Between birthdays, holidays, and mail-in-rebates, I probably get about a dozen gift cards per year. Personally, I would much rather have cash, but gift cards seem to be a more popular choice. And all rebates seem to have switched to prepaid gift cards.
At least those are preferable to store or restaurant gift cards. I always seem to waste my money on those. Oh, we got a $25 gift card to Outback? Let’s go out for dinner tonight where the bill is $30! We are actually sitting on one card because it is for a restaurant that is over 100 miles away! I have a hard time seeing myself burning half a tank of gas to go eat dinner.
But enough of my rant. I wanted to share some tips for how to spend those gift cards without feeling like you’ve wasted your money.
Combine your gift cards
I’ve gotten at least one Best Buy gift card every Christmas for the past 15 years. Most gift cards will last more than a year before they start to loose money. Some are as long as three years before they start to charge an “inactivity fee.” If you only got enough this year to buy a DVD but would rather get a Kinnect, save the gift card for next year. Maybe next year you will have accumulated enough gift cards to pay for the larger purchase.
Sell your gift cards
Ever get a gift card for a place you never shop? In high school, my grandfather would give me a J.C. Penny’s gift card on Christmas. What high schooler shopps at J.C. Penny? I would get stuck buying a dress shirt that I would only wear about once per year. Now, however, there are gift card exchanges such as Gift Card Rescue and Plastic Jungle where you can trade or outright sell your gift card for cash. You won’t get the full value of the card, but if it just sits in a drawer somewhere collecting dust, you won’t get anything!
Buy groceries with your prepaid debit cards
One of the reasons I would prefer getting cash over a prepaid debit card is because I’m in heavy-duty debt repayment mode right now. I want that old credit card debt gone! However, I can’t pay the debt collector with a gift card, so that’s extra money that frustratingly can’t be used towards debt. Even worse when it’s a mail-in rebate. When I got my cell phone, it came with a rebate of $50. So I basically bought a $50 prepaid card with cash and limited what I could spend that money on.
But here’s the trick, there are plenty of regular, recurring expenses that you CAN use that prepaid card on. Groceries are one example. Most of your utilities will accept plastic as well. Use the gift card to make that purchase and there is that much more money in your bank account to be used how you wish (like an extra credit card payment).
Link your prepaid debit cards to a payment processor to make a planned purchase
Not all prepaid cards will link, but some will. Plus, you do not actually have to log into Paypal to send money. You can enter credit card information to make payments. This is my plan to purchase Modest Money’s SEO service, with a gift card I received yesterday.
Related articles
- Types of Gift Cards (cardhub.com)
- 5 Ways to Put Unused Gift Cards to Use (cardhub.com)
