by Ashley
I never mentioned it but Chris’ mom and grandma came out to visit us a couple weeks ago. One night they volunteered to watch our girls so Chris and I could go out alone. We hadn’t hired a babysitter since the beginning of November 2013, so this was BIG!
Unfortunately, it was also so last minute that we really didn’t have a chance to plan anything fun. We went to dinner and were at a loss for what to do afterward. Movies are so $$$ in theater and it was getting late enough that it didn’t sound appealing (we are old = need sleep), and there was nothing fun going on in town that evening.
Then I remembered that I’d been hanging onto a gift card for far too long and thought it might be fun to go shopping for free. : )
My Mom is a real estate broker and occasionally people give her gifts after the sale of a house. One client gave her a $100 gift card for Nordstrom. Since that’s not really her style (we’re more of Old Navy people), she gave it to me. This was roughly 2 years ago, right after the twins were born. I saved it to use once I lost the baby weight as a little reward for myself.
Weeeeellllll, two years have passed and the baby weight is still there (to all those of you who dropped the weight in 6 weeks – just keep your mouths shut in the comments section. A little piece of me hates you all! Lol). Fortunately, Nordstrom doesn’t start penalizing you for not using their gift card, as many places now do (e.g., charging you $1/month for “inactivity” until the gift card value is at $0). But it had been far too long and loosing the baby weight is still a work in progress so why not splurge a little and get something fun?
Since $100 doesn’t go very far at Nordstrom, we went to Nordstrom Rack. And as soon as I walked in the door I had an idea…..why not buy something for myself AND something for my sister (whose birthday was only a couple weeks away)???
I’ve been trying to keep my gift-buying pretty minimal, spending $15 or less for the past several family members’ birthdays. But with my $100 free gift card money I decided to splurge a little for myself and my sis.
I ended up buying myself a maxi skirt (just fun and comfy) and a new thing of eye shadow (which I actually needed, so this is something I was able to buy and save myself the money that would have come out of my “personal maintenance” budget). And for my sister I bought a delicious-smelling designer brand perfume (can’t even remember which one right now). My sister’s present took up almost $60 of the gift card and my stuff took up the other $40. My total, with sales tax, was right at $98. My hubs had bought something for himself, so I gave him the remaining $2 from the gift card to apply toward his balance (how generous of me, right?)
Another win in the frugal files (<I just made that up, but I like it!)
Pretty pleased I was able to get myself something fun AND something I needed and I was still left with enough money to get my sister a great birthday present (which cost me $0 out-of-pocket for the gift, and only a few bucks in shipping costs to mail it to Texas).
Quite the successful little date night!
How do you like to spend gift cards? Do you use them for fun splurges you wouldn’t otherwise buy yourself? Do you use them to buy necessities so that you can save money in your regular budget? Or do you hang onto them for 2 years (like me) just waiting for the right excuse to come along to use them?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I buy gift cards regularly from Krogers. I buy gas gift cards (I’m going to be buying the gas anyway, right?) and the Kroger points are double on gift cards. I try to stock up on them when gift card purchases are 4 times the points. This is usually when I’m doing Christmas shopping and we’ll get some Barnes & Noble cards for the grandkids, extra gas cards for my kids, restaurant cards for Sunday school teachers and such. Then we enjoy the benefits of up to $1.00 off a gallon of gas up to 35 gallons. We take both vehicles at once and really rack up the savings.
This is genius! We don’t have a Krogers in the area, but now I’m wondering if there are other stores with similar promotions!
I almost exclusively use gift cards for fun stuff and splurging. We use them for date nights out or for buying the book/movie/video game that isn’t important enough to spend household money on but would be nice to have.
I buy discounted gift cards to save 5% to 12% on things I am going to buy anyway. Take a look at giftcardgranny.com to see if the stores you shop at for groceries, etc. have cards available. I figure I can’t make that much money on savings so I do this to save. I’d use them for gifts too.
I use gift cards creatively for gifts for people as well as just lots of stuff in our personal life (travel, wants (but not really needs), groceries, gas, etc. My situation is probably very unique. I have a husband that travels frequently (over 200 nights a year) and his company lets him keep his hotel points and miles. These points can be redeemed for gift cards for lots of different places-Nordstrom, Sears, Target, Amazon, restaurants, iTunes cards. From time to time he cashes in points and we use the gift cards for wants (and sometimes needs). We have bought everything from a $2,000 riding lawn mower to an entire vacation with points and not spent a dime out of our pockets. During the holiday season I often use them to buy gifts for friends and family. When one of us needs a new suit we cash in points for gift cards and go shopping.
Additionally, I take advantage of store credit cards to earn points and furnish my wardrobe. I recently discovered (we just moved to a new house on a job relocation) that I can pay my mortgage with a credit card (okay readers this is NOT what you think and I am sure this will garner up some nasty comments). I use one of my store card Visas to do this every month and immediately pay it off the next day. The advantage? Every month I get a $50-$60 gift card from said retailer to use in their stores for the points attributed to the “charge.” Note, we live in a large metropolitan area where real estate prices are insane and taxes are even worse, so these points add up quickly.
I have this big stack of gift cards I really need to use!! It’s bad!
I use gift cards for myself, but sometimes for buying gifts for other’s too. I know that the giver of the giftcard usually wants you (the receiver of the GC) to use it for something fun or a splurge, but sometimes practicality is more important when you are trying to get out of debt. Great post Ashley!
I buy a lot of gift cards from cardcash.com. We buy auto zone/advance auto cards there for anywhere from 12-25% off and use them to buy parts we need to fix vehicles. I buy Petco cards from 22%+ off and buy cat food cheaper than I can elsewhere.
JCP is almost always 20% off and combined with a $10 off $25 coupon makes for cheap clothing. I actually bought a JCP card specifically to buy baby shower gifts with, so that my money will go further!
They also have restaurant cards that you could buy and give away. Just know that the cards are previously owned/ used, so they aren’t always in brand new shape or may have odd dollar amounts on them.