Saving Through Spending

Meet my friend, Discover Card. They pay me to shop. I get 1% cash back on all purchases, and I always sign up for the special promotions allowing you to earn up to 5% cash back on certain purchases. Since this is money we would be spending anyway on gas, groceries, pet supplies etc., this way we get an automatic rebate every month. Once we save up enough, we can use it to credit our account, get a check or double the rewards by ordering gift cards from participating companies through Discover (for example, since I order photo books from Shutterfly, I can get a $50 gift card for $40 and save an additional $10). Since we end up putting all of our expenses that we can onto the Discover, we sometimes get over $25 a month. That's better than interest on a savings account nowadays!

The key to taking advantage of Discover's cash back program is paying off your bill EVERY month. Once you carry a balance and start paying finance charges you are paying them, and let me tell you they will always be making more from charges than they are "rewarding" their customers with. Otherwise they wouldn't still be in business. So if you can afford to, take advantage of their "generosity" and charge it. Just don't expect them to up your credit limit. Once they figure out how you're manipulating their system, say goodbye to good customer service.