On Tuesday (I think) I applied for a Discover card, mainly to get the 3600 SBs (translates into $40 of Amazon gift cards). I was credited on Wednesday - So yesterday and today I redeemed 1800 of them for 4 $5 AGCs.

Today I had two more of my AGC's from SBs come in, bringing my total in my Amazon account to $25. If I can control myself from spending my balance, I'll have around $60 in gift cards within a few weeks. Nice.

Of course I have a list of books I'd like to get a mile long ...

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Over Christmas I'd opened an Ebanking account with BofA. The thrust of it was that to avoid any fees, there must be NO interaction with a teller by *anyone.*

There were two reasons I opened this account; 1 - I needed a bank with an ATM nearby to deposit cash and checks, and 2 - I needed a way for my dad to be able to deposit his "gifts" easily. And of course, I wanted to do away with the monthly fees that Compass had started charging.

So both the person who opened this account and I explained to my dad that he *could not* use the teller at the bank to make a deposit into this account. He had to do an online transaction - which he was walked through.

He's made two deposits since then - both of them via the teller. I can't say that I was surprised.

Today though when I checked my account, I saw that a monthly maintenance fee had been charged. So I chatted with an online customer service rep to confirm the reason for it. After she confirmed that it was due to the two teller transactions, she asked me if I had anything else she could help me with.

I jokingly replied, "Sure, you could reverse the fee for me!"

And .... She did!!

I know it is unlikely to get my dad to make further deposits via an online transaction unless I am there walking him through it step by step a few times, so I'm going to ask him to just send me checks as long as he continues to "gift" me.

I can deposit them easily via PayPal, and thus avoid the $8.95 monthly charge.

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I still haven't received my state tax refund. I need to see if I can figure out if they have some kind of website with an estimate. I'm anxious to add it to my savings!!