Need to buy something big on short notice, but still want to save money? Maybe scrip can help you out with emergency purchases when other methods will take too long.
At the end of last week our water heater developed a leak at the bottom. It was rated for six years and had lasted at least that long. One thing we hadn't done was drain the tank to get rid of the sediment, and that likely hastened its demise. (What's really embarrassing is that I'd written about this very problem the last time we replaced a water heater! Check out #11. D'oh!)
Saving money can take time – sometimes too much time
My first instinct when my wife broke the bad news to me was to look for discounted gift cards. There were a bunch available for Lowe's, and the discount to face value was over 8%.
This is all well and good, but all of the gift cards available were physical gift cards, meaning that they'd need to be mailed. Which takes time. A leaking water heater does not fix itself with time.
I also considered using a rebate site but we weren't sure whether we were going to order online, or in-store. Rebate sites usually only work with online purchases.
Since we have a rewards credit card, we could have saved 1% right there (as we do with all of our purchases) but we found a way to do better: scrip.
Save any money you can on emergency purchases
ShopWithScrip.com is a website that you may already be partnered with through one of the organizations you're involved with. They are partnered with over 30,000 organizations.
Our daughter's swim team happens to be one of the organizations that is partnered with ShopWithScrip. The team uses scrip as a way for families to offset the cost of their fees.
Buying scrip is straightforward. After placing the order on their website for a Lowe's gift certificate, they initiated the debit from our checking account, and sent us the gift certificate electronically. We paid face value at the time of purchase, but 4% of that purchase will be credited toward our daughter's fees.
A couple of things to note here:
- The discount was a tradeoff. What we got as a discount (4%) was less than what we could have gotten with a discounted gift card (8% + 1% stacking). But it was more than we would have gotten with our rewards credit card alone (1%).
- The money had to come out of our checking account. So there was no “stacking” of rebates possible. Oh well.
- But we could spend our gift card online or in-store. It worked either place.
Most importantly, though, we had the discount sealed up, and we could make this emergency purchase immediately. We really, really wanted to make sure we got a new water heater as soon as possible. It wasn't a dire emergency, but it was a looming emergency. We didn't want the leak to progress to all-out tank failure, which it could have at any moment.
For now, that emergency has passed, and we're in the process of installing the new water heater. (And hopefully I'll remember to follow my own advice this time on maintaining it! 🙂 )
Check to see if one of the organizations you're involved with (school, church, sports team, etc.) uses scrip as a fundraiser. You may be able to offset your costs (or at least contribute to your organization!)
