Earn $1300 by applying for credit cards

When is the last time you looked over the list of rewards cards? Here's a post for those people who are responsible with their credit and are looking for a way to maximize the rewards they can earn by using credit cards. Note: you actually have to be approved and must use the card before you can get the reward . . .

There are a few new ones out there that you might want to consider. Here's a link to a story on how to maximize your rewards.

Pacey's new dog collar

Pacey and I went on our usual 5 mile run on Saturday. This time of year, since the water has begun to thaw, there are tons of Canadian Geese and Mallard Ducks out. Pacey just loves it -- can't get enough of it.

So we're running along the creek and she spots a Mallard. For the next 10 minutes, I watched her run back and forth along a 40 yard stretch. That was probably where I made my mistake. We got home and were about to jump in the shower when I noticed that her tags were missing.

Her HomeAgain ID tag, county vaccination tag and standard $3 tag had all fallen off. I was surfing online and found a pretty cool slide-on tag at PetSmart.com (online only) for $15, but that seemed a bit pricey for a dog tag -- and after reading about it, it wouldn't have fit anyway.
Boomerang Tags sells this slide-on tag for $7.99 shipped, and it works with adjustable collars with plastic snaps, collars like hers. Now that's a deal! We haven't gotten it in the mail yet, but I'm looking forward to running without hearing the telltale jingle noise that her old tags previously made.

While I'm on the subject of deals, I'll mention that as I write, Amanda and I are sitting in front of the TV passively watching Deal or No Deal. Why does anyone stick it out past their 6 figure offer?! The last lady just walked away with $150 -- idiot!

Plantar Fasciitis

I'd have to say that plantar fasciitis is the devil's #2 weapon against man, right up there with pride! I had it for about 6 months back in 2004 and beat it for a while, only for it to flare up later.

After reading up on the injury, I learned that, essentially, the thick muscles and ligaments on the bottom of my feet had torn. This caused my feet to tingle with pain during the course of the day. The tissue would begin to repair itself while I slept, but every morning when I woke up, my first step out of bed would destroy any healing that had taken place. Wearing hard-soled dress shoes to work compounded the problem, but I didn't have any other option.

What cured my ailment, you ask? Well, thanks for allowing me to share! I tried rolling my foot over golf and tennis balls, but that only provided temporary relief. Anti-inflammatories weren't a 100% solution either.

I ended up wearing a Dynasplint night splint to bed for 3 months to get rid of it. (Talk about patience, Amanda was a saint for living through that!) The folks at Dynasplint say that the boot applies a "low-load, prolonged-duration stretch." This just means that, in addition to fixing the angle of my foot/calf in a stretched position, it would apply slight and continuous tension through the use of springs. Most of the boots I had seen in running magazines could fix my foot/calf at a fixed angle, but this pales in comparison to what the Dynasplint did.

While I wore the boot, I also gave up running cold turkey for another 6 months -- very hard for me to do. These days I'm back to running about 15 miles a week, mostly in 5 mile increments, and have been able to keep the injury at bay with the help of some good insoles.

I stumbled across Shock Doctor insoles. I forget what tuned me into their product, but I do remember calling the company and speaking to a vice-president about using the insoles to treat plantar fasciitis. Given my situation, he recommended the Ultra2 insoles. They have a very strong stabilizing structure going all the way up your big toe.

Many runners spend big bucks on custom orthotics. Luckily, I found something off the shelf that worked. And since there was no retailer in my area, they offered to send a free pair to try as long as I agreed to give my podiatrist a few extra pair. That's a deal!

Surprise . . .Happy Valentine's Day!

After Tuesday night's practice run, I was a little worried that my little surprise wouldn't work. Well not to worry . . .it worked exactly as planned!

Look at that picture of her . . .isn't she the most beautiful 9-month pregnant woman you've seen?! Thursday was Valentine's Day, and after Amanda got me last year, I couldn't resist repaying the favor.

Last year, Amanda went in together with some girlfriends and surprised me and two of my co-workers (Scott and Rob) with a singing barbershop quartet. Imagine 3 guys standing next to each other being serenaded by four old-timers. Yep, and not to just one song, but two!

This year, Amanda's third hour class was able to witness first-hand the depths of our love. They were happy to partake -- and skip out on their planned quiz. I hope they thank me this Tuesday when I come in to wrap up week 3 of our Junior Achievement curriculum.

