Platinum Promos and Programs

So it's getting around that time again to start shopping for holiday gifts. And I have to say, living on a limited budget begets some pretty creative ways to save money. I figured I'd share some of my discoveries with you as leaves turn their colors and thoughts turn to presents.

1) If you have a Bank of America account and you do most of your shopping online, then you're in luck with this tidbit. If you're not familiar already, I introduce the Add It Up program. Unless it's a very obscure website, chances are you'll find the website you want to shop at in their database. You simply pair a credit and/or debit card with the program, click through Bank of America's database to the website you intend to shop at, and go to town. To give you an example, the Add It Up program was advertising 11% cash back for Priceline.com for a limited time, so I purchased my ticket home for Thanksgiving there and will be receiving roughly $20 cash back in the near future.* I hear Discover and CitiBank also offer programs like this as well.

2) Google promo codes when you see the box to enter a promo code on the checkout screen. Usually websites like RetailMeNot.com and the like have some promotional codes for even the most obscure websites. I've saved and additional $5-10 on average from doing this.

3) If Add It Up doesn't have the website you wish to shop from, use your Frequent Flyer Miles for whatever reward program(s) you have. Getting miles like this is the easiest and free way to keep earning miles for travel, or at least to hold onto miles and prevent them from expiring if you're like me and don't fly often enough to actually garner enough frequent flyer miles for a whole round-trip ticket from flying alone.

4) This final one is a more generic tip, and I usually don't have time for it, but if triple coupon-value week at the Teeter gets you excited, then there are blogs out there that have grocery and drugstore coupons for you so that you don't have to invest $14 for a 6-month subscription to the Washington Post in the hope that you'll save more money in the value of coupons than the subscription is worth.

Happy shopping!


*(To make sure the program signature isn't lost while I'm browsing, I usually go through the Add It Up program again after I've added things to my cart, and they're still there after I go through it. This way I haven't had any problems with Bank of America not registering the cash back rewards.)