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Discount Gift Cards: How Much Can You Save?

Finance

Assortment of gift cards
Assortment of gift cards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you know where you shop regularly?

Would you be happy if the things you bought there were suddenly, magically discounted?

It could happen.

I don’t think the game store down the road is suddenly going to institute a “Jason Rocks” discount program, but some of the bigger chains I visit have an unofficial option that can save you money, and it’s not a five-finger discount.

You can buy discounted gift cards.   You can find a gift card exchange being run on a number of websites.  How does it work?

There are two kinds of card exchange.

The first simply connects buyers and sellers.    If you want to buy a gift card, you browse the list of available cards until you find something you like.   You place your order with the exchange, who then take a fee and pass the rest of the payment to the seller, who’s got the job of sending it to you.   When you get the card, you get to find out if the balance still exists or if it’s going to expire in the morning.   Most people don’t sell a lot of gift cards, so their reputation isn’t really at stake.  Avoid these, unless you like gambling.

The second kind of exchange actually buys the cards from the sellers and verifies the balance and expiration date before posting them for sale.   When you go shopping, you’re dealing with a company that is putting its reputation–both with its customers and its bank–on the line.  If there’s a problem, you’ve got someone to contact who probably isn’t going to vanish.

You visit the site, find a business you want to visit, and buy a card at a discount.   The discount ranges from around 3% up to around 30%, with most discounts hovering around 10%.    That means–depending on the store–you can get a $100 gift card for $90.   Not a bad deal, especially if it for a store you’d be visiting anyway.

Have you ever bought a second-hand gift card?  How did it work for you?

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You’re Gonna Die, Part 2

Finance, Life

The Grim Reaper
The Grim Reaper (Photo credit: Helico)

You know that, at some point, you’re going to shuffle off of this mortal coil.

You will die.

Hopefully, you’ll have lived your life is such a way that the even won’t be easy for your heirs, but you can do a bit to make the process less painful for them.   Do you want them gutting your house trying to find out if you have a will, or does the idea of a treasure hunt for a life insurance policy make you smile?

Assuming you don’t intend to sit in the afterlife giggling about how difficult you’ve made life for your offspring, the first thing you need to do is find a spot to put your important paperwork.    This should, ideally, be a fireproof safe, which you can get for under $50.  You’re looking for something big enough to hold the things that matter, while being able to withstand a bit of fire, in case the part of “Grim Reaper” is being played by an arsonist.

The next thing you need to do is put your important papers in the safe.  Seriously, this beats both filing your insurance papers in a telephone book stacked in the corner and wrapping an envelope full of cash in a 10 year old newspaper and storing it with your recycling.   It’s also superior to tucking an insurance policy in a coupon mailer and losing it the cracks of a chair.*

Important papers include:

  • Your will
  • Life insurance policies, including accidental death policies
  • Bank account information, but don’t forget to remove these if you close an account
  • Safe deposit box information
  • Car titles and lien releases, if applicable
  • The deed to your house
  • Investment accounts
  • Retirement accounts

Things that are not important papers for your heirs:

  • The last 30 years of your monthly gas bill
  • The last 30 years of your electric bill
  • Home Shopping Network receipts
  • Child support filings for your 33 year old daughter who has 3 kids of her own
  • Coupon mailers
  • Credit card offers
  • 10 year old angry letters to the police department about that guy in the silver car who ran a stop sign in the grocery store parking lot

The final thing you need to do to make this all work is tell someone about it.  Don’t hope somebody will find a book that has “In case of death, my will is here” scrawled inside the cover, buried in your kitchen.  Really.   And if that is your plan, don’t move the will later, without updating the book.

Your homework over the weekend is to gather up your important papers and put them in a box.  Then tell someone about the box.

 

 

 

*I wish I was making this up.

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Saturday Roundup: Winter Wonderland

Misc

Today, I am planning to be on the receiving end of a foot of snow coming in at 30 miles per hour. Tomorrow, when it’s time to clean all that crap out, it will be 30 degrees below zero. Fun!

The drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card is still going on!   Go here for details.  It ends on the 15th, so you have 4 more days.

Best Posts

Santa’s got a new phone number!   It plays a simple message when you call it, but it’s an easy way to make a little kids smile.

How many days of your life did that that new gadget cost you?

Go watch Crystal get all survivalist and stuff.  Have you ever though about what would happen if the world as you knew it ended?  Even for a few days, say, after a hurricane hit?

It’s great to live in the future.  I can’t wait to hit Lunar Starbucks.