On a side note, you can't beat the price on this hot deal. The price tag includes two songs, a rose, a box chocolate and photos of the event with your significant other in full surprise mode -- which is priceless!

Custom ring tones for your LG Rumor (LX-260)

What's the best site out there to download cell phone ring tones or games from? And once I download them, how do I get them on my phone?

I blogged earlier this month that I got a new phone. I didn't opt in on the Sprint Vision internet service. So how does someone download to/from my phone without Internet?

Meritline has a deal right now on a Bluetooth wireless dongle adapter for $7.50 shipped. How's that for a good deal?! That should let me connect my PC/laptop to my phone.

To double my pleasure and for a little faster upload/download, I also found a deal at Buy.com on a microSD card. It's pretty easy to copy images taken from the digital camera onto the microSD card and then transfer them to . . .wherever. I assume it's just as easy to transfer with Bluetooth. There's a pretty good post on the SprintUsers forum on how to create and upload ringtones on an LG Rumor LX-260 phone.

What I'm still trying to figure out is how to upload ring tones downloaded from the Internet (to my PC) onto my phone. I'd follow the instructions above, but it would be nice to be able to use a non-video ring tone. That way, the images I've assigned to callers will still appear when my phone rings with the custom ringtone. Maybe I could save them as a voice memo and retrieve them on my microSD memory card? We'll see . . .

UPDATE: Here's a post from Yahoo! Answers that seems to answer my question!

Now, if anyone knows where to get the java/mobile version of Pac-Man or Tetris for free, let me know!

The best cash-back credit card?

What's the best cash-back credit card out there? I've pared it down to 4 choices:

• The American Express Blue Cash card, where you can earn up to 5% cash back


• Citibank's Dividend Platinum Select Mastercard, where you earn 2% cash back


• Citibank's Professional Cash Mastercard, where you earn 3% cash back


• BP Visa, which pays 5% on gas purchased at BP/Amoco stations

Before I get started, please know that if you can't pay your credit card balance in full every month, your best option is to NOT use it. It's really that simple. I'll add a subsequent post that will discuss how to prioritize which bills to pay first.

The fine print:

• With the American Express Blue Cash, you can earn up to 5% cash back for "Everyday Purchases" at supermarkets, gas stations and drug stores, but only once you hit their 2nd tier. "Everyday Purchases" specifically excludes purchases made in departments of superstores or warehouse clubs.
  
  The first $6500 you charge of "Everyday Purchases" only earns 1% cash back. All other purchases earn 0.5%. Once you break the $6500 barrier, you'll earn 5% on "Everyday Purchases" and 1.5% on everything else. Not bad . . .they even offer a calculator to help you figure out what your cash rebate would be.



• The Citi Dividend Platinum Select Mastercard pays 2% cash back on purchases made at supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations, convenience stores, and utilities including cable. (Don't get too excited about the utilities thing. All utility companies charge a processing fee ranging from $1-$3 for paying your bill with a credit card. The process isn't automated, so you'd have to phone in each time your bill was due.)
  
  Purchases netting 1% cash back include purchases made at warehouse clubs, discount stores, department stores, and online/catalog purchases (unless the merchants appropriately identify the transactions).
  
  Rebates are capped at $300 per calendar year. Read the fine print here.
  
  I've had this card for a long time and it's worked out well, but due to the card's limits, I think I'm leaving some money on the table.



• 
  The Citi Professional Cash Mastercard looks good at first glance, paying 3%, but that 3% is offered on a different group of purchase categories. You get 3% on purchases made at gas stations, restaurants, certain office supply merchants and auto rentals.
  
  This time, warehouse clubs, discount stores, department stores and convenience stores are excluded from the 3% tier and earn the default 1% rate. Rebates are capped at $500 per calendar year. Read the fine print here. When you're ready to apply, do a Google search and you might be able to find out how to get a $100 to $150 sign-up bonus.



• 
  The BP Visa earn 5% rebates at all BP locations, 2% rebates on eligible travel (Airline, Auto Rental, or Lodging) and dining (non-fast food) purchases and 1% rebates on all other eligible purchases. Gas at non-BP stations are not eligible purchases.

