I constantly look for reputable promotional offers from banks and brokers where a small sum of cash can earn truly generous returns, but finding ones that aren't too gimmicky is tricky. This won't make you rich but I'm a starving student, and most of these take less than an hour of work, half hour even, so the "hourly wage" for doing them is quite generous. Well, I could have a worse hobby.
For example, ING referrals (I should have several I can hand out if anyone wants to PM me). Typically you deposit $250.00 for 3 months with ING and you receive $25.00 or so within the next month. Well, if you receive $25.00 for keeping $250.00 in a bank for 4 months, that's effectively 30% interest yes? Then you just close the ING account with one final withdrawal and pocket the money. Even if it was $20 for a $500 deposit for 6 months, it'd still be a great return.
Sharebuilder is another one that does this. Typically, you have to open an account with $50.00, put in a promo code, and make one trade, and a month later you get $50.00, historically. Well what you do is make a $4 automatic trade, buy SHV, and wait for your $50.00. Now the bad part is you probably will want to sell what you bought and pay $9 or so to do it, but even then you're receiving $85 or so for them holding your $50.00 for a few weeks. Not bad.
The last one I've done just recently is TD Ameritrade's "Save Yourself" offer, where essentially you put in $100 a month for 12 months, and a month after that last deposit, you receive $100. This isn't as good as some others but still, an effective 8% return for such low risk isn't bad. I wouldn't trade with them though, I'd just let the money sit in your cash account earning 0.25% interest and then withdraw it all once you've got your $100. I had to look at this one carefully to make sure there wasn't an inactivity fee or something like that, but it seems to be legtimate and several people reported doing it successfully. I think their brokerage service is mediocre but I will take my $100 and leave when the time comes.
These things are always tricky though, often there's some fee or contingency buried in them and I guess you have to be poor like me to bother.
The few good ones that are free money are hard to come by. And these that are so generous are always one time only offers.Anyone know of any others?
