So, I was doing some number crunching and discovered that last year I completed $1,428.95 in sundry deals over the course of the year. Most of that was from sign-up bonuses and in the form of cash (or cash equivalent, such as a statement credit). I also got at least $50 in gas cards, and a free iPod shuffle (Gen 2), which I gave to my daughter.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be fewer "free money" deals these days? And for the deals that do exist, it seems like you have to do more to get less.

I don't have any hard objective data, but taking a look at the deals mentioned on the bonuses page at Bank Deals, it seems that there are fewer straightforward deals now than there were a year ago.

A couple weeks ago I complained that Discover took $16.71 in accrued cashback bonus from me because my account had been dormant for a little while. I wrote them a message through their secure messaging on their website asking to give it back to me. Today, I received my statement and see that I received $16.97 in cashback bonus this month, but I only put about $200 on that card (and most of that was gas, which has a different cashback rate and is a separate line item).

So, about a month or so ago, I noticed on my credit report that I still had a Discover account. I had stopped using it a couple years ago when my rate went way up for undisclosed reasons.

Anyway, because Discover is running a 5% cashback bonus on gas this summer, I had used the reactivated card when we went out to Ohio for a family reunion to gain a few cashback dollars on my account.