Working the system: Rewards, Discounts, and other money saving tips

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A comment I made in another thread has me wondering about your best money saving tips/hacks. My DH (62) and I (57) are retired. We try to be frugal about most things so we can maximize our travel budget, so I am always on the lookout for new ways to save money. The rewards we get though our credit cards pay for, at least, a couple of plane tickets every year, but I haven’t researched options recently. Some of my best (current) savings and/or rewards:

-Wells Fargo credit card with flat 2% rewards on everything. We use this card for almost everything and stockpile the rewards to use when we buy plane tickets. In addition to regular spending, I use this card to auto-pay all the monthly bills I can. I used to have the AmEx card with the 6% rewards on groceries, but between the annual fee and the cap they put on annual grocery spending, I calculated that the small extra savings that card gave me wasn’t worth the inconvenience of the extra card

-Alaska Airlines Card(s). We have three --each with a $75/year fee–for the annual companion ticket, but a recent policy change means we have to spend $6000/year per card to qualify for the companion certificate. Since the value of Alaska miles is only about 1.2 cents, we stopped using these cards for everything except AA travel when we got the WF card. Now, I’m wondering if we could be getting a better deal with another airline or travel rewards card.

-Amazon: We spend quite a bit at Amazon every year and use that 5% back card exclusively for Amazon purchases. (We’re 90 minutes from a major city and shopping, so Amazon has saved us $ on the price of like items in our small town, and also the amount of fuel we use every year. We also try to save purchases so we can limit the number of deliveries/boxes to our house).

Safeway Gas Rewards: We only have two grocery stores in our small town and use safeway almost exclusively (not counting Costco). Our loyalty card gas rewards are usually 40 to 50 cents/gallon every few weeks and we only use those on my DH’s truck fill ups.

-We buy quite a bit of home improvement “stuff” and housewares at thrift stores and garage sales. In our early years, living in a town with expensive real estate, this was often only option. Now, finding whatever we need used has become a bit of a hobby.

Of course, we pay off our credit card bills every month (using autopay actually), so none of our cc rewards are negated by interested charges. I have a few other “hacks” or habits, but I’ll save those for later. For now, what are your best deals or tricks?

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Honestly one of the most sensible trick but can be hard to do - stop buying! I have really cut down on items like clothing, meals out etc - thanks Covid!!

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Check to see if AmEx’s free card will give you 3% back on groceries (and gas stations). Ours does, but I’ve had it for decades so I don’t know if we’re grandfathered in or if it’s still available.

I won’t keep any card that charges an annual fee. There are too many freebies to be had IMO. I won’t pay to shop in any store or for Amazon Prime either. We buy relatively little according to my peers, so that’s how we get extra money to travel.

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Are you near a southwest serviced airport. Their credit card for the companion pass may be a good replacement for the alaska airlines ones. There are good writeups on the companion pass and how/when to get it. Basically you bounce back and forth between the couple, referring and getting cards for the companion as necessary. It’s work, but at least worth a look.

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Lately we have been doing exceptionally well with supermarket rewards programs, I now belong to like 6 different ones. We are in an area with a variety of supermarkets and we study the ads and split our shopping across the different places. I click all the digital coupons I can before we go.

For example, this week at the Big Y, I got two frozen dinners (that was the limit two per customer) made by a local Italian caterer that are usually $15 each for $8 each instead. I love looking at the bottom of my grocery receipt and seeing it say you save 25% on this order.

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Thanks @Creekland. I should have added, than in addition to being cheap frugal :slight_smile: I can be a bit lazy. I won’t have a card that has revolving rewards. Too much trouble for me to pay attention to. The 3% back AmEx card would earn us about $60/year in extra rewards. I’m quick to dismiss that because now I have to track another card. BUT, when I think, OK…that’s equivalent to another free plane ticket every few years, then it does seem worth it. I’ll look into that one again.

I should add here: we RARELY eat out…even on vacation. Just not my thing anymore.

