As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Upromise.  Sign up for free, register your debit cards, credit cards, and grocery bonus cards, and you can earn cash rewards for your kids’ college.  Upromise encourages you to invest the rewards in 529 plans, but, I don’t use 529 plans to save for my kids’ college.  Instead, I like to withdraw my money from Upromise, once a year, and use the money to fund my kids’ Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).

From the Upromise site -

Can I withdraw company contributions from my Upromise account without transferring them to a savings plan, and if so, how?

You can withdraw your Upromise contributions at any time during your membership. To withdraw company contributions from your Upromise account, submit a letter in writing to Upromise requesting a withdrawal from your Upromise account. The letter must state your full name and exact amount that you would like to withdraw, up to total amount available in your account, pending contributions are not eligible for withdrawal.

For the protection of our members, we require that your letter either be notarized or contain a Signature Guarantee if the withdrawal request is in excess of $200. A Signature Guarantee is a guarantee you can obtain from a financial institution, such as your bank, that your signature is yours and that it is genuine.

Withdrawal letters should be sent to:

Upromise
ATTN: Customer Care
P.O. Box 55555
Boston, MA 02205-5555

Download Withdrawal Request Form (Direct Link Removed)

Checks are sent once per calendar quarter, so you should typically receive your check within 12 weeks of your request being received.

As you can see, Upromise makes it easy to get to your money, and then you can do whatever you want with it.  (They’ve even created a Withdrawal Request Form.  Print it out and mail it it in.  In about 12 weeks, you’ll have your check!)  Of course, you could leave your money in the Upromise account and invest it in a 529 plan.  Whatever you decide to do, it’s good to know that you can get to your rewards money, if you want.

Right now, I have more than $50 in my account.  I’m going to mail my letter Friday morning.  I’ll let you know when my check arrives.

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I just received an email from the folks over at Streetread.  So, I decided to take a quick look at the site.  Here are the details:

The site does two things -

1.  It aggregates headlines from several popular financial sites.  (Think Business Week, Yahoo Finance, The Wall Street Journal, etc.)

2.  It helps you gather information about stocks that you want to follow, by presenting stock quotes and the most recent headlines associated with a particular stock.

I signed up for an account.  (Signing up took about 20 seconds, which is nice.)  I only own one individual stock, so I wanted to see if the site would track my ETFs and Mutual Funds.  Unfortunately, while the ETF symbol was recognized, the site would not pull up information for my mutual funds.  Also, it looks like the site only works with U.S. stocks and does not aggregate information for international stocks.

I think the site has some promise, but I’d love to see them add support for mutual funds and increase the number of sites from which they gather information.  Check it out, see what you think - StreetRead.

Personally, I’ll bookmark the site and watch to see how it changes and evolves.  Right now, the site looks very promising, and might become a viable alternative to Google Finance.  (Oddly enough, even though Google is known for its clutter-free design, StreetRead is actually much less cluttered than Google Finance.  For someone like me, who struggles with information overload, this is a huge plus.)

By the way, this post isn’t paid for or anything.  I just thought my readers might find the site useful.

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I use Upromise to earn cash rewards when I use my debit card. If you’ve been thinking about signing-up with Upromise, now would be a great time. If you sign up now, and buy something, online, through the Upromise site, you will receive a $10 sign up bonus. You can link your debit cards, grocery cards, and credit cards (boo!) to your Upromise account and receive rebates from several major companies. Check their site for more details. Click this logo to sign-up.  It’s free - and we love free!

By the way, you do NOT have to transfer money from Upromise to a 529 account. For more details about how to get Upromise to send you a check for your rebates, click here.

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I’m a huge fan of podcasts and podcasting.  I listen to podcasts about history, comedy, sports, entertainment, politics, education, etc.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll share links to my favorite podcasts with my readers.

My Favorite Free Podcasts - History

History According To Bob - Professor Bob releases a daily podcast.  Bob makes complex historical events easy to understand.  Listen for a week and you will be hooked.

Hardcore History - Dan Carlin talks about how the past and present are intertwined.  This podcast always makes me think - and I usually end up ‘googling’ for more information about whatever topic Dan talks about.

Military History Podcast - I’ve just started listening to this podcast.

Binge Thinking History - Tony has an awesome British accent and unique insight.

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics -  In an age of ‘ground breaking’ stories every 24-hour news cycle, it’s good to have a little perspective.

Click here to read an article I wrote about podcasts - what they are and how to listen to them.

If you have a favorite podcast about history, feel free to leave a comment and share!

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Site Sponsor H&R Block has introduced Digits.

Here’s an overview -

Digits calls itself ‘a place to share and entertain’.

The goal of the site is to encourage folks to think differently about money, taxes, and finance.

The site features message boards, videos, and articles.

The site has a very ‘Web 2.0′ feel. I fear that some users might feel a little ‘lost’ when trying to find specific answers.

My favorite section - because I like practical stuff - is the tools of the trade section.

My least favorite section - because I don’t equate taxes with entertainment - is the entertain me section.

The coolest ‘web’ feature is the list of RSS Feeds that you can subscribe to - each one from a different section of the site.

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