Thursday, February 18, 2010

Five Ways to Stop Wasting Money

This list will not be about how I think you should stop buying soft drinks when you eat out or remembering to turn out the lights when you leave a room. You already know that stuff and I think everyone is entitled to choose how they want to spend their money. I blow my money on books and race entry fees, so I can't judge you if you want a 40K vehicle or a big screen. However I do want you to know that you might be leaving money on the table. What can you do to stop?

5. Stop using cash Now this comes with a serious caveat. Only follow this advice if you are not in credit card debt and you can afford to pay off your credit card bills each month.. If you can do that then it makes zero sense to buy anything with cash. Why? Credit Card Reward programs. Last year I cashed in reward points for over $600 in gift certificates to stores like Macy's, Best Buy, Sears, etc. Which cards do I recommend?

The Citi Forward Card from Citibank. This card gives 5 points for every dollar spent on restaurants, book stores, music stores, and the movies. Also, Amazon.com is considered a bookstore so you also get 5 points per dollar when you buy from them. 10,000 points can be redeemed for $100 gift certificates to places like Macy's, while 6,000 points gets you $50 gift cards to Best Buy, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, just to name a few. No annual fee.

Capital One World Mastercard I use this card for groceries and gas since it gives 2% cashback for those categories. This card is also great for traveling international because there are no currency conversion fees and they even pay the 1% Mastercard fee for you. No annual fee.

4.Score Frequent Flier Miles for Car Rentals I get that not everyone flies as frequently as I do, but that doesn't mean you should leave frequent flier miles on the table. Whenever I rent a car I make sure to visit Delta's website to see what special offers are currently going on. Right now, Avis has a great deal, giving 2010 miles if you rent a car for 2 days from an airport location. Beyond these special offers you can usually get at least double miles (i.e. 2 miles per dollar spent) every time you rent a car. This helps rack up miles and keeps your frequent flier miles from expiring.

3.Ditto for Hotels Join Hotel reward programs. Even if you don't use hotels enough to move up to the next status level, there are still perks and often you can choose to earn frequent flier miles instead of points in some instances.

2. Check if your Company has a Cell Phone deal If you are a student I can almost guarantee you can get a cheaper group rate with your cell phone provider if you have a .edu e-mail address. See here for more details.

1. If the Reward Program is Free, Join it . I'm earning points with Speedway every time I get gas (good for reduced price per gallon). Borders sends me a 33% off coupon every three days and provides me with $5 gift certificates once I've spent a certain amount (and sometimes just because). Ace Hardware give a $5 gift card for every $250 spent. So whenever I need gas I try and hit a Speedway, I shop at Borders instead of Barnes and Noble (with the coupons and Borders bucks it's usually cheaper than Amazon!), and I go to Ace instead of Lowe's or Home Depot.

5. Read My Money Blog. My Money Blog is the site that I got most of these ideas from and boy have they paid off!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

6. Use prepaid phones instead of contracts.

Most low usage contracts cost $40 for 400 minutes. Then you still have to add the hidden charges, charges for texts etc.

Prepaid can cost as little as $7 per month or if you use the phone more than 100 minutes a month then sign up for something like the Straight Talk package I got at Walmart. $30 for 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30mb data!
Most people, not just students, can save quite a bit of money this way. ;-)