One of my sisters and her husband live in a fantastic old row house in an historic civil war town in Maryland. Like most people who live in old houses, renovation construction is a lifestyle for them.
I was on vacation with my sister this past week and she shared a neat trick. Preparatory to beginning any construction project, my brother-in-law goes to Home Depot or Lowes and prices out all the materials he will need for the project. Once he knows the approximate cost of materials he goes to his local grocery store and buys enough gift cards to cover his Home Depot or Lowes purchases. Giant Eagle, his grocery store, like many, has its own chain of gas stations at which you can get a $.10 per gallon discount for every $50 spent on groceries in their store and a $.20 per gallon discount for gift card purchases. These discounts are cumulative so if you spent $600 in the grocery store on gift cards in one month you'd save $2.40 per gallon.
They just finished renovating a bedroom and, without buying a single grocery item, they have managed to get two free tanks of gas in the past month by purchasing gift cards to cover the cost of materials. Grocery stores now sell all sorts of gift cards. Buying a new television set? Why not get a Best Buy gift card from your grocery store to cover the cost? They had a big printing project recently and bought a Staples gift card before purchasing printer ink.
Obviously a little more planning and time is required since you have to figure out what your item will cost and then go buy the gift cards before making the final purchase but the rewards make it seem well worth it. Even if you're not making a big purchase, if you regularly shop at Staples for example, you could buy a $25 or $50 Staples gift card the next time you are grocery shopping and then spend it at Staples as needed and still get a gas discount, albeit on a smaller scale.
Clearly your grocery store has to offer some sort of frequent shopper premium for this to be worthwhile. Ingles, the store in which I currently shop, offers a $.10 per gallon discount for every $100 spent per month and Safeway, which has no gas station, offers $10 off future grocery store purchases for every $100 gift card purchase.
Most of these premiums have expiration dates and many have limits so read the fine print, make sure you have a good understanding of the program and then jump in! I'm going to the grocery store in just a bit and plan to scan the available gift cards. My store also had gift cards for iTunes and Amazon.com. I shop at both places frequently and randomly so I bought a $25 card for each and loaded them into my respective accounts. I've never even looked at the gift card display before!
I think this is a great idea and I am so happy it came up in conversation so I could share it with you! Is this news or am I the only one who never heard of it before?
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1 comments:
That's a great idea. I have bought gift cards for the grocery store when they had promotions for them at the store but never for other retailers.
I'll have to see if Ralphs has a regular promotion.
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