December Cashback Rewards

After spending most of my built up Discover Cashback Rewards on gift baskets for family and friends who live far way, I used the remainder of my 2013 dollars on Amazon to offset the cost of a Fitbit activity tracker.

I’ve been wanting an activity/calorie tracker for a while and finally decided that for less than $100 (minus the ~$46 from my rewards), I could definitely try this one out and see if I like using it.

What I forgot about was how much BANK I would be making in December in Cashback Rewards!  I just checked my December credit card statement and I got 72.82 in Bonus Rewards.  This is the highest I’ve ever achieved in one month and is approximately 2/3 of what I earned in all of 2013.  I attribute this to a few things:

1.      20% 1800Baskets.com – Even though I only actually paid $5 on my Discover card ($100 cashback rewards gift certificate), I did navigate to the site through Discover.com first.  This got me 20% back on the WHOLE purchase (~$105), earning me $21.00.

2.      10% The Limited – I again was diligent enough to navigate to TheLimited.com through Discover.com first, giving me 10% back on my purchase, earning me $13.41.

3.      5% Online Shopping – The Discover promotion for October, November and December was 5% back for online shopping.  As I did all of my clothing purchases and many of my Christmas purchases online in December, I earned $29.41 in this category.

4.      1% Everywhere Else – This is great.  Even when I don’t navigate to Discover.com or get a special reward somehow, I can always guarantee I’ll build up at least a little something.  I earned $9.00 this month.

I definitely overspent a bit this month which made my bill a little bit high, but I ended up putting $1,374.69 on my card and got back $72.82 in bonuses.  That’s 5.30% back in total.  This was definitely AWESOME news to get after my crazy spending.

While I typically use those rewards to get discounted gift certificates, I’m actually considering using just this month’s to pay down my bill a little.  What do you think I should do?

Christmas Gifts to Myself! ... For Everyone Else

I just finished putting together my budget for Christmas gifts and was pleased to see that even without the budget, I still did pretty well staying within my targets.  This made me wonder how other people budget for this, if they budget, and where the money comes from.

I’m lucky enough that I get to see most of my close family right around Christmas time and can give gifts in person.  Others in my life are a little harder to shop for since they live farther away and I rarely see them during the holidays.

I’ll let you in on my secret for those gifts; I used my Discover Cashback Bonus dollars to purchase gift cards to 1800baskets.com.  It’s awesome, because now these gifts are like freebies.  Don’t get me wrong; this has been my intention since last Christmas and I’ve had to be smart about my purchases to reach my cashback goal.  I make sure to always sign up for the three-month long 5% back deals and I try to be diligent when ordering online to see if Discover will give me a cashback bonus if I bypass Discover.com.

This year that added up to about $130 to spend on gift certificates.  The other awesome thing about this plan is that I can spend $80 of my bonus, but receive a $100 gift certificate.  It’s almost like my free money is getting me more free money if I redeem it wisely.

Do you take advantage of deals like this?  When do you use them?

Multiple Mini-Payments

For those of you who have been following my loan repayment posts, you’ll see that I actually make multiple payments on my loans every month.  There are a few reasons I do this.

1.      There is a reduction in the interest rate if I set up automatic payments.  I have these set to the minimum for each month so that I don’t ever forget to pay and mess up my credit score.

2.      I also don’t know how much I’m going to contribute to my loans (and the breakdown between them), so I keep the automatic payments low to give me more room to change things later.

3.      It makes me really sad to see $1,200 fly out of my bank account on the 30^th, but I don’t mind so much if it leaves in four $300 payments.  I realize this is all in my own head, but, again, it gives me more flexibility as I go through the month.  (Note: I later realized I also am paid biweekly.  Sometimes it’s best to stagger my payments a bit so that I don’t overdraft or have to switch e-fund money into my checking account and then later switch it back.)

I do the same thing with my Discover card.  I’ve found that it helps me to truly keep track of what I spend if I pay it off more regularly and I’m not going to drain my entire bank account in one go.

Do you pay your bills in one installment or multiples?  What do you see as the benefits?