I woke up early this morning and filled out an application for Zecco. As stated in my previous posts, they offer free stock trades and now have no minimum to open an account.

When I fund my account and execute my first trade I’ll write a follow-up post. I suggest you fill out an application in the meantime, according to reviews at other blogs, I probably won’t be disappointed with Zecco.

Signing up was easy a zip. I just added my bank account info for ACH transfers and now all I have to do is wait for the two trial deposits to show up to verify my account.

There’s a lot of $75 bonus floating around for the same offer which I’m glad I didn’t take advantage of yet. Go to this page and it’ll generate a unique bonus code which you can print out and bring to your local Chase branch.

From the page:
“Banker Instructions:
1. Customers opening a personal checking account are eligible for this offer,excluding High School CheckingSM, Chase College CheckingSM, Chase Access CheckingSM, New Jersey Consumer Checking Account and Chase Basic CheckingSM.

2. Enter the 16-digit coupon code into e-coupon at the time of account opening. Coupon code can be found above.

3. Provide printed e-coupon receipt to the customer.”

I just realized that UPS gives discounts for eBay sellers. I don’t sell a lot of items but saving on shipping is always great. You can print out the labels from PayPal just like with USPS labels also.

UPS claims that their discounted shipping prices are cheaper than USPS Priority and Parcel Post.

A listed example is a 5 pound package from New York to Chicago:

UPS Ground: $7.63
USPS Priority Mail: $11.90
USPS Parcel Post: $8.59

Check it out at ebay.com/ups.

Someone named Sara from FNBO Direct sent me a Businessweek video featuring an interview with Rajive Johri, President of FNBO. View it here.

According to MSNBC, Pepsi rolled out a cucumber flavor this week in Japan only. Although I find this extremely strange. My curiosity with how this would taste wants me to try it. Apparently I’m not the only curious one as the cucumber flavored goodness is hot right now on ebay. Check live listings if you really need to try one. Also check completed listings to see how much people are buying it for (usually $14-$16 shipped). Pepsi also announced it’s a limited run so the “collector” mindset might be playing a part.

Zecco getting rid of their $2,500 minimum balance is finally convincing me to switch over from Sogoinvest.

Free trades vs $3 trades is a plus, but what really irked me about Sogoinvest is that they still haven’t implemented GTC (”good till canceled”) orders yet. So I’m tired of logging in everyday to input my limit orders. Also on one occasion where I didn’t log in to input the limit orders for a couple days, one of the stocks on my watchlist dipped low enough to my buy point.

Another benefit of free trades at Zecco is that you can average into a stock without spending anything on trading fees. The limit of 10 free trades a day and 40 free a month is more than what I’ll need for the foreseeable future. It’s only $3.50 each trade after you pass the cap anyways.

Options are incredibly cheap also. It’s $3.50 + $.60 (base + per contract). For stocks I hold for the long run I like to sell covered calls, pocket the extra cash and let someone else do the hoping.

Zecco does charge $10 for no load mutual funds but I don’t invest in mutual funds anyways as I believe most of them underperform the market anyway. You’re better off buying ETFs that track the total market (buying ETFs is included in the free trading).

Sogoinvest charges $50 for transfers out so I’m better off liquidating my positions and transferring the funds out and back into Zecco.

Note: This post has been sitting in my drafts for about a week so I’m not sure exactly which day it was that I felt like smacking the cashier at McDonalds… backhanded too mind you.

I enjoy McDonalds every now and then, particularly their coke floats when it’s brutally hot out.

I was near a McDonald’s that I don’t usually go to and decided to purchase an ice coffee and tried to use my Chase Freedom Card and their wireless RFID reader to pay for my purchase and the thing wouldn’t read the card. The cashier then yells at me and says “YOU HAVE TO SWIPE IT” then I told her it’s suppose to be wireless and she goes “NO IT IS NOT”. This is the point where I wanted to give her a good backhanded slap. I mean you work there, you should at least know about it, instead you treat me like some idiot who doesn’t know how to use a credit card.

So summer is here and tons of college kids out of school… what to do to kill time? Having fun and spending money aren’t always necessarily related. One of the key parts to having fun without spending a lot of money is having friends that you enjoy just hanging out with. Here are some things that I’ve already started doing this summer that were inexpensive, yet fun.

Go to the beach – It isn’t for everyone because not everyone lives by the beach. However, I’m sure most people live by a lake or river. I just happen to live close enough to the Jersey Shore or beaches in New York. Most beaches are free and some charge nominal fees to pay for the lifeguards on duty. What do I do at the beach? Read books, hang out with friends, dig holes and build sandcastles, swim and sun tan. Gas will probably be your biggest expense here and varies depending on how far you live from the beach.

Barbecues – All you need is a grill, various raw meats, condiments, and some charcoal. You can BBQ in somebody’s backyard, a public park or beach, etc. etc.

Any other suggestions? I’ve already been to the beach 3 times and sunburned once.