Rebates: Was I Supposed to Mail That In?

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Rebates are great at luring us to buy products.  But getting around to mailing them in can be another story, particularly in the busy lives that we lead.  Here are my “rebate tricks” to getting the most for my money:

• Make a rebate tracker.  Yes, Excel is used for more important things like quarterly reporting and tracking all sorts of official data, but it works just as well for household items like rebates.  I built a spreadsheet to track my own rebates which includes: date of purchase, where purchased, amount of the rebate, date submitted, amount, and if I received it.  If you want a copy of it, drop me a comment or email and I will be happy to send it to you. 

  I built my “rebate tracker” so that I could have a reference point to make sure that all of my rebates were being paid out to me.  And if there is something that seems to be taking a bit too long, I contact them.  I have saved a couple of hundred dollars this way because there have been times that my rebate was “lost” and I had to help the company “find” it.

• Use online rebate submission whenever you can.  At least with an online submission you can have a tracking number attached to your rebate as a point of reference.  It tends to be a lot easier as well, particularly with companies like Staples and Rite-Aid helping the process along with their “Easy Rebates” programs.  They aren’t stupid; they know it goes a long way in building customer loyalty if the rebate process isn’t painful.
• Skip the small rebates.  If you have a rebate that you have to mail in and will give you only 50 cents or $1 back, why bother?  The stamp will cost you 44 cents + the cost of the envelope and your time.  Your time alone is worth more than a couple of cents!

Have a great week!

Copyright 2008-2009 Kristin Delfau, author of Turbo-Mom's Guide to Saving Money Without Wasting Time a womens' personal finance book, and Aji Publishing.

Tags: discounts, rebates, saving money, saving online
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