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Aug 12, 2014    |       8 comments

Using gift cards to buy gifts

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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?

Aug 11, 2014    |       20 comments

Double-Charged

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I mentioned that last month was the first month of my IBR payment for my ACS student loan, but this month (August) would be the first month of payment for my Sallie Mae loan. When I looked online at the beginning of the month, it said I’d been approved for IBR (income-based repayment), but still showed my loan status as in deferment. I called to get it straightened out since I wanted to go ahead and start the IBR program immediately. The representative I spoke with switched “off” my deferment so my payment would be due this month (as I’d wanted). I asked if I could go online and enroll in the auto-pay program (if you enroll, they offer .25% off the APR). The representative said I could do so, but it would be too late for this month and wouldn’t go into effect until September so I would still need to make my normal payment online and the auto-pay would begin the following month.

Sounds great!

So I did just as I was instructed. I signed up for auto-pay which did, indeed, say the processing took several days. As my due date was imminent, I also made a one-time payment for my August IBR payment.

A few days pass. And then Sallie Mae auto-deducts $250 (my IBR payment) from my checking account. In other words…I got double charged.

Fortunately, since we’re living on last month’s income we had enough funds in my checking account that this wasn’t a problem in terms of causing us to overdraft or anything. However, this means that instead of the normal $250 payment, I paid TWO $250 payments this month (= $500!!)

What would you do?

I was hoping to have about $250 leftover at the end of the month, which I would have applied as an additional debt payment anyway….but I would have applied it toward the car, NOT the student loans. Is it worth the time, effort, and hassle to call Sallie Mae, argue with them, and try to get reimbursed for the charge (which will probably take a week to straighten out and an additional 2 weeks to get a check in the mail…just in time for me to turn around and have to give it back to them for my September payment).

If I didn’t have the money I would certainly call and argue over it. But we are fortunate to have the extra money at this point and would have used it toward debt anyway. Soooo, do you just live with the double-charge knowing that at least you’re making progress on your debt? Or do you fight it out?

Either way, at least the money is going toward some form of debt payment but its frustrating when things like this happen. I’m already pressed for time in my life, I hate when things like this pop up that require more time and attention.

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