Generally rebates are mail-in offers manufacturers offered directly to customers. In reality rebates are any money or item that can be used as money returned to you for making a certain purchase there by lowering your final cost of the item. Rebates may come in the form of cash, gift cards, products or coupons. Rebate forms must be printed in their original form and may not be photocopied or scanned. Rebates are really the cream of the crop because here in Michigan and in many other regions you will very seldom be handed overage back from a purchase but by combining rebates you can create overage and in the end make money off transactions
Rebates can be found in stores, store advertisements and online at the manufacturer’s website. Many rebates require you to save your UPC codes from the products and have an original receipt. It is very important to read all requirements on the rebate form. Most rebate offers specify product varieties that must be purchased and postmarked within a certain date range. Rebates are usually received in four to eight weeks.
I have been using these smart-shopping techniques for about 11 months right now and I am just now getting into the habit of sending in more rebates.
If you are great with rebates and already use them try using Rebate Tracker to keep track of your rebates, or you could create your own spreadsheet to track them.
One example of how this can work is a purchase I recently made at Target. I purchased 2 Scrubbing Bubbles, One Toilet Gel and one Toilet cleaner. I actually had two rebates in this case as Target has its own instant rebate system frequently offering $5 gift cards for their purchase. I used one coupon for $1.00 off the scrubbing bubbles, 1 coupon for $.75 off scrubbing bubbles, 1 coupon to get the toilet cleaner free when you buy the toilet gel and one coupon for $1 off the toilet gel. I also handed over a coupon to receive a $5 Target card when three scrubbing bubbles are purchased and I paid with a $5 card from a previous transaction. All this saved me $14.35 in this transaction and I walked out with 4 bathroom products and a $5 gift card and paid just $2.47 out of pocket! If you are the type that counts your rebates when the transactions occur that made this transaction a $2.53 money-maker for me! However it actually gets better because the manufacturer SC Johnson (good until 06/30/10) was offering a $5 rebate in the form of a check when 3 of their products were purchased! So I then submitted for that rebate and overall that would make this a $7.47 money-maker for me! Doing transactions like this do make me more conscious and motivate me to continue to cash in on rebates!
Some hold on to their rebates and use that money for groceries and to lower their overall expenses. Some chose to put it into savings which is what I do.
This week's task:
Check out this list of rebates here.
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I like to use the rebates on my next purchase. It's fun to spend only $6 or so at the store ... especially when one will get another rebate or coupons back from that purchase!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely when it comes to the pharmaices and instant rebates of that type I always use them on the next transaction to lower OOP. But when it comes to mail in rebates that are returned to me in the form of a check I usually put that into my savings account since we have been so limited in our income recently.
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