Cheap Entertainment Series Continued

So far we have discussed planning for entertainment and arranging for free babysitting! To continue my Friday discussion on cheap entertainment, I am going to give you my sources for free gift cards! My husband Mark and I have built up quite a stash of gift cards. Two of our sources for free gift cards are My Points and Discover Cash Back.

My Points is a free online shopping program that credits you points for purchases you make online by clicking through their website. The fabulous part of the program is that you also get points for simply opening emails they send you or for taking surveys. Personally I do not do a lot of online shopping, but around Christmas I did buy a couple of things online. If the retailer you are planning on purchasing from happens to be affiliated with My Points, then by simply taking a couple of seconds, and going to the My Points website you will earn points for your purchase. When you accumulate enough points you can redeem them for gift cards. Since I don't do much online purchasing most of my points come through just clicking on their emails. This does not take me more than about one minute each day. My Points will clutter up your inbox though, with several offers being sent to you each day. If you are concerned with that you could always open up a free email account just for My Points. I also do not take the time to complete the surveys they send because I have more valuable things to be doing with my time! You can also earn points by referring people to My Points! So as a little plug here, if you are interested in joining just email me or leave a comment with your email and I will refer you to the program!

For those of you who are already My Points members, here is a little tip for you! SIGN YOUR HUSBAND UP! Maybe he will make some purchases once in awhile, but at the very least you will receive twice the amount of emails and twice the amount of those points! He will need to have a separate email address than you though in order to sign up. But as I mentioned before you can easily set up a free separate email address for him through gmail, hotmail, etc.

Secondly, we use the Discover Cash Back program to redeem several gift cards each year. Please note that we pay off our bill for this credit card in FULL each and every month. If you are not confident in your ability to pay off your bill each month than please do not use this method. Also please remember that sometimes using credit cards instead of cash results in overspending. If you are confident in your ability to pay off your bill and not overspend then consider using a credit card that rewards you for your purchases! In our opinion, if you are going to spend the money (for gas, necessary purchases, etc.) you might as well get a small reward back for it!

Enjoy using those free gift cards to lower your entertainment budget this year! Check out this site for more money saving ideas!