Stickin’ It to the (Bank) Man

I just discovered what is going to be one of the biggest money-savers in my life. If you pay for your groceries with a credit card at Pay-Less (and therefore, I assume, any Kroger) and “forget” to use your shopper’s card or coupons, the Customer Service desk will give you the difference in cash.

1. I charge $109.19 on my American Express.
2. AmEx gives me 1.5% back, or $1.64.
3. I take my receipt, coupons, and Kroger card to the Customer Service desk.
4. They give me $37.05 in cash. (I’m kind of a Nazi about only buying things on sale.)
5. My effective cash back is 2.27%, which doesn’t seem like a big deal until you consider that I’m getting to $6500 on the card 50% faster, and once that happens, I get 5% back – on anything I can buy at Kroger (which also happens to have the best prices in town on booze).

If I do this every two weeks, which is about average, and charge (the 2008 average of) $793 a month, this will net me an additional $42 a year in cash back – a 40% increase. I <3 math.