Another money saving travel discovery for us: we bought a 30 foot camper 3 years ago for next to nothing and have completely remodeled it (of course with salvaged ‘finds’). As a former tent camper (and occasional backpacker) I have become the person I used to make fun of. I MUCH prefer my camper to a hotel. I know for a fact it’s clean. The scenery is nearly always better. I have my kayak with me all the time. It’s quiet. I have all my stuff in it ready to go at the drop of a hat (no packing needed). Best of all it’s inexpensive --even taking the gas into account. We go on a few short trips every year, and so far one long trip/year. Last year was a 6 week trip to the Great Lakes and this year we are doing a 6 week fall trip to desert SW, with a stop inside the park at Yellowstone on the way. Win win: We get to see the country leisurely and it frees up more funds for bigger trips.

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I love my capital one venture X. I’m too lazy to keep up with multiple hotel/travel cards - though I did have (still have) a delta am ex card before this. There is a $400 annual fee, but you get $300 back if you book $300 of travel (flight, hotel, car) through their portal. If you use their portal, you get 5-10x the points. The portal prices are the same as hotels.com, AAA, etc. we stay in hotels several times a year, so it’s easy for us.

It has great kinds of protections. If you have your monthly cell phone (Verizon) paid through them, all phones on the plan have insurance. It also extends any warranty you have by another year. When I thought Best Buy/Asus weren’t going to fix S’ lemon laptop, I started a claim through them. But Asus did come through.

But my favorite is the cash back/statement credit if you buy stuff online. If you buying something online, I flip open to the app and see if it’s on there. Usually it is and I get 2-10% as a statement credit. You do have to activate it, but the app search feature is so easy to use. I got 10% off my Shutterfly order just today. (Graduation cards!)

And you also get a priority pass membership and can bring a guest into the airport lounges. Neither H nor I have ever had jobs where we got to do any kind of travel, so we feel real special now lol. I made him an authorized user, so when we went to Europe we could bring in younger S/GF. I am sure we ate/drank well over $100 worth of food. Lol

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We juggle which card we use by how much
They give back and also use the amex delta card to get a buddy ticket every year lots of extra miles (lots of different ways to get miles) and also to maintain status. It’s helped a lot. We use our discover card for different purchases when it gives us 5% back on different things each quarter (restaurants, supermarkets, Amazon, gym memberships and I forget what else, but there are always 2 per quarter). Use the free rebate programs on line and over the years have gotten probably around $2k of free money. If you or anyone else is interested, let Me know. Also, lots of discount corporate auto codes are available in on line if one is comfortable with that.

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Never could afford 529s but I signed up for uPromise when the kid were born and did various cashback things through the years - mostly grocery and drugstore couponing deals, like (now-defunct) Saving Star.

Whenever I had to go to Home Depot to buy something, I bought it through uPromise for store pickup and got the % cashback…every hotel is booked thru uPromise. Stuff like that.

I bought D19 a Macbook with her account (yes, you bet I signed up for two accounts, with two emails) and will have about $1,400 for S23 this summer for his Macbook. Waiting for the freebie from Apple - Beats or Airpods, hopefully - before we buy it.

I don’t do churning but I’m in awe of those who do. There’s a subReddit if you want to learn more. Basically jump from one credit card to another to amass the signup bonuses. It really takes some research to do it right. Maybe that’ll be my new hobby now that researching college is done.

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Oh we did the upromise card too back in the day

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While the 2 or 3% cashback on certain spending is nice, that represents little total savings for me. Some things that contribute far more to my savings and often make my life more enjoyable are below. I realize that these aren’t appropriate for everyone.

