imple Vegetarian | The last $1.53

Last November, in guidance for the holidays, I commenced cashing in a lot of my rewards from my online survey web sites for credit that I ought to positioned in the direction of vacation provides. For most of them, I chose Amazon.Com credit score rating because it's easiest to apply; in spite of the reality that I'mboycotting Amazon.Com itself attributable to its loathsome exertions practices, I can though use the credit score rating to buy stuff from 1/3-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace. I ended up buying six affords this manner, shaving $a hundred off my normal excursion price range.

However, because I knew there might be some items that I honestly could not find out on Amazon Marketplace, I determined to hedge my bets through cashing in $25 worth of survey rewards for a pay as you go Visa card, which can be used everywhere. Unfortunately, the cardboard ended up no longer arriving until after we'd completed all our excursion shopping, so I ended up the usage of it to buy a birthday gift for myself as a substitute: an awful lot-wished pairs of SmartWool socks. With shipping, they got here to for $23.47. (I apprehend, this looks as if hundreds for two pairs of socks, however agree with me, in a wintry weather like this one, SmartWool is a totally worthwhile splurge.)

Now, if you've performed the math for your head, you'll see that this left me with virtually $1.53 at the prevailing card. Originally, I belief that I have to just load this surplus onto my new Dunkin Donuts card and be finished with it. However, once I went to the DDPerks website, I located that you can most effective load up the card in increments of $10. Great. Now what end up I going to do with that more $1.Fifty 3?

Fortunately, nowadays I occurred in the course of a piece of writing on the Wise Bread website that addresses this very hassle. The article and the comments underneath provide numerous recommendations for the usage of up the ones remaining little dribs and drabs left over on a gift card:

1. Use it to buy gas. A commenter says you can just "Stick the card in and it will pump right up to the last penny before turning off." Unfortunately, this isn't an option here in New Jersey, where pumping your own gas is a criminal act. (Well, a misdemeanor, anyway.)
2. Launder the extra dollars through Amazon.com. As the site explains it, you can use the exact sum left on the gift card to purchase an Amazon.com gift "card," which is actually a credit code you receive by e-mail. You can then immediately turn around and apply this to your credit balance on the site. The nice thing is, you can do this with as many cards as you like, so if you have $1 here, $5 here, and so on, you can consolidate them all into one nice sum that you can use for anything at Amazon or Amazon Marketplace. (Apparently the site has dropped its requirement that gift cards be at least $5, so there's nothing to stop you from transferring your last $1.53 this way.)
3. Split a bill at the store. The article mentioned that Walgreens, along with many other stores, will let you pay the first $1.53 of your bill with your gift card, then pay the balance with cash or credit.

This third option looked like the easiest to me, so I thought I'd give it a try. Since the author of the article had used this ploy successfully at Walgreens, I decided to try it at Rite Aid, where I needed to pick up some meds anyway. However, since I'd never done it there before, I was a little uncertain, so I asked the cashier first whether bill splitting was allowed—explaining that I had "about $1.50 left" on my gift card I wanted to use up. The cashier wasn't at all fazed by my request, but unfortunately, she took me at my word about the amount; she just punched in $1.50 to be charged to the gift card, leaving me with 3 cents. I didn't want to hold up the line any longer by explaining that I was a little off, so I just took my $1.50 credit and ran.

So now I have 3 cents left over on this card, and at this point, it's hardly even worth the effort of trying to use it. I'm content to write it off as the cost of a useful lesson; if I ever need to spend a leftover dollar or two, Rite Aid is happy to help. I just need to remember next time to give them the exact amount and not let those last few pennies go to waste.