Wanna learn a neat trick?
Well, I’ll tell you!
A couple of weeks ago we found ourselves in need of a new washer and dryer. I was asking my friend Kacia for a review of her Samsung set and she gave me some advice that would be cruel to keep to myself. (and therein lies the trick I have to share today!)
Tip #1: If you’re buying your appliances at Lowe’s or Home Depot, first make a run to the Post Office. Ask for a change of address/moving kit and in that envelope, there will be a Lowe’s 10% off coupon. (And of course you know that you can use Lowe’s/Home Depot coupons interchangeably at those stores because they’re competitors and they’d be silly not to accept each other’s coupons. Silly.) So, if you’re planning to drop two grand on appliances and other supplies, 10% = $200! (Or, if you’re in Tennessee, pretty much just tax. Oy.)
Tip #2: (and this is the really great tip – even thought it’s probably worth less, it’s a little less obvious and SO exciting!) After you’ve left the Post Office, on your way to Lowe’s (or HD…) stop at Kroger and make your cashier have crazy eyes when you slap $2000 worth of Lowe’s gift cards on the conveyor belt.
And if you’re lucky (I just happened to be!), they’ll be quadrupling fuel points for the purchase of all gift cards.
Translation: $2000 in gift cards = 8,000 Kroger Fuel points!!!
Further translation: The next 4 times you fill up at a Kroger fuel station, you’ll get $2.00 off/gallon and your pump will look something like this:
Now, if you’re anything like me, the wheels in your head are going to start turning and you’re going to want to know how much you can work the system. Can we fill up both of our tanks AND some of our friends tanks – as long as we keep the pump going? What about boats? Jet skis? RVs? (not that I have any of these very fun vehicles, but at that price per gallon, I would consider!)
Well, before I organized a neighborhood “Party at the Pump”, I called Kroger Fuel customer service and got the skinny: The $2.00 off/gallon is limited to 35 gallons.
Well, that’s still a lot of gallons!
So, we all waited for our tanks to get as low as we could bear (and by “we”, I mean me, Ryan and my brother-in-law), and we made a date one evening to convene on the gas station around the corner.
Because we’re hardcore and who doesn’t love a good fuel deal?
We arranged all of our cars so the one pump could reach all three tanks, asked the fuel attendant to help us get it right, then stood around and congratulated ourselves as our tanks filled at less than half the price of those around us.
Our final total for 35 gallons of gas was $47.92, and we topped off our car, van, and still had 6 discounted gallons to spare for the Faireses.
So, the moral of this story?
1. Friends are full of good advice – ask for it! (okay, also occasionally crazy advice… but let’s focus on the good advice for now.)
2. If you’re fixing to spend a chunk of change anyway, make it work for you in as many ways as possible! Buying carpet? Wood floors? New doorknobs? Or even taking your lady friend out for a fancy dinner? Buy gift cards and get rewards!
(This post was TOTALLY not sponsored by Kroger or Lowe’s or Home Depot or the Faireses. I just love a good deal and stuff like this is very exciting – hence a very excited voicemail left for Christine as I collected drove away from Kroger with my fuel rewards balance in hand. Okay, so I’m kind of a nerd…)
Just emailed this post to my husband and I’m preeeeettttyyy sure his heart skipped a beat. Great tip! Exciting to think of the possibilities with other giftcards + gas rewards…
Haha! I love it! What a fun tip!
This was awesome!
too bad none of our grocery stores have gas stations :-(
AND if you head to Ebates.com, then thru them to HD or Lowes.com, order your stuff using the pick-up in store option, you’ll earn another 2-4% (or more!!) back. So on $2K, that’s another $40-80 in yo pocket! :)
Hard to beat $1.36 a gallon! Only thing to keep in mind is if you pay with giftcards you’ll loose the extended warranty offered by your CC company. Our CCs double all appliance warranties (or extend a minimum of 3 years) and this has saved us more than once when something blew out the day/week/month after the warranty ended.
main reason I shop at Kroger! Buying gift cards when they are doubling them is the best! They carry Target gift cards at our Kroger, and that is what helps me out!
Definitely just submitted this deal idea to MoneySavingMom.com. This is great!
Great advice… never thought about this but we are negotiating on a house now that needs all new kitchen appliances! and the fact that we will be having a longer commute will help use up those gas rewards too!!! Thanks!
Score! And I thought we were doing good to buy enough groceries at Food City to get our gas down to $3.09! You are the queen!
And thanks for the tip about the moving kit/coupon. I’ll keep that one handy for our next big project!
This is probably “frowned upon”, but almost every time I go into the post office I ask for a moving guide. We got a new grill this weekend and it was so great to have that extra 10% off!
OH MY HEART I AM DYING LAUGHING!!!!!!!
I just read your entire post to my dear husband. yes. it’s almost 1am and we’re awake. Why? to read your post of course.
AHHHH! i love your face.
Ahhh that’s awesome! Also during the entire post I was struck, once again, with how much I want to move South. Where I live, the people at Kroger would have had a huuuge attitude, the people at the pump would have also had a huge attitude and been mean, and while we were filling up, people probably would have been cursing and honking if someone dared pull a caravan into a gas pump and THEN took pictures. (This would be true even if there was another open pump for them to use.) The south is such a happy, friendly place! And I will be there soon!
this is so brilliant. i love it when you work the system like that. the real question remains: did you surrender the coupon?
and my sweet captcha was apropos: putting money into a piggy bank!
My hubby & I do that all the time! Well, not spend $2000, but we buy gift cards for target, amazon for textbooks, sears for our AC & so on. We almost always save between .70 & 1.00 and we go together. It’s a little embarrassing sometimes, though. ;) we try to go at a not busy time.
Going to pass this onto my daughters-in-law ….any neat ways to communicate to in-laws is sweet to my ears. She is great and you are too ..sharing the secrets for shopping wisely. GOD IS GOOD too.