I have a Paypal account. Mostly used for ebay sales and purchases, though we rarely sell anything via ebay anymore. I do have a Bill Me Later account linked to it, which I have used quite a bit, though I pay it off every month there is a charge on it. (No way I am paying 23% interest!). I decided to get the Paypal debit card. I thought this might be a better/safer way to make online purchases (that don't take Paypal directly as a payment method) and not be giving out my bank debit card info.
I just got the card today and see that there is a 1% cash back bonus on most all purchases. When buying something at a store, in person, I just have to use the "credit" option when checking out. So, if I pay my regular monthly bills and expenses on this card (the funding source is my checking account) I will earn 1% back. That could easily be $20 a month! I'll have to figure out what all I can pay with it, but should be just about everything except my house payment, home equity loan payment and my payment to mom for the loan. Groceries, Target, Walmart, bills I pay online, health insurance, etc. Kind of a roundabout way to have it come out of my checking, but I guess it's no different than using my Target debit card or my Shell gas card, which just take the charge right back out of my checking within a day or two. I'll just have to get in the habit of using it all the time now and get my online bill paying set up to use that card now.
To help offset the $400 a month increase in health insurance I've managed to find the following extra money:
Changed DH's phone plan $12 a month savings - though I'm offsetting $8 a month of that with our new Netflix service (which we are loving)
Cancelling our monthly pest control bill of $44 a month to replace it with DH applying the pesticide himself at approximately $1.15 per month cost.
New debit rewards of 1% cashback - should be at least $20 a month, I'm estimating.
We have cut down on hot water usage, so should see some bit of reduction in our electric bill. DH decided since he hardly ever leaves the house and it's winter and he's not outside getting dirty doing yardwork, he's just been taking a shower every other day. I've been trying to do the same a couple of times a week - if I'm not going anywhere on a weekend day or one of my work at home days.
Not even close to $400 a month - haha - but it's all I've come up with so far. Hopefully DS getting his own insurance eventually and another salary increase due in 6 months will then offset it.
We've done a few of the same things--hubby sprays the bug spray instead of paying for a service and he is absolutely loving Netflix. Im still avoiding any type of credit like the plague :)
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