LRN Timewarp

For those unfortunate enough to not have been tuned in since the beginning, I’m going to spend some time reviewing posts from a year ago.

In How to Have a Perfect Life, I layout the planning necessary to live a life you don’t regret on your deathbed.   Just take the first step.

Babies are Expensive is one of my most-visited posts to date, and was my first carnival submission, and my first editor’s pick for that submission.  The truth is, babies are expensive, but they don’t have to break the bank.

Don’t Screw Future-You was a fun post to write.  What would the you from 20 years in the future have to say to you?

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

Consumer Action Handbook was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Mistakes Made was included in the Carnival of Money Stories.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get Age on your Side

Misc

Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the best ways in the early years of your career to provide for your long term future is to have a 401K for your retirement where your employer will match your own contributions up to a certain figure. Your contribution is pre-tax incidentally. Albert Einstein once said that compound interest was the ‘eighth wonder of the world’ and it is compound interest that will help even small amounts to grow into a substantial figure on retirement if savings begin in your 20s.

It is worth illustrating this with real figures. A figure of $4,000 a year saved between the ages of 25 and 35 with no further contributions after that will produce a larger final figure at 65 than someone starting at 35 and contributing $4,000 per annum for 30 years. The latter has invested three times as much as well. The factors that decide this are time and compound interest. The whole total of former is working for him or her for 30 years. A fair amount of the second example is only ‘working’ positively for a limited time. Start early!

An Illustration

It is worth looking at examples to see what size of fund is realistic. 8% is not an unreasonable sum to put away on a salary of $40,000 a year, a salary that grows at 2% per annum for 20 years. If the employer pays 3% in addition and growth is a modest 7%, the fund at the end of 20 years would be around $210,000. If you can put 10% in instead, or if you extend the saving period to 30 years the fund rockets to over $500,000! It’s time and compound interest again because in the example over 20 years you will have only put in just under $80,000 yourself to have a fund two and a half times bigger.

A Couple of Observations

Can there be a bigger argument for saving from an early age than that? Surely not! The question is how to manage your money well enough so that you can start to save in the early years of your career. You may well have a student loan to begin to pay off. Probably two of the most important things to do with realisticloans.com, or not to do depending how you look at it are:

  • Credit Cards. Avoid building up debts by buying things you cannot afford. The interest charged on outstanding balances is penal. If you have a balance, perhaps as a legacy of subsidizing your student life, take out a personal loan to clear it. It is much cheaper in terms of interest rate and repayable in monthly instalments over a fixed term
  • Resist the temptation of trying to impress with material things. Impress people by who you are and not a new car or the latest fashions.

Expenditure

There is no doubt that you may well have monthly expenditure you did not face before, especially if you have relocated to start work. Such expenditure is unavoidable but you should spend some time on researching whether you are getting the best deals. That applies to a number of significant things such as utilities, insurance and telephone. There are comparison websites that do a good deal of research for you and at least will provide you with a short list to look at further.

The aim is to create a regular surplus that can be transferred out of your checking account when your monthly pay comes in to work positively for you and your future. You will need to apply self-discipline to your finances but you can see from the example of ‘time and compound interest’ what they benefits are for being in control. It really is not much to sacrifice.

There will be times in the years to come when you have big financial decisions to make. Real estate comes to mind immediately and a long term mortgage can reasonably be regarded as positive debt because it should produce good growth over the term you have committed yourself to. With real estate often comes marriage and a family; and all the expense that involves. Yet that responsibility is yet another reason to start young in saving for the future, and your possible dependents.

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Jason [at] LiveRealNow [dot] net

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The Library vs Amazon

Finance, Life

A few weeks ago, I discovered the queue at my public library’s website.  The process is simple: Select your books, wait a few days, then pick them up. They are available from any library in the county, delivered to my local library. That’s awesome. Much more convenient-and cheaper-than Amazon.

So I moved a couple of pages of my Amazon wish-list into the library’s queue.

I must not have been thinking, because two days later, I got an email telling me that 19 books were ready to be picked up and 10 more were in transit.facepalm

In this county, each checkout is good for 21 days. For items that don’t have a waiting list, you can reserve 3 times. That’s 12 weeks for 29 books. Hopefully, I’m up to the challenge.   Please keep in mind, I’m a father of three, two of whom are in diapers, and I’m married, and I have a full time job.

I have frugally blown every second of spare time for months.

Update: This was another post written in advance. When all of the books came in, I suspended my request list. Little did I realize, the suspension cancels itself after 30 days. That was 30 more books. Whee!