program that could help walk you through the process of rebuilding your credit.  The other services offer good information, this one is setup to help coach you through that information.

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True Earnings American Express Card – Bonus Promotion at Costco

Costco is running a promotion for existing customers – when you apply for the True Earnings American Express Card card or setup your Costco membership to automatically renew on your TrueEarnings card you get two months of free Costco membership.

Our neighbors are Costco members and they use the True Earnings cashback card not just for groceries but also for gas. They save quite a bit filling up at the Costco gas stations, the cash rewards card offers 3% back on gas purchases.

(Update) After seeing how our friends used the wholesale club, my wife and I have became Costco members. Our experience has been that if you can find a few things that are a great savings for you then the membership will pay for itself easily.

Costco Memberships

We actually started out as Gold members and shopped there for a few months to see what kinds of savings we’d see. Once we ran the numbers and saw that an Executive Membership made sense for us financially, we upgraded.  

The reason to start out at the Gold level is that it has the lowest annual fee.  For some people, being a Gold member makes more sense due to the lower fee.  If you’re like us and spend significant amounts at Costco then the cash back you earn as an Executive member can more than make up for the higher annual fee.

American Express Cards

You don’t have to use the True Earnings card to shop at Costco, you can always pay with cash.  But if you want to use a credit card Costco only accepts American Express cards.  We’re a big fan of earning cash back on our purchases so paying by credit card is what we prefer.  We do have a Blue Cash card but if you don’t have any AmEx cards then True Earnings is a good option.

Of course, one thing you have to ask when dealing with cash back cards is how the rewards are paid out.  With the Costco True Earnings card, the cashback you earn is applied to your card automatically, you don’t have to request payment.  Something else people ask about is whether you can use the card to shop on the Costco website.  You can but you don’t automatically have an online account when you become a member – you’ll have to create an account on costco.com before you can use the card to shop online.

Cash Back Rewards & Fees

Although you have to be a member of Costo to be approved for the True Earnings card, you aren’t limited to using it only at Costco. 

You earn cash back anyplace you use the card.  Since most everyone has to buy gas regularly, probably the best deal is the 3% back you get on the first $3,000 of gas purchases.  You earn at the 2% level when you eat out at restaurants, the cash back rates is 2% for travel purchases, and you earn 1% for everything else you put on the card.  One nice thing about the card that not all cash back programs offer is that there’s no limit on the rewards you can earn.

In terms of card costs, there is no fee to become a cardmember.  Once you’re a Costco member you’re eligible to apply for the True Earnings card.  If you’re approved you can actually use the card both to pay and as proof of your Costco membership, you don’t have to carry two different cards.

Click here to sign up for the card and start earning more cash back on your purchases at Costco.

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ShareBuilder $50 Bonus Code – Trading Account Promotion

ShareBuilder Coupon Code

ShareBuilder bonus of $50 for opening a new account and making a trade by the end of next month.  You can setup your ShareBuilder account to make periodic automatic investments for only $4 per trade so the $50 should cover you for a while. (Updated February 2012)

ShareBuilder is offering this bonus for new customers, this promotion is double the previous $25 ShareBuilder offer from last month so it’s a pretty good deal.  Your $50 bonus will be deposited after you make your first trade. 

Investing with ShareBuilder

ShareBuilder is setup to allow you to make regular, small investments into the market without spending a fortune on trading fees.  Since there are no account minimums it’s easy to get started investing right away, even if it’s only a little bit of money.

One nice thing about the service is that although it’s setup to invest a fixed amount regularly, if you find yourself needing the money that month you can cancel that one investment.  Obviously, if you cancel it every month then you’re defeating the purpose of automatic investing but if you have a tight month here and there it’s easy to hold that money back to help pay bills.

The cool thing about ShareBuilder is that on the months when you do invest money, you’re not required to have enough to buy a whole share of stock.  For example, let’s say you put $50 into your ShareBuilder account each month.  If you’re setup to invest in some of the best dividend stocks, like IBM or Chevron, the stock price may be over $100.  Even though you only put in $50, ShareBuilder will allow you to buy partial shares of the stock. 

The nice thing about this approach is that you’re not waiting around to buy shares until you have enough money.  If you’re a fan of dollar cost averaging, you know the principle is that you invest regularly into a stock, mutual fund, or ETF rather than trying to time the market and buy on stock swings.  Since you can regularly put the same amount of money into your account, you’re taking advantage of that concept

ShareBuilder Fees

As I mentioned above, automatic investing is really the sweet spot of ShareBuilder and it helps to keep your fees low, just $4 a trade.  If you want to use the service to occassionally buy and sell stocks outside of your regular investments you can but you’ll pay more for the trade.

If you find yourself regularly buying stocks in addition to your automatic investments if wouldn’t hurt to check out their Advantage plan.  The monthly fee is higher but each additional trade you add over your 12 scheduled investments is only $1 a trade.  It also gives you a cheaper rate for any real-time buying or selling of stocks.

Another nice thing about the Advantage plan is that they offer a two month ShareBuilder free trial when you signup.  So you can use the service and see how you like it before committing to a monthly fee.  Based on other deals from online brokers and services, a two month trial is pretty good.  Most times you’ll get a week, maybe two to try it out for free.  Having two months free gives you enough time to get a feel for ShareBuilder Advantage and see how you like it.

