This giveaway comes at a good time because there is also a #RothIRAMovement taking hold. Next week there will be over 100 personal finance bloggers taking part to raise awareness of the Roth IRA and there will be a lot of special events and posts, so stay tuned for that.

More About the Sponsor IRAmarket

IRAmarket is a new service that helps you compare banks’ and brokers’ IRAs.  In addition to profiling 20 of the leading IRA providers, IRAmarket helps you see all the current offers for opening an IRA or rolling over an old 401k or 403b to an IRA.  Offers include cash bonuses from companies like Schwab, E*TRADE and Scottrade, and free trades offers from Fidelity, Wells Fargo and USAA.

IRAmarket’s mission is to help Americans save more for their future. Articles and tools on the site help you learn about the cost of 401k plans, and how you may be able to save more by rolling over to an IRA. You can use IRAmarket.com’s cost estimator to see how much a company’s IRA may cost depending on what you invest in and how much you trade. In the future, IRAmarket will be adding features to make it easier to compare fees, open IRAs and roll over 401ks.

As part of its contribution to the #RothIRAMovement, IRAmarket is sponsoring a “Win $5k for Your IRA” contest to raise awareness about IRAs and the upcoming April 17th deadline for 2011 IRA contributions.  You can enter the contest through April 8th for a chance to win the maximum IRA contribution of $5,000 or $6,000 if you’re age 50 or older.  After you enter, you can share the contest with friends and family for additional chances to win a matching prize.

For entries, simply follow the co-sponsors on twitter and facebook in the widget below and then click on the big green button at the bottom to be forwarded to the contest page. It’s that simple. Here are the official rules of the contest.

Let me tell you a little bit about our giveaway sponsor. Go Banking Rates is my go-to site for rate information for savings accounts, checking accounts, and CDs. They work directly with smaller banks and credit unions across the country, so you get local rates in your neighborhood. You should also check out Go Banking Rates if you’re looking to get a mortgage or auto loan.

In addition to the best rates, Go Banking Rates publishes financial news articles daily. I always enjoy their personal finance tips, and even the occasional offbeat article. The Go Banking Rates team is very active in social media as well.

One lucky Gen X Finance reader will win a $50 American Express Gift Card! 

How To Enter:

You can receive up to three (3) entries into the giveaway. Completing each of the steps below will get you one entry:

1. Follow @GoBankingRates on Twitter. Leave your Twitter ID in a comment below.
2. Tweet about this giveaway. Provide a link to your tweet in a separate comment below. You may copy this tweet: I just entered to win a $50 Amex Gift Card from @GoBankingRates! You can enter here: http://bit.ly/tCYFnZ
3.  Like GoBankingRates on Facebook. Leave a comment below stating that you have done so.

Details:  Please leave a separate comment for each entry into the giveaway. Entries will be verified and only valid entries will be eligible to win. Sweepstakes ends on December 11, 2011 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. One winner will be randomly selected and will be notified via email. This giveaway is sponsored solely by GoBankingRates.com, which has provided the prize.

Want another chance to win a $50 Gift Card?

Over on the Go Banking Rates Facebook Page, you can enter their Super Shopper Sweepstakes for a chance to win another $50 Amex Card! All you have to do is tell them about the best deal you’ve gotten during the holiday shopping season. So check it out!

Best of luck and Happy Holidays!

Thanks to Betterment

This giveaway is in large part thanks to Betterment. If you aren’t familiar with them be sure to check out my Betterment review. They are a relatively new company that makes saving and investing incredibly easy. Their platform is great for those who are too busy to do a bunch of investment research on their own, but don’t want to go as far as working with a financial planner and handing their money over to them. Since I’ve worked with Betterment in the past they were the perfect company to team up with for this giveaway.

The Other Blogs Involved

You’re probably already familiar with these sites, but we’ve all come together to make this happen. Be sure to check out their sites as well and make sure you get a few more entries!

• Cash Money Life
• Christian PF
• Good Financial Cents
• PT Money

Giveaway Rules

This giveaway couldn’t be any simpler. Do you have a Facebook or Twitter account? That’s all you’ll need. A simple “Like” or Twitter follow will get you an entry. And there are up to twelve different entries available if you do them all. To make things even easier we’ve condensed everything in an easy to use widget at the bottom of the post so you won’t even have to go around hunting for all the twitter accounts and facebook pages. At the end of the contest three winners will be chosen at random. First prize is the iPad, second is the Kindle, and third is the Nook.

