The holidays are coming which means extra shopping! During the holidays we buy extra gas for traveling to see our friends and family, extra grocery shopping for feeding guests and for our large holiday meals and don’t forget all of those holiday gifts! To help combat these extra costs, I use a lot of gift cards! In fact each new year, I start collecting gift cards and put them in a drawer. By the time the holiday season rolls around it’s like, well, Christmas!
Free Gift Cards? YES!!
One great way to save on gift cards is to get them for free! Here are a few of my favorite places to earn gift cards throughout the year.
- Swagbucks is probably my favorite pace to earn gift cards! When you sign up for Swagbucks (it’s free!) there are all kinds of things you can do to start earning your swagbucks. You can search (like you would on Google), answer a daily poll question, answer surveys, print coupons, play games, watch TV and so much more. I made Swagbucks my home page so whenever I turn on my computer I’m reminded to do a quick search. I honestly don’t put a lot of effort into collecting my Swagbucks. I typically search each day, earn Swagbucks and call it a day. A $5 Amazon gift card is only 450 Swagbucks! I am able to get at least (1) $5 gift card each month. I know, $5 doesn’t sound like much but I just add the gift card to my Amazon account and by the time Christmas rolls around I’ve got $60!
- Recyclebank is an online program that teaches you and rewards you for being green. You can trade in the points you earn for coupons, magazines or you guessed it, gift cards! I trade mine in for Amazon or iTunes gift cards or for movie tickets. Points are easy to come by and easy to get. They honestly only take a few minutes to get your points!
- Viggle is a free app for your smart phone. If you watch TV and have a smart phone you should be using this app! I use it each day during our TV time and have been earning at least $20 a month in gift cards! Choose from a multitude of places to redeem your gift cards for from CVS to Old Navy to just about everything in between! Plus, if you have more than one smart phone in your home you can really rack up the points!
Gift Cards at a Discount
One of my favorite ways to get gift cards for a discount is at CVS! Often they will have deals on gift cards in a promotion where if you spend say, $100 you earn a $10 Extra Care Bucks. Usually you can also get them in packs of (4) $25 cards. It makes great gifts and I saved $10!
Kroger also will occasionally have digital coupons for gift cards. Combine that with their fuel promotions and you can get a pretty good deal! For example, a few months ago I downloaded a coupon for $10 off a $100 iTunes gift card. Kroger was doing 4x the fuel points on gift cards as well. So I paid $90 for the $100 card plus got 40 cents off per gallon of gas (up to 25 gallons).
Gift Cards as a Bonus
Sometimes you can earn gift cards with your credit card purchases. I’m not a big credit card person, but they can help your credit if you can pay them off at the end of each month. So I have an Amazon Visa card where I earn points on every transaction I make. I use it to pay for all of our gas (2 times the points!) and groceries. (Credit tip: It’s good to only use about half of our credit limit. It shows you have credit available and will help raise your credit score). I generally earn $10 worth of Amazon credit each month (plus, you earn $30 when you sign up). So helping my credit and earning a gift card for paying things I have to pay anyways. Sounds good to me!
I like to shop for gifts all year. Many times I’ll see things that would make a great gift and it comes with a promotion! For example, Amazon had one of the new Marvel Lego video games for $49.99 (normal price) but you got a free $10 gift card with your purchase. Newly released video games aren’t likely to be discounted so getting the gift card back was a great deal!
Also, check for gift card promotions from banks (for opening a new account) or when you purchase a cell phone. There are lots of offers out there that reward you for things you would normally purchase anyways! Take advantage and save those gift cards for the holiday season! You would be amazed at how quickly it will add up!
Find out how to save on everything here! There you will find money saving articles on everything from ‘how to save on Amazon‘ to ‘how to save on clothes‘ and everything in between!
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