  • Keep as little as possible in low interest rate type checking accounts from larger banks. I instead keep short term savings/investments in things earning >5% (money market, tbill, bank offers, …). I also invest in long term investments each week, well beyond standard 401k/IRA/… limits.
  • Add solar to home. I live in an area of southern CA with lots of sun and high electric cost. Return on initial investment was ~4 years. Now I save thousands per year on electric costs.
  • Do more things myself instead of hiring others. For example, this weekend I plan to replace a board with dry rot on my trellis. In the past I would have hired someone. Over time I’ve learned to do an increasingly large portion of things myself.
  • Work from home (reduction in transportation cost, including wear on cars)
  • Eat at restaurants less, and get a larger portion of food at lower cost grocers such as Costco and Walmart.
  • Research before buying most things and be aware of new financial opportunities. For example, I bought a new cell phone last year. After researching, I chose a pixel 6a, which was ~$0 cost after discounts and trade in from buying/selling used phone with increased trade in value, and received $100 x 11 = $1100 in store credit at Google Store. Earlier this week, I invested a large amount in a bank offering the equivalent of a 7.5% APY after new account bonus, which I learned about on Slickdeals.
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Rarely eat out (once a month or less), cook on weekends and make bigger batches to freeze, packed lunch to work, almost never get sbux and the like, stopped buying new/trendy clothes (unless for a special occasion) in covid and realize I don’t really need them or miss buying them. And, we buy mostly affordable cars and use them forever.

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I always try to remember that discounts, rewards, etc. are all just marketing schemes. Yes, that includes credit card reward points.

I do the math every year to make sure that I am getting more per dollar from my rewards card than I am paying in the annual fee. If it comes too close, I call the card company and say I want to cancel. That’s good enough to get the fee waived at least once every two-five years in most cases. I’ve never had them say no, but I always call when I would be willing to cancel the card if they didn’t waive the fee.

I also track our cash. The main place where this is most helpful is with subscriptions. It’s so easy to subscribe there, kid subscribes there, DH subscribes there, etc. and before you know it, you’re spending hundreds of dollars a month on subscriptions. I track every dollar we spend so I notice when we need to talk about it. Subscriptions are the thing we have to discuss the most.

Tracking cash and having conversations (not arguments) about it is better than marriage therapy IMO. If you are single, you can do this yourself or with a friend and it works the same way.

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That’s a good one. I don’t pay to belong to any of the membership stores either. And I won’t pay for delivery of groceries, food, etc. I even- gasp- did my own grocery shopping in 2020. The Instacart people used to air-high-five me.

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I never used to pay for a credit card. Ever. But now I use the Delta Amex platinum card, as it gives me a free buddy ticket that would for sure cost more than the cost of the credit card, and as I said upthread I get lots of delta miles for shopping, dining, etc. I also have lyft and my gas company tethered to my delta account so I get miles that way too. DH has his hertz rental attached to get miles and I think some of his hotel accounts. Those miles add up. Recently used the miles to fly DS and granddaughter round trip here from the W coast, and delta is offering a 15% discount on booking with miles if you have a delta amex card. So that worked well too.

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If you are looking for ways to save/travel for less, you may want to check out The Points Guy. You need to know what your goals and priorities are, but they stay up to date on which cards offer what, how to maximize frequent flyer miles. and special offers around that. There are situations where an annual fee will be worth it.

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If you rent a car, Costco usually gives great discounts. Also, Budget and Avis are owned by the same company and Budget is usually cheaper.

If you want to pick your own car, National allows you to do this and for every 7 rentals, you get 1 free day that goes into your account. The benefit of National is you can rent a lower grade and they still allow you to pick some cars that are a class or two higher.

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I get his daily emails! Also lots of good info on the website “flyer talk”.

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We use our Citi Costco credit card for most things and we are able to get $1,000 plus back each year. When we get our rewards next year we are going to use it to buy alcohol for D1’s wedding next May.

I get money off for gas at Shell with my rewards card at our Ralph’s (Kroger) grocery store. D2 gets gas at Shell and is able to get $1 off per gallon regularly.

Last year we got a Crate and Barrel credit card since we were buying a new bed there and they had 20% back on our purchase to use at C&B. We bought a dresser and rug when they had the 20% back again and ended up getting 2 nightstands ($499 each) for less than $100 each.

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If renting a car, look for the mom and pop sales places. Often they will rent too, and for significantly less than the car rental places. In PR a couple months ago we paid half of what we would have paid with any traditional company or even the local car rental places.

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