With that, go ahead and enter below!

What I have this year are four copies of TurboTax Deluxe Online (a $30 value each) and I will be giving them all away in the coming days. Now, I can personally vouch for TurboTax Online because I used it to file my own taxes for a few years before eventually having to hire a CPA for my taxes. So I can say that the software is easy to use and it does work. The nice thing about it being online is that you can work from any computer with an internet connection and there’s no clunky software to install.

So, before I get to the giveaway details I wanted to highlight some key aspects of the program.

TurboTax Deluxe Online Highlights

TurboTax Deluxe was designed to do the hard work for you, so you can be confident that you’re finding all the deductions you qualify for, the calculations are guaranteed 100% accurate, and you’re getting your biggest tax refund possible. Choose TurboTax Deluxe if any of the following apply to you:

• You own your home
• You donated to charity
• You have significant education or medical expenses
• You have childcare expenses
• You have lots of deductions

Speaking of charitable deductions, TurboTax Deluxe comes with ItsDeductible and it helps you accurately value items you donate to charity‒no more guessing. Plus, it tracks other donations such as cash, mileage and stocks, to help you get every charitable deduction you’re entitled to.

Easy Questions, Tailored to You ‒ TurboTax will ask questions in plain English and then put your answers on the right forms for you, including 1040EZ, 1040A, and 1040. TurboTax skips interview questions that don’t apply to you, so you can finish your return faster.

Automatically Fill in W-2 and 1099 Info ‒ Get your W-2 and 1099 data directly from over 100,000 participating employers and financial institutions. TurboTax automatically places it in the right tax forms. A brief summary lets you review and edit downloaded information if necessary. If your W-2 doesn’t import automatically that’s okay. It only takes a minute to punch in the numbers found on your form.

Transfer Last Year’s Tax Info ‒ No retyping necessary. TurboTax fills in information from your previous year’s return to help save time and increase accuracy. You’ll be shown what you’re importing and where it goes in your tax return. You can also import from other tax software including TaxACT and H&R Block At Home.

Live Tax Answers ‒ Get answers online from TurboTax experts and other TurboTax users in our Live Community. Plus, you’ll have instant access to answers to commonly asked tax questions on every screen.

Straightforward Guidance & Advice ‒ Find answers on any tax topic from anywhere within TurboTax. Get explanations of specific tax areas in plain English and helpful examples when you need them.

EasyGuide™ ‒ Not sure how to answer a tax question? We’ll guide you to the right answer, making your taxes even easier.

Enter the Contest

Ok, so you’re ready to enter for a chance to win, so what are the rules? It’s pretty simple this year and you have three separate ways to enter for a total of three entries per person.

1. Leave a comment in this post below. Be sure to comment with an email that works so I can contact you if you’re selected.
2. “Like” Generation X Finance on Facebook and leave a comment on the giveaway post.
3. Follow @JeremyVoh on Twitter and retweet this post. (If you retweet manually be sure to use the hashtag #GXFtt so I can find your tweet)

So, enter one way, or enter with each method. It’s up to you. Starting on Monday, February 21st at noon I’ll randomly select one winner from all entries. I will repeat the drawing at noon on the following three days. Winners will be notified by the method they entered and will have 24 hours to acknowledge so I can provide the promo code information to get the free copy. If a winner fails to respond a second random drawing will be held.

Winners

1. Monday: Theresa H
2. Tuesday: Shannon
3. Wednesday: shouldbeworking
4. Thursday: Pauline

Disclosure: I am a TurboTax affiliate and do occasionally write for Intuit, but they did not pay for this review. They did, however, provide the free copies of the software to give away.

According to a recent survey by Intuit, the makers of TurboTax, they report that that 82 percent of taxpayers who filed before the end of February got money back. In fact, 40 percent of all tax returns last year were filed before the end of February. Not only do most early filers get a refund, their average refund is typically larger: $2,869 compared to $2,753 for returns filed through April 15, according to the IRS That’s a lot of early returns and a lot of people getting a refund.

So, who are these early filers? Well, the folks over at the TurboTax Blog have put together a nice infographic to illustrate the  breakdown of these early filers. You can see where you fit in. And if you think that’s interesting, scroll down to the bottom of the page to enter my TurboTax Giveaway. I’ll be giving away two copies of TurboTax Premier Online, with both a federal and state filing.

