New Credit Card deal!

 

**This post contains affiliate links that I may be compensated for if you use at no additional cost to you. 

I like to get the most of my money when planning our Disney Vacations.  

I open up a new card when we go in order to take advantage of the amazing new sign up deals!

This past month I found the Discover Visa card.

When you sign up under this referral link you automatically get a $50 statement credit when you make your first purchase within 3 months. 

The next step to saving on your Disney vacation is to purchase your Disney gift cards during the right time of the year.  

As I write this It's March 2021 and the quarterly cash back rewards deal is at grocery stores. You receive 5% back up to $75.  I waited until Meijer had their Mperks deal (for every $50 in Gift cards purchased receive a $5 Mperks coupon.) I bought $1,500 in gift cards which gave me $150 back in Mperks to use on my next purchase.  Since I used my new Discover Visa and it was during the quarter where I get 5% back at grocery stores I got another $75 savings.  Now here's the totally amazing part.... Since I am a new cardmember I also get double the cash back at the end of my first year. This means I'll be getting another $75 at the end of my year! 

** NOTE: I purchased $500 in gift cards with my MPerks account, $500 on my hubby's account and my mom was with me and purchased $500 on her account as there is a $500 limit in gift cards.

***Credit card NOTE: I HIGHLY recommend you call Discover ahead of time and let them know you will be purchasing $1,500 in gift cards in 3 separate transactions so they don't flag your account.  Give yourself enough time at the store in case they do flag the transaction, they will alert you and you will have to call the number in order to let them know it's you purchasing!  

(If Meijer doesn't have it's Mperks gift card deal again before the end of the month I recommend you wait until April if possible for the best savings.) 

You can just purchase your gift cards through a grocery store and still save 10%, but SAMs Club in April will get you more!

So in summary I purchased $1,500 in gift cards and got these rewards back: 

$50 statement credit for using the referral link.

$150 back in Meijer Mperks coupons.

$75 in 5% cash back on your Discover card.

$75 in double cash back at the end of the year. 

All in all for $1,500 in gift cards I only paid $1,150 for a savings of $350!! Thats a 23% SAVINGS!

Now the quarter for grocery stores is up at the end of March, but there is good news! April-June's deal is Club stores including SAMS club! So here I will outline what your potential savings would be there.

SAMS club offers gift cards in different amounts, but here the best percentage off is actually the $75 gift card packs. Saving you about 5%.

You want to purchase $1,500 in gift cards to get the full amount of cash back through you Discover card. 

That means you need 20 packs of the $75 cards. Now me trying to be a bit more friendly to the enviroment I personally would purchase the $150 card packs to save on some of that plastic so I will use that here.

Buy 10 packs of the $150 cards. for total of $1,449.80 (saving $51 already!) 

Here is the Summary. Purchased $1,500 in gift cards

$50 statement credit for using the referral link posted. 

$51 savings through SAMs.

$75 in cash back on your Discover card.

$75 in double cash back at the end of the year. 

So for $1,500 in gift cards you will only pay $1,249 for a savings of $251!! That's a 17% SAVINGS!

Let me know if you try any of these deals I'd love to hear about your savings! If you have any other savings questions or Disney questions I'm happy to help! 

When you are ready to book your next Disney Vacation let me know my concierge services are at no additional cost to you when you book through me! I will get you the best deal out there!

Money Making App #4

Dosh

I'm loving the newest app I'm using, and I know you will too!! I've said this before, but this is truly the easiest one so far!   All you have to do is sign up HERE (you will receive a credit once you link your first card, and I will receive a referral bonus at no cost to you.)  Once you have your account you will want to link a credit card to it.  The rest is easy going, you shop, use the linked card and dosh will credit you back a percentage of your purchase!  Just the other day I shopped at Carters, and before I even left the store I got the notification that I had received $6.18 cash back.  It doesn't get much easier than that! 

Here are the details. 

Pay with your linked card to 1,000's of stores and restaurants to receive up to 10% cash back!

In order to receive immediate cash back you will need to run your debit card as a credit card.

Sometimes it can take a few days for things to show up, for instance when I use my SAMS club MasterCard it takes about 3-4 days for my cash back to appear. When I used my Visa at SAMS club the cash back appeared immediately. If it has been a few days and still no pending activity you can create a ticket easily and they will get back to you.

When you are ready to cash out you have a few options.  You may choose to transfer your money to your bank account, Venmo, PayPal, or even donate your money to charity!

Here is a glimpse into my current balance, the purchase at carters yesterday was a small one to return/exchange some things from our earlier trip that got me $6 back. SAMS club is a limit of $15 earned per day, so we made a couple different trips this week there as I had some big purchases.  This works on Disney cards at SAMS yahoo!!! (The only thing I suggest is purchasing another item along with the cards just incase as I have heard that gift card only purchases sometimes don't get cash back.)

There is it! Simple isn't it? Let me know if you are already using Dosh what your favorite cash back place is, if you aren't I can't wait to hear how much you will start making! Let me know if you have any questions as always I'm happy to help!

Money Saving apps Post #1 Shop Kick

I have recently re-discovered a bunch of money saving apps. I had downloaded a few of them years ago, but never made the effort to learn how to use them. Boy am I kicking myself now!  To think of all the money I could have been earning just by doing what I do every day! After our recent Disney trip I decided we just must go again, as everyone knows Disney is not cheap so I went searching on Facebook for help.  I came across a page for everything Saving for Disney which includes a lot of helpful hints as well as ways to save/make money for Disney (or anything you want).  

