All resellers have the same goal. We want to buy as many profitable items as our business account will allow. Today’s blog post will help you find ways to come up with “free” money that you can spend on more sourcing!
1. Rewards Programs
Many stores that you regularly shop at have some sort of rewards program. Usually, the more you spend, the more “perks” you get: gift cards, free products, discounts on one item, a percentage off coupon for a complete purchase, and more. If you regularly shop at a store that has a rewards program, sign up today! Some of the rewards programs I’m signed up with include Best Buy, Big Lots, CVS, Halmark, Kohl’s, Office Depot, Staples, TJ Maxx, Tuesday Morning, and Walgreens. If you have a smart phone, you can download the KEY RING app to keep your rewards cards organized and even receive updates on members-only coupons.
2. Discounted Gift Cards Online
This is the easiest way to get more money for your money! Planning on spending $100 for resale products at Target? What if you could buy a $115 Target gift card for $100? You’d have an additional $15 to spend on products to resell. Head on over to raise.com, cardcash.com, or giftcardgranny.com to find gift cards for less than the face value of the card! You can also find cheaper gift cards on eBay, as well.
3. “Shop Through” or “Doorway” Websites
Many websites reward you when you go to a web store from their “doorway” web page first. A few of my favorites are Rakuten, MyPoints, and Swagbucks. There are many others like these, but the four listed here are the most reputable.
Rakuten – Click on a particular store’s website from Rakuten and get a percentage of your purchase back in the form of a check or Paypal deposit. Different stores on these sites offer different percentages of cash back.
MyPoints – When you click on advertisements or make purchases you accumulate points. You then use those points to buy gift cards.
Swagbucks – Get cash back in the form of gift cards as well, but they also offer many other opportunities to earn Swagbucks. You can take surveys, watch videos, and more to earn Swagbucks and then use your Swagbucks to buy gift cards. A word of advice, you can waste a lot of time on Swagbucks earning points, so I would suggest you limit yourself on all the “extra” earning opportunities (unless you have a lot of time on your hands).
The point of the above “free” money opportunities is this: If you’re going to buy things online anyway (for business or personal) you might as well get all the cash back you can.
4. Bonus Gift Cards
Some stores will offer you “bonus” gift cards when you buy a gift card of a certain amount, usually around holidays. Half Price Books occasionally offers you a free $5 coupon if you purchase a $25 gift card. I spend hundreds at Half Price Books every year, so essentially this is free money! They usually offere this deal before Christmas and before Mother’s Day. Each time, I bought $100 in gift cards and was rewarded with $20 in free money! Half Price Books is not the only store that offers this deal. Just be on the lookout for deals like this, plan ahead, and be sure to use your coupons before the expiration date.
5. Store E-mail Lists
Many stores have a newsletter that goes out to your e-mail from time to time, where they’ll offer special coupons only available through the mailing list. I suggest opening a secondary e-mail account (different from your business or personal emails) for this purpose, so you don’t clog up your primary e-mail inboxes. Free e-mail accounts are easy to set up through gmail, yahoo mail, and other sites.
6. Kohl’s Cash
On top of signing up for the Kohl’s Rewards card, be sure to keep an eye out for Kohl’s Cash. You can get a $10 Kohl’s Cash coupon for the first $50 in purchases. An additional $10 in value will be added to the coupon for each additional $50 spent in that single transaction. Free money! I went to Kohl’s recently to buy some new school shoes for my son. The shoes were $30, so I was only $20 away from spending the $50 required for Kohl’s Cash. I looked around for a few minutes and found $20 worth of items with a great resale value. Not only will my $20 net me a profit of $50, but now I also have $10 more to spend next week on more products. I’m sure I can use that $10 in Kohl’s Cash and turn that into a net $25 profit. In the end, I’ll spend $50, net $75 in profit, AND have shoes for my son.
7. Buy Gift Cards Locally
Post an ad on Craigslist stating, “I PAY CASH FOR GIFT CARDS.” Offer to give people 80% value of the gift card. Some people get gift cards as gifts and they will never use them. They might get a gift card for a sporting goods store and will never use it. They rather sell at 80% value instead of throwing it away. Just be careful when meeting someone from Craigslist. Take a friend with you and only meet in the daytime at a public place.
Conclusion
When you combine all of the methods above, you will start to see a substantial difference in your business finances. The “free” money really does add up and give you more funds to help grow your business. There are even more ways to get “free” money, but this list is a good start. Please add your favorites in the comment section below!
One last tip: Bookmark this page so that you can have a handy reference of all of the websites that will help you get more “free” money.
*This post was update for 2022
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Great tips Stephen!! There is also the Target rewards card that is like a debit card where they automatically take 5% off your purchase. If you add that to a gift card it helps!!
Thanks for the tip Karin!
Bookmarked! Great points, Stephen. I would like to add that some cards are not just points cards–they are credit cards, so I hesitate to add too many credit cards and hurt my credit score, especially now that even insurance companies can look at your credit and charge you more if you have lots of unsecured debt or even available credit.
You’re right, Pat. I usually stay away from any reward program that asks me to open up a credit card with them. I’ll stick to the programs that are only about points or cash (not credit!). Thanks for reminding the readers of this important tip!
I use the Nordstrom and Target Red Debit cards that add up to either cash back or 5% off with free shipping AND use ebates! What other places can you think of that have a debit with rewards? That way it is all coming out of the same place. Also, I am finding that using my regular debit/cc is bringing limits when buying online so I will be going toward the gift card route.
I’ve only heard of the Target Red debit card… not the Nordstorm’s one… so thanks for educating me about it! The only other cards I know of that offer perks are when you sign up for the store credit cards (JCPenney, Kohl’s. TJMaxx, etc), but I don’t know of other DEBIT cards.
Great reminders. Thanks for posting. My bank card (debit/credit) accumulates points and I can buy items from their catalog. Just placed an order for some toys that are selling pretty well and they were all FREE! Can’t wait to get them.
Can’t beat free!!
Thank you for your great advice. I really enjoy your work.
What do you think about Dubli Cashback ?
I have never heard of Dubli Cashback. I’ll have to check them out. Thanks for letting me know about it!
I really enjoy articles. Great tips for free money. Thanks
You’re welcome! So glad I can share some ideas to get you more for your money.
I also use honey on chrome. Often it finds coupons for the site I am on.
I’ve been looking to hear about reseller’s experiences buying gift cards from random people off Craigslist and such. I know Pete Kozysa does in his store, but he’s well set up with full computers and pawn-shop style training and tools. I’m interested in knowing the tricks people can play on you, how best to check for value of a card on your phone, and how to treat sellers when you suspect they may be fencing stolen cards. I don’t expect an answer here in the comments but I was hoping you might consider it for future content.
I don’t have any experience with that, but would be interested in other’s opinions from their experience.
Gift Cards are the best option for more saving, buy it from above list and one more is there that is Giftcardspread.
Good list!
Kohl’s Cash, though, I’d strike from it. My experience (and the experience of consumers in a solid and ongoing California class action lawsuit) is that Kohl’s Cash, because it’s applied before their near-constant percent off promotions, results in an actual gain of 0-10% of the “Cash” value it’s implied to be. (It’s not subtracted at the end, like actual cash would be.)
Do you know any websites where international resellers can purchase giftcards (those websites above don’ t allow you to buy if you are not in the US)
thanks
I had used Ebates app online a lot but not sure how to use it in store or I’d you can ?
Ebates is now called Rakuten. They have a smart phone app and you can connect your credit or debit card to get the cash back. Just activate the cash back in your app and then once it’s activated, use your card and you’ll get cash back.