Monthly Archives: December 2008

Bonus Gift Cards

From Wikimedia Commons

From Wikimedia Commons

Outback, Red Robin, and other major restaurant chains gave bonuses this holiday season to those who “gave” gift cards. The Outback version of this was buy $100 in gift cards and receive a $20 bonus gift card yourself. Can anyone calculate the rate of return on your money for that investment? That’s a 20% (20/100 = .2 = 20%) return on your investment. So, if you eat at outback 3-4 times a year, as my wife and I do, this might be a good investment for you.

What’s the catch? Well, with Outback’s deal you must use your bonus gift card any time between Jan 1, 2009 and Feb 10, 2009. For us, that isn’t a big deal - we’d be more than happy to go to a nice steak dinner for $20 (40 - 20 = $20) in the next month and a half. Anyway, these are only a good deal if you already frequent these establishments.  If you don’t eat out, or you don’t eat out at these particular restaurants, don’t bother with these deals.  However, if you do eat at these places, these offers can be good investments.

If you’re wondering about the image, I did a search for “bonus” on Wikimedia Commons, which is where I get all my images, and this was the most interesting result that appeared, so I used it.

Back-Scratching Our Way to Financial Freedom

From Wikimedia Commons

From Wikimedia Commons

From time to time you’ll see me post deals on this site.  Offers like “sign up for this service through me and I’ll get some kickback (and you may too).”  Admitedly, this is partly to make money for my wife and I, but the other part is just the idea that’s there’s extra money up for grabs that someone can have.  And the more we can help each other take advantage of those opportunities, the better we will do and the quicker we will find financial freedom.

This also has something to do with financial optimization - which is just the idea that your finances should work for you.  So if you have an account at a bank and you receiver $20 for each person you refer to the service, it’s good for your to refer people.  And it’s better for everyone involved if I go through you rather than going straight through the company.  If I go through the company solely, and do not credit you for the referal, the company keeps that extra $20.  However, if we view it as there’s an extra $20 someone will get, “who do we want to have that money?”, I’ll choose the consumer every time.

For me personally, I will not recommend or talk about anything that I don’t think is a good product or idea just to get a referal.  It’s not worth it to me.  Honesty is really important and I value trust - which is partly why I’m authoring this post.  I just want everyone to know if I post an offer where I or we both get rewards if you sign up, it because I like the product myself and want to optimize both your and my finances.  I want our money to work for us.

So just as with the ING Direct offer, you have a chance for a 10% instant return on your investment (ROI), which is an incredible offer, and I want you to be able to take advantage of it.  Additionally for me, I get $10 for the deal myself, which ain’t bad either.  Any time anyone can get free money with little work and no consequences, I think it’s a good thing.

Anyway, that’s my thinking.  I’d prefer to refer you to ING or something like that, then you refer your friends and all of uss end up with more money than we had, rather than the companies keeping all their money.  Hopefully that makes sense and hopefully you see the benefit in it for both you and I.  Sometimes “the Man” just wants your money, but other times the Man has a back scratcher too - and I think we should get our backs scratched if that’s an option.

Howdy!

Hans Hoffmann Red Squirrel 1578

Hans Hoffmann Red Squirrel 1578

Just gearing up to give you some links and helpful tips from my life as a squirrel trying to get a nut.