Tales from Christmas Shopping

Another Christmas has come and gone and for the first time in years I didn’t purchase most of my items on credit!

I did use the Discover offer that I recieved and wrote about previously.  That offer said if I spent $200 at the mall, I could show their customer service desk my receipts and get a $20 Discover gift card.

My goal was to not use credit cards at all this year, but I liked the idea of getting 10% back if I only bought items I was going to buy anyway.  To make it more like using cash, I got on the Discover web site and submitted a $200 payment before I went shopping.

I wasn’t sure I’d even spend $200, so I figured out what I was going to get before I started. My family made a decision this year to only buy for the “kids”.  No one told me what the definition of a “kid” was, so I decided it was all my nieces and nephews even though a few are in their twenties.  I did manage to find $200 in items- in fact, it was closer to $240, but I got some pretty good deals.  I get a $7 mail in rebate on one item, too.

I got the Discover gift card and called to activate it the next day.  I took it to Walmart where I was going to buy my daugher two video games.  I didn’t know they were running a special promotion, both games came with a $10.00 Walmart card, so after redeeming my $20 Discover gift card to pay for part of my purchase, I left with $20 in Walmart gift cards in my wallet.  The video games came to just under $100, so that was like getting another 20% back!

I didn’t notice this until late on the 26th, but the recepit had a section at the bottom that said to take the recepit to the customer service counter for a $10 Walmart card.  It said it expired on Dec. 25th!  Was this referring to the card the man already gave me when I bought the games, or did I miss out on a chance for a third card?  I’ve never seen that on a receipt before, but I guess I’ll start paying attention to recepits from now on.