For the past few years I’ve always used plastic water bottles to take water on the go. This has netted me substantial savings over by not purchasing a beverage at retail prices from a vending machine or convenience store when I’m out at class, work, etc. Recently I acquired a stainless steel water bottle when my girlfriend found a deal for 2 for $20 at a local Brookstone.

After using the bottle for a couple of weeks I highly recommend it for both cost and environmental reasons. You cut down on plastic bottle waste and you save money by having a re-usable container. Whether you get your water in gallon jugs, through a filter or straight from the tap you’ll definitely be saving money over the long run.

While there are many different companies with their own offering the two most important things you look for are actual stainless steel (some are made from aluminum) and BPA-free. Other than that, factors such as easiness to clean, insulation, top cover, etc. are up to you.

There’s a $100 account bonus available at Chase for new checking accounts. Just open an account with $100 and make 5 check card purchases or setup direct deposit. Remember that if you don’t setup direct deposit just continue to make 5 check card purchases every statement period to avoid account fees.

More details available at Chase $100 Checking Account Bonus @ BankAndFinanceDeals.com.

I recently found out about Blippy which allows you to automatically display various transactions in a way similar to that of Twitter in that your purchases are shared via feed to your followers. People can also comment on your transactions too. You can link your Blippy account to credit cards and accounts such as Netflix, iTunes, Woot!, etc. A feed entry will also be generated every time you rent a movie from Netflix or download media from iTunes.

Blippy kind of reminds me of the Facebook Beacon advertising system which ended in a class action settlement except Blippy is op-t-in and entirely voluntary. At this time I don’t particularly want or have the need to share with everyone all my transactions. I also find reading through people’s 7-11 purchases and Netflix rentals rather boring.

However I can see certain individuals making Blippy a useful tool. Perhaps a personal finance blogger or world traveller with truly interesting purchases might make for worthy feeds. Other than that I really don’t care if someone I know spent $57.34 at the supermarket.

In a past post I described how BigCrumbs referral structure can make it worth your while to refer people to them. If you’re a seller on eBay I suggest you promote BigCrumbs on your listings.

Generally a message in a prominent place detailing how to get cashback and directing users to BigCrumbs.com. Don’t make it too intrusive as the individual is ultimately there to buy your item.

BigCrumbs doesn’t give a set percentage back of the item amount on eBay purchases but rather they give a percentage of the eBay fee the seller pays back to the purchaser. Since most people who purchase things on eBay have no idea how much sellers pay in fees they probably don’t know exactly how much cashback they’ll get but this usually amounts to 2-3% on most items.

For instance on a $100 item in the “other” category will generally amount to $9.35 in seller fees. Since BigCrumbs pays 35% of the fee back in cashback the purchaser would get $3.27 in cashback. That’s 3.27% cashback! If you referred the person you get 5% of the fee and would get $0.46 which isn’t much but think of it as a small rebate on the seller fee you paid to eBay and the potential for the person to make purchases at many other outlets including eBay in the future.

Not a member of BigCrumbs? Join today.

My friend sent me this hilarious tumblr about “dealbreakers”. What’s a dealbreaker? When you meet someone and something you learn about them that just repulses you. Follow the link and read and you’ll get it. If you watch 30 rock you’re already on top of things as Tina Fey’s character writes a book about dealbreakers.

Here are some of my favorites:

• You Don’t Like Sushi
• You’re A Bad Drunk
• You Talk Like The Internet
• You’re a Philosophy Major

You’re the consumer, if you’re smart then you realize it’s your job to get the lowest price possible on airfare to get to where you’re going. The airlines are in business to make money, that means it’s their goal to get you to pay as much as possible. Getting the best airfare involves so many factors that’s it’s almost impossible to win at the game (unless you just decide to stay at home).

A month or so ago I’ve been planning a group trip with a bunch of my friends the weekend before Christmas. When everyone was okay with the itinerary I started looking for the cheapest tickets out of the three NYC airports (EWR, LGA and JFK). Generally it’s easy to get the cheapest airfare on any given day but the flight was 2 months away. The tricky part is trying to time when you’ll be able to book the lowest fare between now and the flight.

The first tool I used was SideStep which aggregrates airfare from numerous sources and gives me a pretty good picture at what the lowest fares are at the time. The cheapest flight I found was $325.

The second tool I use is Bing’s travel search engine which acquired FareCast. There you can learn what the chances are if the lowest fares are going higher or lower based on past historical data and other factors. Since the greater NYC airports are in their prediction markets the search gave me an indiction to wait since fares have a good chance of dropping within the next 7 days.

The third tool I use is the website of the airline who was offering the lowest fare. In this case it was Continental. I plugged in the itinerary which I found earlier on SideStep and before you even get deep into the booking process you can see the seat map which told me that over 60% of the seats on the planes were not even assigned! Although people are ticketed but not assigned seats this told me that a good portion of the seats on the plane was unsold. Therefore I could afford to wait.

Over the next couple days the lowest airfares I could find actually rose and continued to rise! Over the course of a week it went from $325 to $380. A lot of my friends started saying that they should just book already before prices rise even higher. I told them to hold off since I firmly believe that those prices are way too high. Over the next couple days prices fluctuated up and down but nowhere near what I was comfortable paying.

Then finally it went down to $269 after two weeks and I booked the flight thinking it was a short term drop so I better lock in the price. It continued to stay at that price for 4-5 more days and then dropped another $15! I’m not gonna cry over $15 since I have the peace of mind that my itinerary is booked already. I’m glad I paid 30% less than originally planned. In the end all it took was patience whichs mean you should plans your vacations and trips as far in advance as possible to watch airfares (but not book them) and it helps if you are flexible with the dates a little bit (I wasn’t).

This blog runs on WordPress and I recently upgraded to the latest version. Hopefully it went without kinks but you never know.

About 5 minutes worth of work for 500 miles. Great way to pad your account and reset the mileage expiration timer.

Offer void in CT, GA, IA, ME, MA, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY and UT.

Unfortunately I’m ineligible for this because I live in NJ but hopefully you guys take advantage of it.

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I’m sure most people that have participated in the Monopoly game at McDonald’s have noticed that for every property set there’s always 1 rare piece that’s needed to complete the set. Here’s a list of those rare pieces that you should look out for.

• Mediterranean Avenue (Rare) and Baltic Avenue. 2,000 people will win $50.
• Short Line (Rare), Reading Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, B&O Railroad. 750 people will win $500.
• Vermont Avenue (Rare), Oriental Avenue, and Connecticut Avenue. 125 people will win $1,000.
• Virginia Avenue (Rare), St. Charles Place, and States Avenue. 75 people will win $2,000.
• Tennessee Avenue (Rare), St. James Place, and New York Avenue. 10 people will win $5,000.
• Kentucky Avenue (Rare), Indiana Avenue, and Illinois Avenue. Six people will win $10,000.
• Ventnor Avenue (Rare), Atlantic Avenue, and Marvin Gardens. Eight people will win $25,000.
• Pennsylvania Avenue (Rare), Pacific Avenue, and North Carolina Avenue. Four people will each win $50,000.
• Boardwalk (Rare) and Park Place. One person will win $1,000,000.

- Courtesy of About.com

The in-store game ends 11/02/09. While I don’t recommend eating at McDonald’s just for the game pieces I’m sure a lot of people stop by there already. I do stop 2-3 by for a McChicken sandwich and a sweet tea on my commute.

A quick way to get a free 100 miles on Continental’s frequent flyer program.

Get 100 bonus miles for simply learning about Continental’s PetSafe® and PetPass® programs, when you register for this offer before November 30, 2009.

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