Gift List: Solved

Photo by Beatrice Murch

I found an unbelievable bargain for my Christmas shopping. Restaurant.com sells gift certificates at an enormous discount. I mean $3 for a $10 gift card, $10 for a $25 gift card, and $30 for a $75 gift card.

This is the perfect gift for people who are far away and have too much stuff. You can enter their zip code and choose a restaurant near them. And most are independent, not chains. I found a bunch of restaurants I know and like.

Be aware, though that there may be some restrictions on the gift cards. Like it may require an additional purchase, or it may not be valid on weekends. In these cases it's more like a coupon. Still, in these days when fewer people are eating out on their own dime, it's nice to have the cost of a nice meal subsidized.

But wait, there's more. If you shop through (which is a good idea anyway) you can stash 15% of the cost in your college savings account.

Even if you don't have kids of your own, you can designate Upromise savings for some other kid you know.

Win, win, win.

Free Money

Photo by CleanWalmart

I read about this elsewhere in the blogosphere last week, but it bears repeating. The kids and I took a trip to the grocery store to find the CoinStar Machine a few days ago. Why? Because not only does CoinStar waive fees if you request a gift certificate instead of cash, but they are also offering an additional $10 gift certificate if you redeem over $40 before December 7.

We had previously scoped out all the local banks, and could not find one that a) had a coin counting machine or 2) didn't charge a fee to count the coins. For little Paul Poorhouse, it didn't seem fair to have to give up some of his hard-saved $65 in coins. The problem is the same with Coinstar, but only if you take the money in cash.

Paul didn't really want to spend all his money at one place. So here's what I did: We emptied Paul's jar plus Mr. Poorhouse's drawer, plus my kitchen coin stash all together. I will request (by mail) an Amazon gift card for the $132. I will give little Paul his $65 (I can finally swing that) and I will spend the gift card on holiday presents for my remote family, which now, thankfully I don't have to mail, because I have Amazon Prime which gives you free shipping for a year.

So, I have $77 in free money--cuz face it, when it's in the drawer, it isn't money--to spend on gifts that I didn't think I had.

Cool.

Win win win.

Here are the details from CoinStar's site.

Be careful not to lose your receipt from the machine though. This is a mail-in program, kinda like a rebate. I'm guessing there are lots of people who end up not claiming their gift cards. Don't be one of them!