Today is a combo post on how you can do three things at once, save money, earn money and earn reward points!!
Pretty cool!
I talked about ebates the other day...ebates - so as a refresher... first time you sign up they give you $5.00 in your account... you earn money back on your online purchases by going to the stores via ebates. They pay you out quarterly and you get a % back on your online purchases your were going to buy anyway, just by clicking through ebates
Today's lesson - how to eat cheaper, while getting that % back and if your bank offers rewards for purchases.. getting those rewards up!!
Restaurant.com - its a great place to buy restaurant gift certificates and using for your dining out. They are currently running a promotion (and do often) for 80% off. So right now you can get a $25.00 gift certificate for $2.00 by using the promo code 'Dine'. When John and I go out, this is how we manage to do it... a lot of the restaurants have certain dining purchases and/or times you can use the certificate. Like you may see you have to buy two drinks, or you have to spend $35. Whatever, its way cheaper than had you just gone to the restaurant without the certificate. John and I are pretty good at sticking at the requirements. So if it's gotta spend $35 - we spent $2 on the certificate, another $10 on the meal plus tip (please remember to tip your server at the total cost of the bill) so about $19 oop (out of pocket) instead of $42 oop! Good deal!!
Now by clicking through ebates I earned 15% on that $2.00... I know, I know you are all rolling around on the floor laughing! It's only .30c.. but that is another .30c being banked on my return!
Now if you also have a bank that pays you rewards for credit purchases... make sure you pay for it via paypal as a credit charge, this way you are earning your reward points!! Again the purchase is small, in this example, but those reward points add up!! Also when you use that certificate for your meal and 'charge' it... more rewards points!
If you don't have a rewards point card with your bank - see if they offer one. Pay everything you can as credit, bills, groceries, gas, everything you can. My bank charges a $25 annual fee for the card... I think I got about $150 in Gift Cards last year.. so well worth the $25!
Also when you are buying online... see if that store offers a promo code... you will see I do everything I can to optimize what I do... so I open up Swagbucks I type in (as an example) Restaurant.com promo code (Hopefully I've earned some Swagbucks doing that). If there is one out there you will find someone has posted the code! Then I open up ebates via Swagbucks to find the online store I want to buy from - this example Restaurant.com... click the link buy my certificate and pay via my debit card as a charge instead of a debit!! Woo hoo!!
We really love these Restaurant.com certs... we don't eat out often because of the cost, but when we do, we almost always have one of these or some sort of coupon! These are awesome gifts too and inexpensive! We did a whole bunch of these for John's clients... at $2 a pop, if they didn't use them it wasn't a big deal! Plus he could write off the expense :)
OK so happy shopping!! Don't forget all those tips...
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