Here’s how it works: your bank sells its customer list to an insurance company, who then sends an offer to the customers offering a small amount of free insurance coverage (usually $1,000-2,000 of accidential death and dismemberment or term life coverage) that is supposedly paid for by your bank. In the same letter, it provides you the opportunity to purchase additional coverage with the premiums deducted directly from your account. If you read closely, if you don’t elect any additional coverage you owe nothing. There isn’t any catch, except that in most cases you must stay a customer of the bank to keep your coverage. And yes, the policies are real and you receive a policy statement confirming your coverage.

I have recently received $1,000 in life insurance coverage through Discover Card, $2,000 in AD&D coverage from People’s Trust Federal Credit Union, and today received an offer from Chase for $1,000 in AD&D coverage. All of these were completely free! My wife also got one year of $25,000 in term life coverage from a mailing to members of the Texas Society of CPAs, also for free.

While these amounts don’t come close to meeting our full insurance needs, I’m sure my family would have no objections to an extra few thousand dollars if something should happen to me. That could be a few mortgage payments or something to put towards funeral expenses (I certainly know I would have loved for my dad to have had some of these to cover the $3500 of his funeral bill left over after liquidating his assets). If it costs us nothing, why would I deny them that benefit?

So the next time you get something from your bank or credit card company that looks like junk mail, take a closer look. You may be throwing free insurance coverage into the trash!

We actually did this deal last year at Blinds.com when they ran the same promotion and we were very satisfied with the quality of the blinds and had no problems getting the rebate. It seems that JustBlinds.com and Blinds.com are affiliated somehow as the rebate forms are almost identical, but it has been verified that these are separate entities and you can do this deal even if you did the Blinds.com deal last year.

Here is the discussion of the deal over at SlickDeals for anyone who wants more information.

Just a little something to tide everyone over until I have time to post something more substantial…

Anyway, this is a good week to stock up on cereal, thanks to some real good specials and online printable coupons. The best deal is at Safeway stores (also known as Tom Thumb, Randalls, and about twenty other names depending on what part of the country you are in), ending Tuesday 3/11/2008. Safeway has a special where you get $10 off when you buy 5 General Mills or Quaker cereals. Several of the cereals are on sale 5 for $15, so after the extra $10 off they come out to $1 each. To sweeten the deal, there are printable coupons out there for many of these cereals. Depending on whether your area doubles coupons and up to what amounts, these could result in free cereal or even getting paid to take the cereal. Here’s a list of the cereal items known to be included:

QUAKER CAPN CRUNCH CEREAL 0-0-30000-06610 14.00/16 OZ
QUAKER CAPN CRUNCH CRNCHBRY CEREAL 0-0-30000-06560 14.00/15 OZ
QUAKER CAPN CRUNCH PEANUT BUTTER CEREAL 0-0-30000-06500 14.00/14 OZ
QUAKER LIFE CEREAL 0-0-30000-06340 12.00/15 OZ
QUAKER LIFE CINNAMON CEREAL 0-0-30000-06320 12.00/15 OZ
QUAKER OAT SQUARES CEREAL 0-0-30000-06430 12.00/16 OZ
GM CEREAL CHEERIOS 0-0-16000-27564 12.00/14 OZ
GM CEREAL CINN TST CRNCH 0-0-16000-27507 12.00/12.8
GM CEREAL REESES PEANUT BUTTER PUFFS 0-0-16000-27503 12.00/13 OZ
GM CEREAL TOTAL RAISIN BRAN 0-0-16000-27513 12.00/18.25
GM CEREAL WHEATIES 0-0-16000-27565 14.00/15.6
GM CHEERIOS CEREAL MULTI GRAIN 0-0-16000-27562 14.00/12.8
GM KIX CEREAL 0-0-16000-27525 12.00/8.7 O
GM TOTAL CRL CRANBERRY CRUNCH 0-0-16000-14164 12.00/15 OZ
GM TOTAL WHOLE GRAIN CEREAL 0-0-16000-27522 12.00/10.6

Printable coupons for these can be found at several of the following links:

$1 off Quaker Cinnamon Life
$1 off Total Cereal
www.BettyCrocker.com
www.boodle.com
www.CoolSavings.com
www.Coupons.com
www.EatBetterAmerica.com
www.EverSave.com
www.EverydayEating.com
www.RedPlum.com
www.SmartSource.com
www.Couponbug.com
http://www.boxtops4education.com/Promotions/

UPDATE: Per the folks at SD, Honey Bunches of Oats is also on sale at Safeway for $2 a box, so you may be able to get all of your cheap cereal in one stop! There is also a deal at Walgreens this week that is very YMMV. Walgreens has Post cereals including Honey Bunches of Oats on sale this week for $1.99. There are printable coupons for $2 off the Chocolate variety, however very few people have reported finding that variety. However, many have been able to get their locations to take the Chocolate coupon for other varieties, but they would be well within their rights to refuse you for anything but the Chocolate variety. Here are the links to the printable Honey Bunches of Oats coupons:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

A few helpful hints on all of these coupons:

• Don’t copy the coupons that you print. Each has a unique barcode, and the store won’t get reimbursed for the copied coupons. Using copied coupons is fraud. Don’t be that guy!
• The program that prints the coupons limits you to two printings per coupon (each will have a unique code). To access the second coupon, use your back button to go back to the first page titled “Coupon Print”.
• Coupons don’t have to be printed in color.