If YOU want to take advantage of the $100 offer, you must be a new Citibank customer, and USE THIS LINK.

Things are going so well, I decided to push my luck and apply for more cards. Over the weekend, I applied for 4 more cards offering 0% balance transfers, a Chase, American Express, a WaMu card, and another Discover card. I heard back right away from WaMu (only a $1,000 limit ), I was rejected by American Express, and I’m still waiting from Chase and Discover. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I screwed this one up. My credit score right now is probably in the toilet. If I had done these applications when I originally started the arbitrage game, I’m sure I would have been approved, no problem. Now, I’m around a 60% debt to credit line ratio, and I have a few recent hard credit pulls in the last 3 months. To a credit card company, that’s a huge risk, and they’re unlikely to hand out a large credit limit, if they’ll even hand out a card at all.

The smart thing would have been to wait until my balances were lower and the old credit pulls had fallen off (at least 6 months). I guess I got a little impatient. Lucky for me, I’m not too worried about my credit score right now. I’m not planning any large purchases for at least another year, if not 2 or 3 more years. Even still, these inquiries will disappear in a few months, and as soon as I pay off the balance transfers, I’ll have a clean slate.

Then again, maybe I’ll get lucky and Chase and Discover will approve me. Who knows.

One more thing to note, the WaMu card I applied for did have a 0% balance transfer offer, but it also had free access to your FICO credit score. This alone, is worth applying for the card, and I’m really glad it’s the one card I did get approved for. Most companies will charge $10 a month or so to check your credit score, so I had to jump when I saw it for free. Now I can actually watch my credit score take it’s nose dive!

Well, less than 12 hours later, when I was checking the Morning Deals on Consumerist, I found another promotion for the exact same Citibank savings account, this one with a $100 sign up bonus!! (Link: Citibank $100 sign up bonus) D’OH!

So by signing up last night, I made $50, but if I had waited until this morning, I could have made $100! What a cruel, cruel world. I sent Citibank a nice email telling them about my dilemma and asking if I was eligible for the $100 sign up bonus. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get another $50. Fingers are crossed.

My only concern is the number of accounts I have open right now. Currently, a checking and savings account at ING and two more checking and another savings over at WaMu. I think that’s even a little overboard.

So my question, then, is having too many banking accounts dangerous? Is there a magic number? Anybody know?

Then again, fifty bucks is fifty bucks, and I guess I could always close the account once I get the bonus.

I hadn’t heard of these regulations either, until a few months ago. This is not something the banks do a good job of letting customers know about. I’ve had to be especially careful when shuffling money around between my different accounts to avoid penalties myself. Consider yourself warned!!!

My Mint has a couple other banking regulations you should know about, including Check 21 and reporting bank errors.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN®) recently agreed to reduce their Registrar Transaction Fee from $.25 to $.22. What does this mean for you?

Good news. You have been credited $.03/yr for each domain name you registered or renewed dating back to July 1, 2006 — $.06 has been placed into your Go Daddy® account.

6 whole cents!! If I invest my 6 cents in the stock market, averaging 10% return over the next 40 years, I’ll have built up $2.71!!

Can you even buy anything anymore for 6 cents???

If you’ve missed anything in the past two months, here’s what I’ve done to help myself out financially:

• Saved $75 using coupons
• Saved $300 canceling my gym membership
• Opened up an interest earning checking account at ING
• Lowered my credit card interest rates and increased my credit limits
• Started earning interest borrowing $16,800 from credit card companies for FREE, taking advantage of 0% balance transfers
• Checked my free credit report
• Opened a ROTH IRA and maxed out my 2006 contribution
• Opened a Washington Mutual Savings Account earning 5% interest
• Will save $500 a year by driving slower
• Participated in my first Blog Carnival
• Will save about $400 a year by shopping around for car insurance
• Managed to grow my net worth by 33%

I’d say I’m off to a pretty good start. So thank you all for reading and commenting, and here’s to many months to come!