TurboTax Giveaway

As I mentioned above, I’m giving away two copies of TurboTax Premier Online, which includes federal and state filing. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below related to taxes. Share with us whether you plan on filing early or late, if you expect a refund or owe money, or just tell everyone how much you hate paying taxes. Leave your comment before 9 pm Wednesday, February 17th and then I’ll randomly select two comments as winners. Make sure you use a valid email with your comment so that I can contact you if you win and have the activation code sent to you. Contest is only valid for U.S. residents. Thanks, and good luck!

In fact, I’m so excited about this contest that I’m offering up a brand new Amazon Kindle as one of the prizes. How cool is that? You have until February 3rd to get in on the action and there are a ton of ways to earn entries, so find out more on the contest site. In many cases it’s as easy as tweeting the contest or leaving a comment on the contest site to earn entries. With over 100 prizes being given away your chances of winning something are pretty good!

Enter the contest now.

How cool is that? Unfortunately, I’m not in on the Flip Mino giveaway myself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enter to win. I’ve compiled a list of the finance bloggers who are offering a giveaway and there’s still time to enter each of them. With so many blogs participating your odds of winning are increased. So, I’ve gone ahead and added links to the contests below, so you better go and start entering!

Oh, and if you know of a finance blog doing the same contest that I missed, please leave a comment with a link and I’ll add it to the list. So with that, good luck!

American Express Charge Card ‒ 10 Flip Ultra Cameras to Giveaway! – Prime Time Money

American Express 10 Flip Mino Cameras Giveaway Plus $100 Bonus – The Sun’s Financial Diary

American Express Flip Mino Video Camera Giveaway – Bargaineering

American Express Charge Card Flip Video Camera Holiday Giveaway – Cash Money Life

Win One of 10 Flip Video Cameras! – Ask Mr. Credit Card

American Express Charge Card Flip Video Camera Giveaway – Moolanomy

To recap, I’m giving away some great prizes. The first prize is a brand new 8 GB iPod Touch. A fresh copy of Quicken Premier 2009. A deck of Nuru Personal Finance Cards. 3 copies of Wise Bread’s book: 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget. And a random assortment of finance books from my personal library.

As you can see, there are a number of chances to win, and some very cool prizes! If you want to enter there are two ways to do so. You can even enter with both methods and earn two entries!

Twitter

1. Follow @JeremyVoh on Twitter.

2. Simply tweet: Just entered to win an iPod Touch from Gen X Finance. Just follow @JeremyVoh and retweet. http://xr.com/genxipod

Sign Up for My Free Email Newsletter

1. Use the form below to sign up.

2. Check your inbox and make sure you confirm your subscription. Only verified subscriptions are eligible.

Make sure you use the sign up form above and not the one below since this one has the contest tracking code so I can keep track of your entry. Good luck, and if you’ve already entered feel free to let someone else know about it. And again, for all the contest rules and prize descriptions be sure to check out the official giveaway post.

All said and done, I have hundreds of dollars worth of prizes ready to give out. After all, without readers this milestone would never have been possible. So, it’s my way of saying thanks and to hopefully find a few new readers. But let’s stop wasting time and get right to the good stuff. Here’s what’s at stake:

Prizes

iPod Touch

The top prize is a brand new 8 GB Apple iPod Touch. If you haven’t had a chance to play with one of these yet, they are just amazing little pieces of technology. You’ll be able to fit your music, videos, pictures, and anything else you want on there. Plus there are some fun games you can add as well.

Quicken Premier 2009

Next, we have a fresh copy of Quicken Premier 2009. I probably don’t need to tell you that Quicken is one of the most robust financial management programs available, but this would be a great thing to have if you’re trying to get your finances back in order.

And while I’m talking about Quicken, I just wanted to remind you that I do some occasional articles over on the Quicken Blog. They have completely redesigned it and are featuring a lot of other personal finance bloggers, so it’s certainly worth a look. I will be giving away one copy of Quicken Premier 2009.

Nuru Personal Finance Cards

I did a brief review of these cards a while back, but they are kind of a neat thing to have. Included in this deck you’ll receive 28 cards that discuss various financial topics in a way that’s easy to understand.

What I like about these cards is that the information is presented in bite-sized pieces. They can be good for a refresher or if you’re trying to understand the basics of a new concept. I’m giving one pack of these cards away.

10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget

This book just came out this week and was put out by the folks at Wise Bread. You can see my review from earlier this week. So, since I like the book so much I will be giving away a copy of this as well. UPDATE: Wise Bread is going to be providing a few more copies of the book, so I’ll have 3 total winners for this prize.

