Fixing the house without breaking the bank.

I'm just going to come out and say it, I’m cheap. I hate spending money, and unfortunately, with a whole house renovation in the works, there is a lot of money to spend.

The internet is helping us save money wherever possible. Obviously it makes comparison shopping easier. We noticed that prices on appliances at all the big box retailers varied wildly—up to a few hundred dollars from store to store—so it pays to do a little basic research before heading out.

The next big help has been my bank’s reward program. They offer specials every month for most popular stores, and I can rack up anywhere between 1% and 15% cash back for purchases made online with my debit card. I just have to log into my bank account, and check what rewards they are offering. For some big-ticket purchases (I’m looking at you mattress and box spring) it can really add up.

My last tip is something I just recently discovered. I knew that there were websites where you can sell gift cards that you don’t want. Well, the same sites resell those gift cards. I read about one of these sites http://www.giftcardrescue.com/ on a blog, and was little eerie of it. I decided to test it with a small purchase, and got a Home Depot gift card worth $39.99, paying $36.99. Woohoo, big bucks right? Well, the order went fine, and I got my gift card for the full $39.99.



Since it went well, I ordered another, this one a $285 card that I paid $266.65 for, and again, it worked without a hitch.

Obviously we’re not talking bank breaking sums here, but this means that I can get about 7% off of everything I buy at Home Depot. Ever. Which I think is pretty damn cool.

So I fully recommend giftcardrescue.com. Just two things to keep in mind about it: (1) Both times the card I received was not a gift card, but a store credit card, so don’t be thinking you can be sneaky and buy the cards as presents; and (2) my credit card company flagged the transaction as “suspicious” and I had to call their fraud division to verify that I did place the order (annoying, but not enough to turn me off to shopping there again).

So there are my little tips for making all this spending a little less painful for my fellow cheapskates.

And now, because I almost made an entire post without talking about the Money Pit, here’s a cat. There are three cats in the area that I suspect live behind our garage, this one looks freakishly like Max.