Second-Income Activity - Bonuses For New Accounts

This year, I am segregating business second income sources into separate accounts. This will help me keep a good accounting of income and costs of these activities. To do this, I have opened up separate checking, saving and credit card accounts for second income activities.

To my pleasant surprise, many of the accounts had advertised and unadvertised cash bonuses. Although I had been aware of some bonuses from various personal finance blogs, I was not actively trying to qualify for them. Mainly, for me, the bonus are not generally worth the additional effort to manage another account. However, since I now need other accounts, getting the bonuses has become an opportunity :-)

Here are the new accounts I set up, which had bonuses:

Checking account at local bank. I created this account to receive payments from PayPal and Google. They gave the account a $50 bonus for using automatic direct deposit, which occurred when Google made a deposit. This $50 bonus was a big surprise since it was not advertised when I opened the account

Visa card. This card will be used for all credit charges for the second income business. They provided a $50 bonus after the first charge was made.

ING savings account. Soon after opening the no interest checking account, I received a promotional $25 bonus to open a 4.5% interest savings account. I opened that account yesterday and linked it to the checking account.

Here is the account I opened which didn't have, or I missed, a bonus:

PayPal account. I created this account to receive payments from an advertising agency. I was not aware of nor was I looking for any account opening bonuses for PayPal.

It was a great beginning in 2007 to generate $125 in second income for accounts that I already needed to create.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Nasir Khan

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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