Assorted Finance Books

And finally, one lucky winner will receive a handful of finance books right from my personal collection. For this prize, I’m going to keep it a surprise. You won’t know what you’re getting until the package shows up on your doorstep. I’ll be including five random books to one lucky winner.

How to Enter

The contest is now closed!

Contest Rules

No contest would be complete without some legal copy, but I’ll keep it short. This giveaway runs until 11:59 pm Eastern time on June 21st, 2009. All tweets and verified newsletter subscriber confirmations must be timestamped on or before this time. All entries will be compiled and assigned a number after this time and a random number generator will select the winners. Winners must have provided a valid email address or Twitter account in order to receive a prize. Prizes will only be shipped to locations in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. This giveaway is void where prohibited and terms are subject to change.

April 15th is rapidly approaching and you only have a few more weeks to file your taxes. I know, taxes aren’t any fun, but we don’t have much of a choice. That being said, Intuit has stepped up to make this year’s taxes a little more enjoyable by providing me with some free TurboTax software to give away. I’m giving away two copies of their popular TurboTax Premier Online Edition which includes both a federal and state return plus e-file! That is an $85 value.

I know you’re excited to enter, but I wanted to provide a little bit of information about the software and what it can do for you. There are a number of different versions of TurboTax available, but Premier will be what you need if you have a rental property or have sold investments in taxable accounts in 2008.

Features of Premier:

• Imports Your Investment Info – Saves time by automatically importing your investment info directly from your financial institution.
• Helps You Accurately Report Investment Sales – Walks you through reporting sales of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Automatically calculates capital gains/losses and tells you how to deduct losses and associated expenses to help you get a bigger refund. Plus it keeps track of capital gains/losses that carry over to future tax returns.
• Determines Your Cost Basis – Finds your accurate purchase price for stock sales in three easy steps, so you don’t end up paying more in taxes than you have to.
• Helps with Employee Stock Plans – Guides you through reporting sales and automatically determines your correct basis for selling shares purchased at different times or different prices. Makes it easier to deduct losses, so you can get a bigger refund.
• 401(k) Maximizer – Shows you how to increase your 401(k) contribution without decreasing your take-home pay, so you can save more for the future.
• Helps You Find Every Rental Deduction - Finds over 20 deductions for landlords, from travel to advertising to repairs to insurance, to maximize your tax savings.
• Shows Your Best Rental Depreciation Method – Simplifies reporting rental property depreciation and shows which depreciation method will get you the biggest
  tax deduction.
• Maximizes Refinancing Deductions – Guides you through deducting points, appraisal fees, recording costs, and more so you don’t miss a single chance to save.
• Helps with New Rental Properties – Shows you step by step how to set up new rental properties.

How to Enter the Giveaway

Okay, so TurboTax Premier is pretty nice, but how do you win? It’s really simple and there are three different ways to enter. You may be eligible for up to three entries if you qualify. The deadline is 5 pm EST on Wednesday, March 25. So, here’s what you need to do:

Leave a Comment

Simply leave a comment on this post. Tell me something interesting about yourself, let everyone know why you want to win, or what you love or hate about tax time. If you leave a comment, just make sure you use a valid email address so I can contact you if you’ve won.

Using Twitter

I love Twitter. It’s fun to network with others, share interesting links, and it can be a fun outlet for goofing off. There are two different ways to enter via Twitter depending on your follow status. First, if you aren’t already following me, all you have to do is become a follower. Then let me know you’ve started following me by sending an @JeremyVoh message letting me know.

Don’t worry, you can still enter via Twitter if you’re already a follower. In this case, all you have to do is tweet about this contest. To make it easy I’ve provided the text to use below so you can just copy and paste it into your Twitter client. It will also help me search and keep track of entries:

Win a FREE copy of TurboTax Premier! Follow @JeremyVoh and RT – http://tinyurl.com/GenXtax #GenXTT

Subscribe to the Newsletter

I’ve got some big things in store for the upcoming newsletter so you won’t want to miss out. Without giving too much away I’ve provided a little image of the upcoming issue. It’s going to be fun, informative, and provide the information you need to help you make the best decisions possible with your money.

Good Luck!

That’s it, so good luck. The rules are simple, but just to clarify some other fine print: You must be a U.S. resident since this is for U.S. taxes, and you must provide a valid email address or Twitter account so that you can be notified in the event you are selected. Entries will be accepted until 5 pm EST on Wednesday, March 25th. I’ll then randomly select two winners from all entry methods later that night and notify the winners.