was to spend $1500 on my card each for the months of August - December 2013. So, that's $8500 total. EASY.
-"But, Erin, I don't spend enough to put $1500 a month on my card...how would I do that?"
Well, I HATE "spending" money to meet bonus requirements. If you read my posts on "My Almost Free Disney Vacation", you will see that I had other ways of meeting the spend on those cards to get to Disney. The same applies here.
How I did it:
Of course, there is always Amazon Payments that lets you send money for FREE (up to $1000 per month) to someone for goods or services. Now, would I do that every month? Personally, no. I don't want to risk taking advantage of something like that unless I need to use it. It is my back-up. You can pay a babysitter, house-cleaner, etc. with Amazon Payments. Check it out :)
Instead, what I did was find a way to purchase gift cards with a cheap fee and fund my Walmart Bluebird online checking account to pay my mortgage. I will direct you to Travel Is Free to learn more about that. But, essentially, you can load your Walmart Bluebird account with a prepaid gift card that has a PIN number. Then you use the money in your Bluebird account to pay bills by Bluebird check. You have to research to make sure your gift card will have the right pin before you buy it. I will leave that up to you because it sometimes changes. On the day this post was written, Visa Gift Cards from Gift Card Mall were able to be used to fund Bluebird.
So, I bought $1500 in Visa Gift cards each month with my Discover Card to meet the $1500 per month spend. BUT, I didn't just outright buy them. If you checked out my post on "How To Save Money Shopping Online", you know that I use a shopping portal when shopping online. My favorites are Ebates, Top Cash Back, and Shop Discover (for card members). I use Evreward to check for the best deals first. Also, your own credit card may have a portal specific to that card.
For this scenario, I used Ebates because it gave me between .5% and 1% cash back on my purchase of Visa Gift cards from Gift Card Mall. The total was $1022ish after tax and shipping for (2) $500 Visa Gift Cards, so I met the requirement. Now, the cash back I got from Ebates was not on the tax and fees, but the $1500 purchase. So, I got between $7.50 and $15 back from each $1500 purchase. (The amount switched, so I can't remember the exact amount I spent.)
Now, another perk of my card is the 1% cash back on purchases...this is NOT including the bonus $250! So, I got $15.22 back in regular rewards as well! Therefore, I broke even and even made a bit of money some months by purchasing the cards!
So, overall, I "spent" the $8500, but paid my mortgage with it that I would have to spend anyway...except I was able to use a credit card to do it! I met the minimum spend without "spending $8500", right? :)
So, now I have met the minimum spend and gained a BONUS $250 at the end of meeting the spend....making about a $250 profit! I paid my mortgage with gift cards bought with credit cards. Then my mortgage money from my regular bank checkbook to pay the credit card bill! ...Make sense now?!
OK, it may seem like a lot of work for $250. Yes, it is if you don't know how to do it. BUT, if you learn how to play the game, you can score TONS of deals like this. You just have to know that you can look for them online! I have had lots of great deals through the years...this is just the latest!
DEAL RIGHT NOW:
I have a link for Discover Cards that I understand will give you an automatic $50 cash back in your account if you spend ANYTHING on it within the first three months of use. This is not a public offer. You could spend $3 and get back $50! I am not able to publically post the link, but would be happy to email the link to you if you comment below. These are NO ANNUAL FEE cards, so you will be able to keep it forever, bumping up your credit history length and ultimately your credit score.
***Disclaimer: I can not be held responsible for anything but the link. I am NOT a professional when it comes to credit cards and scores, I can only tell you about my successes with them. I am not a financial advisor and am only offering this link to those who are truly interested and have decided for themselves that they would like the card.
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