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HOW TO SAVE MONEY WITH GIFT CARDS
Are you looking for more ways to save money? Think you’ve tried everything? How about using gift cards to save money?
One of the money-saving strategies that I like to use is to buy discounted gift cards and use them, along with coupons and sales, to get the best deals possible. A lot of times when I tell people this, they’re not sure what I mean or how to even go about doing this.
After getting many questions, I decided to write down my exact strategy and show you how I use gift cards to save a bunch of money.
WHERE DO I GET DISCOUNTED GIFT CARDS?
First, I want to go over where to get discount gift cards and then how to organize and use them to save the most money.
When buying gift cards you want to think about which stores you shop the most often and maybe even which stores you will shop at for holidays and special occasions.
For most stores (in the US at least), gift cards don’t expire but you will want to check if the one you’re buying has an expiration date before you stock up for future purchases.
BUYING DISCOUNT GIFT CARDS ONLINE
The easiest place to get discounted gift cards are online at websites like Gift Card Granny andRaise.
Gift Card Granny is a portal that willfind the best deals on discounted gift cards from a bunch of other websites and route you to them.
What I love about Gift Card Granny is that you can earn rewards for every gift card you buy on top of the discount you’re already getting!
Image source: Gift Card Granny Website
Want $5 towards your next discounted gift card? Use my referral link to signup at Raise (free to join) and get $5!
Raise is a website that helps you save up to 30% on discounted gift cards from 4,000+ brands. What’s great is you can combine the discounted cards with store sales and coupons to save even more.
Signup for Raise here to grab your $5 bonus!
USING THE FLUZ APP TO GET CASHBACK ON GIFT CARDS
Fluz is one of my favorite new ways to save money by using gift cards. It’s a free, easy-to-use app that gives you up to 35% cashback for buying gift cards through them.
The best part? You can purchase the gift cards/codes for the exact amount you need so there are no leftover balances on the cards.
You basically shop as you normally do but before you checkout (in-store or online), you would purchase a gift card for the exact amount in the Fluz app and pay right from the app.
You can get cashback on gift cards to places like Sephora, Amazon, CVS, Uber, DoorDash, and so many more.
Fluz is free to use and if you use code: ESAVINGSBLOG during signup, you’ll get 3 FREE vouchers that you can use to get 35% cashback!
Another thing I love about Fluz is that you can use the Fluz app, along with other cashback sites and with coupon and promo codes, to save even more!
I did an in-depth Fluz review on the blog not too long ago. You can check that out here for more information on how it works and how you can get the most out of this great app.
BUYING DISCOUNTED GIFT CARDS AT DRUGSTORES AND GROCERY STORES
One of my favorite ways to get the biggest discounts on gift cards is at my local drug and grocery stores. This strategy takes a little more work because they aren’t always available when you need them so you will have to plan ahead. You have to wait for promotions and sales to use this strategy.
It will depend on the store and currentsale what type of discount you will get. Most stores will give you a discount in the form of rewards or points for their store but if you’re shopping that store anyway its a great deal.
For example:
Rite Aid recently had an offerwhere if you buy a $50 Best Buy Gift Card you get $8 back in Bonus Rewards (formerly called Plenti Points) which is basically money that can be spent at Rite Aid. You will need a Rite Aid card and be signed up for their free reward program to get the reward points but if you shop there you most likely already have one. If not, it only takes a few minutes to sign up for one.
Each deal will have a limit. The limit on this particular deal was two so I bought two $50 Best Buy gift cards, spent $100 and got $16 back to spend at Rite Aid!
You will want to check your weekly sales flyer to look for deals like the one pictured below.
I basically saved 16% on a $100 Best Buy purchase! That is a huge discount for a store like Best Buy. Combine that with sales and coupons at Best Buy and you can save a whole lot!
Remember Best Buy doesn’t know you already saved 16% so say you had a 10% off a $100 purchase coupon you would save an additional $10! That’s $26 in savings on a $100 purchase!
Let’s break this down:
Two $50 Gift Cards = $100
Bonus Rewards Back = $16 ($8 per $50 gift card)
10% off Best Buy Coupon = $10
Total Savings = $26 on a $100 purchase!
Keep in mind you want to read the offer, for this offer you cannot buy a $100 Best Buy gift card and get $16 back. You would have to buy TWO $50 gift cards to get $16 back ($8 for each). Make sense? If not leave a comment and I can clarify!
I used this strategy to stock up on Home Depot, Sephora and Best Buy gift cards. Sephora gift cards were on promotion at the same time where you buy a $25 Sephora Gift Card and you get $5 back in rewards. I bought two gift cards for Christmas gifts. Doing this deal saved me $10 in total and I had two gifts already done for Christmas.
Now Rite Aid seems to have these deals often but I have also stocked up at Shaws, CVS, and other stores. My grocery store sometimes gives out extra gas rewards for buying gift cards so be on the lookout for those deals (although I find you don’t save as much).
BUYING GIFT CARDS DURING THE HOLIDAYS
Finally, my last gift card buying strategy is to buy gift cards during the holidays. During the holiday’s many stores will offer discounts and bonus gift cards for making a gift card purchase. Restaurants are the most popular for this strategy. I have stocked up on gift cards for myself this way.
For example, my local pizza shop offered a free pizza for every $25 gift card I purchased. I bought a few $25 gift cards and was able to use the free pizza coupons I got for each gift card to eat dinner a few nights and save the rest of the gift cards for future purchases.
Again for this strategy you want to buy in increments of what the deal is so multiple $25 gift cards instead of a $50 gift card.
Some retail stores will offer a bonus $5 gift card for each $25 gift card. When sales like this are offered, you want to think about how many you will actually need and use and stock up.
You May Also Like These Money Saving Tips:
- How to Get Free Gift Cards For Real
- 10 Ways to Get Free Amazon Gift Cards
- 101 Ways to Save Money
- 10 Ways to Save on Designer Brands
- 15 Ways to Save Money Eating Out
KEEPING YOUR GIFT CARDS ORGANIZED!
If you’re going to use my gift card strategy to stock up on gift cards, you will have to be organized! You don’t want a wallet full of gift cards.There are plenty of ways you can save your gift cards digitally and store the originals so you don’t lose them and so that they will be easily accessible when you need them.
To digitally organize your physical gift cards, you can use an app like Gyft. Gyft is adigital gift card platform that enables you to buy, send, and manage gift cards.
I mainly use it to manage my gift cards but often they will actually have promo codes to buy discounted gift cards! I get notifications on my phone when they are having a sale and can snatch up more gift cards this way.
You can also use Google Wallet and Passbook so use what works for you or save them in a few places. Just make sure you mark them as used when you use them.
If you’re using Fluz to buy gift cards ahead of time then those will be stored right in your Fluz app for easy access.
So what do you think? Will you be using this money-saving strategy? Leave a comment and let me know.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here