I've crunched the numbers and I think the best option for us is going to be a combination of the American Express Blue Cash card and the Citi Professional Mastercard. We'll use the American Express Blue Cash card for all purchases besides restaurants, gas purchases and wherever the American Express card isn't accepted.

Getting 3% back on restaurant and gas purchases is a nice benefit of the Citi Professional card. I suppose we could earn 5% on BP gas by adding the BP Visa to the mix, but that's just too much of a headache. I really don't want to carry around 3 cards!

The American Express card really pays once you spend above the $6500 level, which we tend to get to fairly quickly every year. We'll give this a shot for 2007 and if it doesn't work, a back-up plan would be to use the Citi Professional card only.

Does anyone else have any other bright ideas? Feel free to comment . . .

Dave's word on . . .

Here begins a stream of posts that may seem to be out of place. Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to research a lot before I make a decision. I also tend to have very selective memory retention.

Since I've spent many hours becoming literate in a variety of things, I thought this would be a good forum to share that knowledge with others and also use it as a reference for myself.

With this blog, you'll notice going forward that I'll be adding posts on things I have researched in the past or am currently researching. This includes things like personal finance (life insurance, annuities, IRAs, mutual funds, etc.), technology, cooking/recipes and where (and sometimes how) to find good deals. Stay tuned!

I couldn't resist a good deal!

I can't ever resist a good deal. Don't miss out on this one . . .$10 off a $50 order and free shipping from diapers.com. Get the 411 here. Compare $75 (tax included) for 2 gi-normous boxes of Pampers Swaddlers baby diapers at Sam's Club versus $62 from diapers.com. Hurry . . .the deal ends on 1/31.

Good deals on running gear

If you're a runner, when it comes to running shoes, you're either one of two types. You either buy the same shoe over and over again and hope and pray that the manufacturer doesn't discontinue your shoe or (2) you generally don't care, but try to get a good shoe at a decent price.


I fall into the latter category. Over the years, I've learned that I tend to get less injuries if I replace my shoes every 300 miles or so. How do you count that out? Well, about a year and a half ago I bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 from TigerDirect.com. It's done a good job of helping me log miles for my shoes and, as a fringe benefit, for my dog. She's run over 300 miles to date!

When I first started logging my runs, I tried using Garmin's GPS software. It really isn't that good. If you're looking for something better and free, I'd encourage you to try SportTracks software.

OK, back to running shoes. My feet tend to do better with Nike Structure Triax and New Balance 718/719/720 shoes. There might be other brands that work for me, but these 2 have done the trick so far. New Balance has a website they sell close-outs on, New Balance Web Express, and Altrec.com usually has pretty good prices on Nike Close-outs.

I've tried phoning some of the Nike Factory Stores with limited success. If they have the shoe you want in stock, they'll ship them to you. It turns out to be a pretty fair deal.

I had a bad bout with some Nike Air Max Triax about 5 years ago and ended up with plantar fasciitis. My left shoe would make this woosh sound because of what turned out to be a hole in the air pocket. (The shoes were purchased at the outlet store.) I didn't know they were defective until a hundred or so miles afterwards, and a month or so after I replaced the shoes the injury fully appeared.

That's a problem that I wouldn't wish on anyone . . .no fun. Basically, the ligaments that run underneath your foot become torn. Your body tries to heal itself, but because you're constantly on your feet, it never has a chance to catch up. At night, it will begin to heal, but starting with your first step out of bed in the morning, you re-tear those ligaments that have healed overnight. Ouch!

So the moral of the story is, "Kids, listen to your shoes -- and to your body!"

I'm a runner

Just so we're clear on this, I'm the guy you've driven past, merrily running around town when it's like 20 below zero out. I don't know why God wired me that way, but I'm a runner through and through.

I'll grant you this: it does get hard to motivate myself to run when it's bone chilling cold outside. I almost always find a way to get myself out to do it.

The times I most dread going for a run are (1) approx. 2 days after it snows and (2) right after a hard rain. Here's why. With the snow, I normally run on the Constitution Trail (or here or here), and it's way too easy to get sprained ankles from running on hard, crusty, icy and uneven ground.

After a hard rain, I just don't like to run on all of the worms that have crawled onto the pavement to avoid drowning. Yep, it's true.