ShareBuilder Bonus

If don’t know if you can get a bonus when you signup for the free trial, you’ll have to check during the signup process.  When you signup for ShareBuilder, if you can, include your promo code so that you’ll be eligbile for the new customer bonus.  If you see the coupon code option as shown below, make sure you enter your promotion code:

Click here and enter promotion code 25WO10 to qualify for your ShareBuilder bonus.

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Wall Street Journal Free Trial Online – Plus $20 Promotion

Wall Street Journal free trial and $20 savings promotion gives you free access to the online version of the Journal for two weeks and saves you $20 if you decide to subscribe to the business and financial website.

Published by Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal covers real estate, personal finance topics, small business issues, financial news, and stock market data on a daily basis.  As the world’s leading business publication, the Wall Street Journal gives you so much financial detail that you’ll honestly have a hard time reading and absorbing it all at once.

The nice thing about the online edition of the Wall Street Journal is that its easy to browse and search for the topics that matter most to your money; plus the WSJ online is available for you on the Web at whatever time is best for you. 

As part of their current deal, you can try out the Journal free for two weeks and keep up on market data and business news at no cost while you try it out.

Wall Street Journal Free Access

There are actually some parts of the WSJ site you can access for free just by registering on the site.  All you need is your name and email address to create your free account.

Once you enter in your info you’re taken to a thank you page and sent a confirmation email. You’ll see something like the links off to the left that list out the things available to you as a free subscriber.

You won’t be able to access them quite yet, you have to finish the confirmation process by checking your email. After clicking the email link you’re taken to the last step of registration where you enter the password you just setup to complete the verification process.

You still won’t be able to access all the premium articles, you’ll know which ones they are because you’ll be able to read the first few paragraphs and then there’ll be a link to subscribe to keep reading.

Wall Street Journal Free Trial

The free trial offer’s nice because it lets you see how much you’d actually read the WSJ before having to pay for it.  For example, we were visiting a friend in Palo Alto last month who had signed up for the free trial but was skeptical he’d find time to read it between his busy job, long commute, and new baby.  But once he signed up for the trial he discovered he could read it on his iPad while he ate breakfast.

The way the WSJ has it setup, you can signup for the print version, the online version, or both.  If you’re a lready a print customer then you get a price break when you signup for the online version.  Of course, how you prefer to read it is up to you. 

I’m not a big fan of leafing through papers, I’d rather read it online or on the iPad.  But I have another friend who always sits down with the paper version of the WSJ every morning on the train into work and hardly ever reads it online.

What would be really cool for us commuters is if they could digitize their articles and make them available as podcasts or on iTunes so we could listen to them on our drive into work.  (Update) It looks like the WSJ online has a podcasts page where you can download daily updates.  It’s not the premium articles but it is a nice daily overview of money and markets.

WSJ Trial Offer

So, with their online promotion, if you review the Wall Street Journal and decide it’s worth your money you’ll get it for $20 off the subscription price.  There are no promotion codes for this offer, simply click here to signup for the free trial and savings.

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ING Electric Orange Checking $50 Bonus

Electric Orange Checking promotion from ING offers a $50 bonus if you open an account by the end of the month and make at least 3 signature transactions in the first 45 days with your debit card.  ING has doubled the bonus they are offering, last month there was a $25 bonus for opening an ING Electric Orange account.

I’d recommend this account, here is a review of ING Electric Orange, below are some of the features it offers:

• Free MasterCard Debit Card to directly access your account
• No monthly fees and competitive interest rates
• Send money at no charge with Electric Checks
• Free ATM access at over 35,000 locations

ING Savings Account

I started using an ING Direct account years ago after they first made online savings accounts available. I started off with an online savings account because they offered a much better interest rate than I could find at a local bank, or any other internet bank at the time.

Then they added an online checking account and let you link your checking and savings accounts together, which made using the online bank much easier.  At first it was tough to get my money out of the savings account, the only way I could access it was to transfer the money to my local bank and wait a few days for it to go through.

It wasn’t a big deal but I was using direct deposit to put money into my ING online savings account every pay period.  We had our emergency fund and several other accounts setup there for a variety of things we were savings for.  Even thought the ING bank was paying us great interest rates, there was no quick way to access our money, particularly if we needed it for an emergency.

ING Checking Account

As I mentioned, once the Electric orange checking option became available, it made it much easier to access our money since we could just transfer the cash from savings to checking.  It was also nice they were offering an ING checking promotion.  Some of the offers came through the mail, some over email.  They all all included an ING promotion code that you could use when opening a new Electric orange account to earn a bonus.

Once you had the checking account setup and got your debit card in the mail, you could use the Mastercard to pay at the store or go to an ATM to pull out some money.  They also had the option of paying with a check but I don’t really write checks that often.  However, if you’re more of an online type person like me you can also use their online bill pay service at no charge.

I don’t really expect checking account interest rates to be that high, if you’re looking to earn interest on your money a savings account is really the best place.  However, Orange checking is an interest checking account so you’ll earn a little on the money while it’s waiting to be spent.

ING Checking Promotions

The ING checking promotions can pay out some nice bonuses but they do have some qualifications you have to meet to earn your bonus.  For example, fifty days after your account is opened and you’ve made at least 3 signature transactions on the debit card your bonus will be deposited into your ING account.

In order to qualify for the bonus you’ll have to use one of the special coupon codes I mentioned earlier when opening your account.  The ING Electric Orange promo codes here are updated regularly and can be a nice way for you to make some extra money when you sign up for an ING Electric Orange account as a new customer:

• EL574– $25 Bonus
• EM227 – $50 Bonus
• EL545 – $25 Bonus

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