The first App I want to introduce you to is Shopkick. In a nutshell you have your Shopkick app at the ready while at a variety of different stores including places like Target, Meijer, Best Buy, Walgreens etc. 

Ways to earn kicks:

1) Walk-Ins: some stores will give you points simply for walking into their store! Have your app open as you walk in and your points should immediately show up. If a store has a walk-in opportunity you will see an icon of a walking person underneath it.

2) Scanning: Once you have clicked on the store you are at you will see a variety of items listed.  All you have to do is find that item while you are already walking through the store and scan it.  

3) Purchasing: If you purchase one of the items on the list you just take a quick pic of your receipt and you will get points, typically quite a few.  Keep in mind you aren't saving if this item isn't something you already meant to purchase (this is how they get ya). 

4) Points per $1: Some stores will also include a points per $1 spent. You will see a credit card icon under the store if this is the case.  Most stores seem to be 1 kick per $1 spent. Although Carter's is 3 kicks per $1 spent  which is a great deal if you are already going to be shopping for kids clothes!

5) Linking a credit card: This is the one way I have not tried out yet, from what I understand once you link your credit card to your account you will automatically receive your kicks immediately without having to scan your receipt. Stores like Carter's mentioned above require a linked credit card as you cannot scan in your receipts to this store. 

6) Online shopping: There is an extensive list of online stores you can shop with to earn kicks/$ spent.  Just click not the store link through the Shopkick app and you are good to go!

7) Referral Bonus: HERE is where we can both earn some quick kicks! Use my referral code when you join.  You can click on the link here or enter in my code in the promotions area (click on your pic in the top left hand corner, scroll down to promotions, click on "Add friend code"). My referral code is EARN778236 All you have to do is earn your first kicks within 7 days by walking into a listed store or scanning an item and you and I will both receive 250 Kicks! 

Now for the details.

*In general 500 kicks = $1  
for example a $25 Walmart gift card will be 6,250 kicks.
If you would prefer to have your reward sent to your PayPal account you can do that too $25= 6,300 kicks. 

*Your kicks can expire if your account is inactive for 6 months.  Inactive means you haven't earned any kicks in that time period. 

*You can cash out for as low as $2 or 500 Kicks.

Now for the Disney fun! From what I have found so far this is your best bet for getting Disney gift cards the cheapest.

1) Cash in your Kicks for a PayPal credit, use your Best Buy credit card (or any credit card) at Best Buy to purchase $100 in Disney gift cards. Be sure to have your Swag Bucks app open so they can scan your QR code to earn your SwagBucks. 

    For Example: cash out $100 to your PayPal account (25,200 Kicks) Go to a Best Buy store and grab $100 in Disney gift cards. Make sure to have the cashier scan your SwagBucks QR code (HERE is a link to SwagBucks you will automatically earn 150 swagbucks just for using my link). I will be making a separate post for SwagBucks soon, in the meantime just let me know if you have any questions! Scanning your SwagBucks QR code earns you 2% back (this number may change be sure to check) plus when you spend the $100 you will get an additional 750 points. This will save you over 10% off your cards in swag bucks alone! Now if you have a Best Buy credit card you may use that and earn an additional 5% back in Best Buy rewards. 
*The best way to do this deal is only purchasing $100 gift cards at a time as you can only get that 750($7.50) bonus once a day. 

Now while you are in Best Buy you should have already earned Kicks just for walking through the door, and currently I'm showing 750 Kicks available just in scanning items as you walk around. 

2) Now if you want to make it super easy you can just cash out for a Disney gift card to begin with

3) You can also cash out for a Walmart gift card and use this at Sams Club where they have slightly discounted Disney Gift cards (as of right now the best way to buy them is the $50 stand alone gift cards not the packs of gift cards).

WOW that's a lot of information! I have been doing ALOT of reading and I wanted to pass along all my info to you so you will not only save money, but also time from having to learn all of this on your own.

In my first 2 days I earned 900 kicks just for going to the grocery store I always shop at! Bonus for those shopping with kids, my kids have a lot of fun searching for the items on the list and of course using my phone to scan them, so much so there may have been some arguing about who gets to go next! 


I think that about covers it, but please ask any questions you may have I know I put a lot of information out there.  Look for more money saving app reviews coming. 

Be sure to Follow me, and if you enjoy what you are reading share it with your friends. Thank You!

100 Disney Movie Challenge!

We recently took the kids on a VERY impromptu trip to Disney! I'm talking the idea came up and we were there within 2 weeks! I had always wanted to watch a bunch of Disney movies before we went like a movie bucket list of sorts.  Considering we had no time to do so before hand I set out to begin once we got home.  I searched and searched for a list that was just right, but I couldn't find one that had a good mix of all the movies I wanted to be on it.  Here is what I came up with on my own I hope you enjoy it, we are having fun so far with it. 

I printed out our list (it takes 4 pages) taped together and hung up on the side of our fridge! The kids are loving crossing off the movies we have watched.  We have seen a few on this list of course, but I think it will be fun to see how many we can watch/re-watch in the next year. As I type they are watching another one right now :) I guess all this snow we are having  is good for watching movies. 

Here is a link for you to download your own copy of our list.  I hope you enjoy it!