I got too frugal over the last month or so. With all these fee-free Visa deals at Staples, I quit ordering Visa gift cards online. I got so tied up with the idea of fee-free that I’ve missed at least two months of opportunity to buy these gift cards at a very reasonable price. And, they are $300 gift cards not $200’s like you get in the store fee-free deal.
Reader Kirk reminded me that the hardest part of this gift card/money order transaction is the face-to-face buying money orders. I’d much rather buy fewer $300 than the tiny little $200’s. Thanks Kirk.
Saving time vs. money
So $8.95 for a $300 Staples is my added cost. Less any shopping portal bonus if they should miraculously happen (gift cards are excluded for shopping portal bonuses with Staples). The added cost is less than 0.6 cents per point.
But I mitigate some of that added cost by not having to go out and buy the gift cards. Ariana put me back on track last week. I can make an order from the comfort of my living room chair and have them delivered with no shipping to my front yard mailbox.
It’s then just a one-stop process of buying the money order from my friendly grocery store clerks. Then mobile depositing them to one of my three bank sources. I found two MO outlets with “good ink“. And they are $300’s instead of $200.
In my laziness I forgot I’ve got a $75,000 purchase opportunity each year with my Ink card ($50,000) and a buddy lets me do $25,000 on his 5X card. I fell victim to not seeing the forest for the trees.
In my frugalness trying to save a buck, I’ve added time and effort to my task for a very limited cost and possibly put at risk my opportunity to make it to my maximum of 75,000 at 5X.
Final thoughts
I can’t count on Staples having enough fee-free weeks to get me to my $75,000. I need to go back and look at my total gift card spending to date and get my back side back in my comfy chair and make some online orders to make sure I hit the max. That’s the new goal, which I never should have forgotten, in my frugalness.
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