Homestead Economics = more free food.

[Admin]

Last year I posted numerous times about how we rack up a lot of free food by taking advantage of the cash back rewards offered on some credit cards. Nothing in this house ever gets purchased with cash, not even a five dollar feed at the local Chinese buffet. Every gallon of gas, 6pack of beer, household expense or postage stamp gets paid for with a credit card earning a measly 1% cash back reward. Again, this saves us the expense of checks, envelopes and stamps, as well as making things more convenient. The bill gets paid in full every month so there's no worry of interest. Everything purchased are normal monthly expenses so the same amount of money would be earned and spent regardless of the method of payment. Here's what several months of this tactic has earned us.

Hannafords just put whole natural chickens on sale for .69lb . That's outrageously cheap so I felt it was time to use up the rewards money. We went and bought 36 chickens today. I paid for them with my rewards card and earned 1.38 in rewards already ;D



We put 22 whole chickens in the freezer and I cut up the rest of them, then froze several packages, separating the leg quarters and wings.


Cooked up a HUGE pot of breast


Then canned 21 pints of breast meat and 16 quarts of soup stock.


Now when this credit card bill comes in I will pay it off entirely with cash back rewards earned over the last several months, then start over and save them up for another big sale somewhere down the road. If you don't think a few cents here and there is worth saving, then take another look at these chickens.
By just changing your spending habits and NOT neccesarily spending less - you can put a heck of a lot of free food in the pantry for your family.

[muskrat24]

[trapperandhunter]

someone say fried chicken..... haha !

[patricimo54]

There is something about seeing food being put up in large quantities that make me warm and fuzzy. What we have here folks is wisdom in motion

[keeper172]

Great post JC! I always like hearing your money saving ideas and hearing about how to make the credit cards work for you instead of against you.

[maritimer]

Great work JC! Have a Karma

[yedi21]

[mike692]

JC looks like your food storage is in good shape!

I'm saving my cc points for a new vaccum sealer. ;D

I used last years points to pay for a bunch of Christmas presents.

[Nutso]

If you can be disciplined enough to pay off the bill every month, paying with a credit card is really a great idea. The cash back is awesome, and also you have a record of how much you spend through out the year. Great tool for budgeting.

[mike692]

Got a new pair of boots, vaccum sealer bags, and a couple boxes of canning jars all courtesy Cabelas Club points. ;D

[Admin]

Good job Mike ;D I used up all mine when I bought my trail cams last month but I'm already stackin em up.

Can't beat free money. ;D ;D ;D

Karma to ya

[oldminkman]

Thanks for sharing your rewards ;D I love chicken ;D

I got a new thing going with my bank debit card-I rack up points and can get all sorts of stuff-gift cards etc. They are also introducing cash back to walmart and restraunt purchased if you pay with your debit card.....



Oldminkman-

[claythomas]

I had a good one the other day. Unfortunately our stand-up freezer took a dump recently. I can't live w/o a freezer, so i found the one I wanted at Sears.

I went to our local supermarket who was offering double fuel points and bought $700 worth of Sears gift cards at the grocery store and payed for it with my Cabelas card.

So I ended up getting about $80 worth of free gas as well as the points on my Cabelas card for free stuff. It'll be paid of at the end of the month....Why use cash?

And to top it off the particular model I bought came with an energy saving incentive. Penelec will be sending me a one time $50 rebate for purchasing an energy efficient model.

[mike692]

Sept 23, 2010 12:20:16 GMT -5 claythomas said:

I had a good one the other day. Unfortunately our stand-up freezer took a dump recently. I can't live w/o a freezer, so i found the one I wanted at Sears.

I went to our local supermarket who was offering double fuel points and bought $700 worth of Sears gift cards at the grocery store and payed for it with my Cabelas card.

So I ended up getting about $80 worth of free gas as well as the points on my Cabelas card for free stuff. It'll be paid of at the end of the month....Why use cash?

And to top it off the particular model I bought came with an energy saving incentive. Penelec will be sending me a one time $50 rebate for purchasing an energy efficient model.

Nice!

[Admin]

Love it. ;D That's awesome. I find it very enlightening when I hear about others taking advantage of these cards. I get so much stuff for free it would blow your mind.

Keep up the good savings gentlemen. The more money you save is more money to spend on hunting & trapping.

[claythomas]

JC,

Do you find that there are as many credit card offers out there as there used to be?

I guess if you've had the same cards for a while nothing has changed, but just commenting on what comes in my mailbox, I don't get near the offers that I used to.

I used to do the card jumping thing all the time, but no real offers since the financial woes started.

The Cabelas card thing is good, cause I usually end up needing something there, although I like to by local.

The airline miles thing are a joke IMO. I've heard stats that up to 80% of these are never redeemed.

Are your cards still offering cash back etc? In other words, as the Vikings say "what's in your wallet"?

[claythomas]

Mike 692 says Got a new pair of boots, vaccum sealer bags, and a couple boxes of canning jars all courtesy Cabelas Club points.

Mike, As many thimes as I've been in Cabelas and even in the food prep area, I've never seen canning jars. I guess you're talkin' the one in Wheeling?

[claythomas]

Yeah I know, I'm a three post in a row dork, but this "using" the credit card companies can be a slippery slope.

Don't get me wrong, it can be used for benefit and I do it too, but......

It is common knowledge that people that use plastic (on average) spend more per transaction than people that use cash. Cash and the relinguishing OF cash is emotional. Plastic is just a swipe and I'll pay it later mentality.

Given this fact, and to use JC's example, it doesn't take very many impulse purchases with a credit card that wouldn't be purchased if you where using cash, to totally nullify 36 free chickens regardless of wether you pay it off at the end of the month or not.

As mentioned, I use a Cabelas card, get the points and get "free" stuff. If I was buying things that I otherwise would not buy with cash with this credit card, chances are I'm fooling myself, and obviously it's completely rediculous if full payment isn't made at the end of the month.

If you can run a lot of $$$$$ through these types of systems and you really pay attention to what you're doing you can beat the system. For an ordinary guy who just runs a couple of hundred bucks a month through one of these cards a month, it makes it harder to justify, because with just one moderate impulse buy of something you wouldn't have bought otherwise, the points or rebate thing gets flipflopped to work against you. The more you run through, like JC, you're margine for error works in reverse and it's easier to beat the system

Go to any city and look for the biggest and fanciest buildings. Chances are you're looking at a bank buliding or an insurance building. They don't get them by being stupid.

If you have trouble with self control, IMO your still miles ahead to have a written budget so you know where every dollar is going at the beginning of the month and forget trying to beat the system. Chances are you're fooling yourself.

This scenario will really get interesting, if, as a result of Obama's actions against the CC companies and there ability to charge for there services (fees in other words) gets challeged. Every time you make a purchase with a CC the company you are paying is docked a processing fee by the cc company. In turn that cost is passed on the consumer.

Anybody with any sense would say well then if I use cash, why am I not paying less. Fact is you should be.......stayed tuned and be on the lookout for cash discounts at retailers etc.

Tom

[mike692]

Sept 24, 2010 7:19:08 GMT -5 claythomas said:

Mike 692 says Got a new pair of boots, vaccum sealer bags, and a couple boxes of canning jars all courtesy Cabelas Club points.

Mike, As many thimes as I've been in Cabelas and even in the food prep area, I've never seen canning jars. I guess you're talkin' the one in Wheeling?

I ordered them online. It was news to me too. They have a complete canning section in their online catalog now. They don't have a huge selection, pretty much just the essentials. Including water bath canners and pressure canners.