I am making money off my friends and they don’t seem to have a problem with it. I have two friends who are in my degree program and should know a lot more about the best ways to manage their money. They are actually a couple that live together but they both admit they have problems with sticking to a budget.
In order to prevent too much spending they both employ tactics such as not having Amazon accounts. They both feel that if they have accounts they will not be able to resist the urge to order things constantly.
I actually have the female of the pair using Swagbucks to earn cash on the side. She is aware of the extra points that can accumulate from using Swagbucks to go through Amazon for shopping but still chooses not to use it. The male of the pair is just not interested in using a cash earning site because he feels he will get unnecessary items.
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So how am I making money off my friends? Well they both have come to me on numerous occasions with cash or a check and asked me to buy something on Amazon and have it shipped to their house. Every time they do this I remind them they could be getting cash back on their rewards credit card as well as getting the points for using the shopping portal. They always decline and say they are happy to let me have the points.
Of course I am happy to get the cash back, especially since I am now using my Amazon credit card, where I can get 3% cash back on purchases. I don’t always get the extra from SB because the categories rotate but it is good to try anyway.
The thing that concerns me is that these are two people who live and breathe this type of information on a daily basis. You would think that even if they had temptations, they would be able to set up better mechanisms to handle it by now. They are essentially paying cash for things that they could be earning a return on. Since they hand me the cash or fill in the check before I even hit the checkout button, I know they have the money to pay for the items. They could simply treat their credit card like a debit card and make the situation work for them.
Use the credit card to buy the items and then immediately log in and pay the credit card! They are essentially doing the same thing but with me as an intermediary.
What a great idea!
Yes great for me because I get points and great for them because it helps them limit their spending as well.
It still happens that are people that dont have their own credit card and ask to their friends to order stuff for them?
They do have their own credit cards. They just choose not to have Amazon accounts as a way to prevent themselves from buying constantly. It adds an extra step where they have to get cash to give me, then email me a link to order something..so that is a mechanism to not buy so much because it is a bit of a hassle.