You’ve probably come across Paypal My Cash Reload cards and you may even have heard of the PayPal Business Debit Card. Basically, you can load up to $4,000 worth of PayPal My Cash Reload cards to your account per month and then liquidate the balance via money order purchases made with the Paypal Business Debit Card.
Back in the day, I would work this into my manufactured spending routine to diversify spending, since the prepaid cards could be purchased at CVS and I wasn’t buying anything else at those stores.
I stopped maxing out the full $4,000 monthly loading limit after hearing about some shut-downs. This tends to happen when people max out the monthly load limit, then transfer the balance to their bank accounts. Don’t do that. Unless you’re ok with having your account shut down and the funds frozen for an indefinite period of time.
I was always careful and mixed in normal spending on the Paypal Business Debit Card. But I refused to make this a primary manufactured spending tool by picking up cards for extended family members. That said, there’s no reason you shouldn’t use PayPal as a back-up for money order purchases.
Every once in a while, I’ll have a slight problem while buying money orders at Walmart. I may miscalculate the total amount due with the fee included or one of my gift cards won’t get activated. My only options are to hold up the line while trying to figure out what the problem is, asking the cashier to cancel the transaction, or using my PayPal Business Debit Card.
None of those are ideal solutions. However, with my PayPal Business Debit Card on hand, I can just use the balance to cover the remaining amount. Since my account balance consists of funds from PayPal My Cash Reload cards, I kill two birds with one stone.
Since the PayPal card has a daily spending limit of $3,000, this also enables me to buy larger denomination money orders in a single transaction. There’s also that one Walmart store near my house that doesn’t accept Visa gift cards for money order purchases, but has no problem accepting the PayPal Business Debit Card.
When I’m churning large amounts of gift cards and need funds ASAP to pay off balances but don’t have time to drive to my ms-friendly Walmart out of town, this buys me some time.
Overall, PayPal Reload and Business Debit Card are great back-up tools for manufactured spending. I wouldn’t max out the full $4,000 every month. But loading a couple of thousand dollars on the card and using it for normal spending is a good strategy. Plus, the card earns 1% cash back on credit transactions. So you’ll easily earn back the $3.95 fee per $500 card.
Do you use the PayPal My Cash Reload and Business Debit Cards for manufactured spending at all?
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