The Shopping Hack You’re Not Taking Advantage Of

The Holidays are creeping up on us faster than we can realize. I mean someone please tell me where November went. If you’re anything like me, it’s time to start thinking about doing some Holiday shopping.

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday have all come and gone and I haven’t purchased anything. (Pay schedules amiright?) I’m writing this during the Holiday season, but in reality, you can use this technique year round.

This technique is something I took advantage of all last year, and it helped me out big time. I’m talking about using your debit or credit card to rack up those sweet sweet rewards.

This is the perfect time of year (although you can do it year round) to earn and stock pile those debit and credit card rewards. My debit card is set to earn $0.10 on every purchase. That might not seem like a lot, but you have no idea how much I swipe my card. I’m a professional millennial, I don’t carry cash.

My credit card is set to earn 1% cash back on all purchases but during the last quarter of the year, I can earn 5% cashback on all wholesale and Amazon purchases. Can you guess which card is ready to be charged by Amazon?

If you’re already a heavy swiper (or chip insert-er or online purchaser) like myself, this is one of the easiest ways to take advantage of using your cards. Last year I racked up $30-something during the holidays in rewards and because it was my first year with the company, they doubled my earnings.

I know that credit isn’t everyone’s thing. It took me a while and a lot of research before I started using mine. I sill didn’t completely get a grip on it until I started working for a financial institution. My point, however, was that more and more banks realize this are starting to offer rewards on debit card purchases as well.

I earned $10 in rewards by swiping my debit card in 1.5 months. If your current debit card is not earning you points or rewards, you may want to consider switching to a card that does. I didn’t have to get a new card, my bank just switched me to a new plan that has the feature available.

If you have an account with rewards earning capabilities, I urge you to take a look and take advantage. You may be sitting on unused free money. I’m not telling you to go out and make unnecessary purchases just so you can earn rewards. But if you’re already spending the money, make the smart decision and earn rewards for something you were going to do anyway.

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Originally published at https://www.thepromillennial.com on December 3, 2018.