So I recieve this e-mail from Amazon.com regarding a sale on boots and slippers.

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
Based on your previous purchases at Amazon.com, we thought you might be interested in getting $20 off select sheepskin and shearling boots and slippers. Spend $80 or more on select brands and you will automatically receive your discount at checkout.

› Shop the sale

So then I look at my past order history since this was based on my “previous purchases”. So the last thing I purchased was Slim Jims on April 29th, 2007 and Luigi Bormioli Duo Latte Glasses on April 13th. From Slim Jims to women’s boots… maybe they need Google’s help?

As part of my promise, anyone who signs up for Zecco using my advertiser links, I’ll donate $25 to Kiva and that money will keep rolling over until someone defaults. For those that don’t know about Kiva, you donate interest-free loans to third world country entrepreneurs to help them lift themselves out of poverty.

That money that was used to fund today’s loan if repaid will be used towards another loan and so forth.

Buy Stocks Online for $0. Trade stocks for free on Zecco.com. The Free Trading Community. www.zecco.com

I just found out that the Amazon Customers Vote is back. I’m excited that they’ve changed some things around from previous years. In the past it was basically whoever clicked first won when the item was available for sale. Now it’s more of a lottery in that you have a chance to get the deal if you voted for the item.

There’s a total of 6 rounds. The first round’s voting ends tonight and you’ll be able to find out between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. PT if you nabbed a deal.

What I did was find out which items were winning and also voted for those items as you only have a chance at the deal if that item wins the vote.

The first round is for:
Wii – $79 (1,000 units)
PS3 40 gig – $139 (1,000 units)
X-Box 360 Arcade Edition – $99 (1,000 units)

The Wii currently is leading with 57% of the votes and hopefully I’ll be able to nab one. All the deals are actually great in that even if you didn’t want the item, they make great gifts or can be flipped on ebay for a quick buck.

Capital One has been sending me a credit card offer in the mail for their “No Hassle Cash Visa Platinum Card”. They mixed up the numbers around to make the rewards seem more exciting than they really are.

The offer is “Earn 1% cash back AND an annual 25% cash bonus”. So you basically earn 1% cash back on all purchases and then get a annual 25% bonus on cash earned. Anyone that can do simple math knows this essentially means 1.25% back on all purchases, but you’ll have to wait for that extra 0.25% annually.

Chase should employ the same strategy for their 3% back Freedom card. Earn 1% back and get a 200% bonus annually!

I just got this e-mail from Sharebuilder about being acquired by the ING group and will be added to their ING Direct division.

ShareBuilder has some important news. As of November 15, ShareBuilder has been acquired by ING DIRECT, the nation’s largest direct bank with over 5.5 million customers and $75 billion in U.S. assets (part of Netherlands-based ING, NYSE: ING). ING DIRECT shares our vision of helping Americans increase their savings.

Rest assured there have been no changes made to your ShareBuilder account. You can continue to use the same account number, login and password, and can access your account anytime at sharebuilder.com. Over the next few weeks, you’ll begin to see ShareBuilder adopt ING DIRECT’s signature Orange color. The biggest enhancements in store for you will be in the expanded assortment of financial offerings available to you from ING DIRECT, including savings, checking, and mortgages.

We look forward to sharing more information with you over the coming months. If you have any questions, we invite you to contact us at 1-800-747-2537.

Best regards,

Dan Greenshields
President
ShareBuilder Securities Corporation

This is actually the second time that a company I use has been acquired by ING. The first was Netbank, but that was due to their bankruptcy and my $2 or so was transferred over to ING since it was insured by the FDIC.

However I do have my Roth IRA and a regular portfolio at Sharebuilder so I’m wondering what happens besides adopting the signature orange color. Will transfers between my ING Direct electric orange checking and roth IRA be faster? Also will the trading prices come down considerably at Sharebuilder?

A cheap and fun hobby I’ve always wanted to get into is the DIY trend. The website Instructables has tons of user submitted guides on how to build various things yourself.

Here are a few of my favorites:
Invisible Book Shelf
Hungarian Shelves
Homemade Sun Jar
Save $200 in 2 minutes with the world’s best writing pen
DIY Old Timey Skype Phone
Magnetic Rubik’s Dice Cube

Stay away from the tattoo gun though.

This blog article deals a lot with my gripe about the restaurant industry and “tipping”. I don’t find anything wrong at all with tipping for good service and I’ve worked at a restaurant or two in earlier years so I know how important tips are in getting by.

The whole system of tipping is suppose to ensure that you get good service. It’s suppose to be a win-win-win situation for the owners of the restaurant, the wait staff, and the patrons of the establishment. The owners cut costs in salary to the wait staff, the wait staff technically have no limit to the amount they can earn, and the patrons of the establishment get good service.

In a restaurant I use to work at, waiters were paid $2.15 and depended on tips for the most part to earn a living. So I definitely understood how important a role tips played in their income. They also tipped out a percentage of their total sales to the busboys and bartenders so if someone left them no tip whatsoever, they actually lose money.

If waiters for the most part depend on tips for their income, why isn’t there great service everywhere you go? Why is it I encounter shitty service more often than I encounter great service? The problem is a lot of wait staff in my restaurant use to think they were entitled to a 15% tip regardless of service and then more if they provided good service. This line of thinking totally defeats the concept of tipping.

When I go to restaurants and the service is horrible, I will tip accordingly. Also I’ll try to pay cash as I’ve heard of servers that have the balls to change the tip amount on credit card receipts because you most likely won’t catch it.

What are your thoughts on tipping for service?

I recently found out my sister puts a lot of her money in mutual funds and calls it a day. Generally this is a horrible choice considering most mutual funds under-perform the market as a whole. What’s worse is a lot of her funds basically track the market so they’ll never outperform the market due to expense fees.

My advice to her was to at least buy some ETFs with extremely low expense ratios such as many of the ones offered by Vanguard. Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF sports an unbelievably low expense ratio of 0.07%.

If you’re investing over the long run, the compounding effect of lost dollars to expense fees does add up. Every dollar lost is another dollar that doesn’t work to earn you more money.

Vanguard does have a slew of industry specific ETFs if you want to invest in a particular industry. The expense ratios are slightly higher but are still among the lowest in the industry. Their Energy ETF sports a respectible expense ratio of 0.25%.