I’ve long been hunting some new earphones for working out. At the same time, I’ve also been recovering from some big and unexpected expenses, so have worked to be really intentional on reigning in discretionary spend and budgeting deliberately. This most recent REI experience is a perfect highlight of being able to take advantage of earned rewards and promotional offers to still get some fun toys, but also minimize out of pocket expenses.
I paid nothing for a $175 purchase, courtesy of discounts and rewards and earned gift cards
- REI sale – 20% off one full-price item is a solid deal, especially for the many electronics eligible. This saved $25.99 on my new earphones.
- REI dividend/rewards – 10% of purchases annually are returned as a gift card to REI members. This is on top of the 5% back on REI purchases on the credit card. This saved me $46.85 on my transaction
- Capital One Shopping gift card – I had a small stockpile of rewards sitting in Capital One shopping from portal earnings. This can’t be redeemed directly for cash, but it can be redeemed for a number of $1 rewards = $1 gift card. This saved me $104.69 on my transaction.
There’s no magical trick, beyond take advantage of promotions and offers, and the lesson that sometimes loyalty does pay (that dividend has me coming back year after year!)
Post-ending gif (this is me with my sweet new sweat-proof, bone-conducting Shockz!)
