Some ways of saving money may be more trouble than they're worth. There is always a tradeoff between time and money and in the end it's not always a good idea to squeeze every last cent out of every purchase.
There are other ways to save money that are really, really easy, and hardly take any time at all for what you save. If you can do more than one at once, even better — and I'll show you how I did just that.
Discounted gift cards, with even more discounts
My daughter is a swimmer. She's in the pool for between 15 and 20 hours a week. As such, she's a bit of a carb fiend.
She's also had an egg allergy, which limits the kinds of baked goods she can eat. A few months ago, we found out that she can eat many of the items at Panera, and she's really liking that.
Let's say that we'll be passing by Panera in a few days when we go into town, which we do maybe once every one or two weeks.
We budget (using pen and paper) for some entertainment expenses, but want to stretch what we get for that amount. (Who wouldn't, right?)
Let's say that we're going to want to spend about $20 over the next couple of trips to Panera.
Though we could pay cash when we go there, we can do better than that:
- First, we'd look for a discounted gift card. People sell their unwanted gift cards all the time, and sites like Raise.com buy unwanted cards from sellers and sell them at a markup, but for less than face value, to buyers. Raise.com was selling a $20 gift card for a 25% discount, shipped to my door. That would bring the price down to $15.00.
- Second, we'd use a rewards credit card. If you have a rewards credit card, then rebates are an automatic part of your life for nearly every purchase you make. (Just don't carry a balance on the card! That takes all the fun out of it!) Mine gives me 1% back for this purchase, so the $20 gift card would now go down to $14.85.
- Third, I'd click to the discount gift card site through a rebate site. A few of the rebate sites have Raise.com as one of their merchants that they offer rebates on. Befrugal.com offers 2% back on Raise.com purchases.
So, in the end, I'd get the $20 gift card for $14.55 — over 27% off! — just for having a few things in place: a membership at a rebate site, a cashback rewards card, and an account at a discount gift card site. And I can do this again and again.
Three times the bang for your gift card buck! And all very easy bangs at that.
