–This deal only applies if you shop at Kroger, have Kroger Fueling stations and have the right cards for the scenario about to be described–
I’m a deal junkie and love finding the very best value. Some of you may have heard that Kroger is offering a bonus if you buy their store gift cards. For every $300 in gift cards that you buy, you get an extra $30 loaded onto them. Basically an instant 10% savings. If you have a rewards credit card that gives you money back for groceries you can save even more. One card I have, that I use for gas and groceries is the Chase Freedom Rewards Visa. It will give me 3% back on the top 3 categories of spending I use per month. So if I use it to purchase these gift cards, I get to save an additional 3%, totaling the 13% I can save on groceries per month.
I just discovered this past weekend, that I can use the gift cards I purchase, at Kroger Fuel Stations to fill up my car. In addition, if you’ve bought $100 worth of groceries in the past period (I’m not sure how often this gets reset) with your Kroger plus card you save 10¢ per gallon. With the price of gas at $4 per gallon, this is an added 2.5% savings. If you haven’t spent $100 in groceries you still get 3¢ off and I think there is a scalling effect to where the more groceries you buy the more you save per gallon. But in the end it is equivalant to about 15% off when you combine all these which is pretty nice. Giant Eagle seems to have a better Fuel Perks program, because I think it’s for ever $50 you spend you get 10¢ off, and the discount lasts for 3 months…. but it is also only for 1 fill up (up to 30 gallons) so there are trade-offs.
The next thing to figure out is if I can use the Kroger gift card to purchase other store gift cards, and get double fuel points (a limited time promotion currently running). I was originally not going to buy the limit of 4 $300 Kroger gift cards, but since discovering that I can use them for gas, I very well may buy all 4 that I’m entitled too before this promotion is over at the end of July.
Even if you are constantly getting charged the same ammount, it pays to double check what you’re getting charged for. I’ve always been told this is a good practice and monthly, will check the charges for my credit cards, our utilities and whatever else. Usually for bills that remain the same like Cable/Internet, if the cost doesn’t change a cent, I don’t dig into the break down of the total bill. Now I know better.
Here at the Northcrest household, we’ve been running a monthly charge of about $95 for cable and internet since we’ve lived here. Split between four people it’s not a bad deal at all (something I’ll greatly miss moving into a 2 person living situation). We pay to get a 7 MB/sec internet connection, digital cable, HD box, and additional HD channels. When we signed up we were offered HBO and Starz for no additional cost so we’ve had those as well. This month, Time Warner upped their rates to where we’re paying about $101 a month. When I saw the change in billing, I took a look at the breakdown of the bill to see what was increased. Pretty much every charge had a $1 or $2 increase. I then saw that we were being charged about 7 bucks each for HBO and Starz. This was different than our first bills where HBO and Starz did not show up except as a $0 charge. I was glad to have those extra channels, but not for that much of an increase.
I called Time Warner up this afternoon at lunch to get those costs removed. Shockingly I was on and off the phone with my whole request fulfilled in just a few minutes. Our new bill is down to just around $83 now, and they gave us a few months of Showtime free. If I had known that we were getting itemized for HBO and Starz I would have canceled those a while ago. I guess it pays to check. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to procure John Adams and other HBO series elsewhere for now.
So I’ve been curious in finding ways to have some “extra” income outside of my job’s normal pay. I’ve been selling off some stuff that I don’t use anymore on craigslist and eBay, but that can only last as long as I have stuff to sell. A popular option for some passive income is usually to have a blog and sell advertisement. But we all know based on the fact that I can’t seem to keep any sort of normal schedule for a personal blog, there is no way I’d be able to produce good content on a blog that would generate advertisement revenue. So I’ve been search for other alternatives.
One that has come up recently and somewhat paid off already is participating in surveying. A few months back I signed up for a a few survey websites that send you various surveys based on your demographic to have you fill out, and for your time you are compensated. The best ones send you cash to a PayPal account, but there are some that run off a point system that is then translated into gift certificates or mileage credit. So far, over the past…. 2 months I’d say I’ve taken maybe 2 hours worth of surveys, probably less. Most are less than 5 minutes and even if you don’t qualify, will get partial credit just for filling out your age, job function and income level. For those two hours of work I’ve received $30 worth of PayPal funds and a bunch of points that I can cash out at anytime for quite a few miles on an airline of my choosing. Not bad!
More recently, I was talking to a friend at work who participated in a little more advanced surveying that paid much better. She sent me the email address of a woman that contracts the taste testing for Wendy’s International. Since Wendy’s is based in Columbus, when they are getting ready to release a new product, they need to test it against the market to see what kind of response they can expect and to see if the product needs any adjustment based on consumer feedback. I sent my information to the testing contractor, and this past Wednesday did my first taste testing. It was the easiest money I’ve ever made. I drove a couple minutes away from where I live to Wendy’s headquarters, walked and signed in. A few minutes after I arrived (along with 20 or so other people), we were led back to a lab type area where we were seated in front of a computer screen and desk. A food item (I signed an agreement not to disclose what it was exactly) was distributed and as we ate it, were instructed to complete a survey on the computer. It took me around 10 minutes to eat and complete the survey (the item was quite delicious) and as I walked out, was handed $25 in cold hard cash! I practically skipped to my car that was so easy.
I’m definitely going to keep my eye out for more opportunities like that. I’ve heard of things like mystery shopping and mystery dining, where your meal is paid for, for trying out a new restaurant and reporting on it. The Midwest (especially Columbus) is the middle of test market USA, and I don’t know why I haven’t discovered these opportunities until now.
One of the best things about Google is that they continue to be innovate and add new features to their products. The most recent being traffic monitoring to google maps. Now if you check out the metro Columbus area (or any other major city) on google maps, you can click on the traffic button and it’ll show the speed of traffic throughout the city. A very handy tool if you’re about to head out of work and want to see the best way home. Microsoft’s Live Maps has had this feature for a while, but only in major metropolises like L.A. or New York that I know of.
On a related note, I’ve now twice become the personal GPS service for someone who didn’t know where they were going. Once it was to help Kim find her way home in Boston after getting lost trying to find a Trader Joe’s (we ended up finding the Trader Joe’s and getting her on her way home). And a second time it was to help Bree find Microcenter. For both instances I was explaining directions and even landmarks (using the satellite coverage) to help guide them through locations that I have never driven or seen. Its very strange how far technology has advanced.
You may have seen in the news how the DOW and S&P 500 dropped quite a bit yesterday. Its the first time in my life that such a large fluctuation in the stock market effected me directly. I’m now at the point where I have a decent amount of money invested in the stock market for savings and retirement purposes and a drop of that amount can add up to 100s of dollars lost in a single day. Did I run out and sell all my investments? No, this is how the stock market works and I realize that. It was just interesting to see how up until now, I had known the joys that 2 or 3 % single day gains can bring. Now I can see the flip side of how a loss of that magnitude can effect your net worth in the reverse manner. Just part of growing up I suppose and learning how the world works.
