2019 TALLY:

$550 Gift Cards (Citi, Moi)
$150 Bank Bonus
$ 70 Amazon Gift card (Amazon Prime, MH)
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$770 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$ 29 Citi Price rewinds (RIP)

Ongoing rewards (through 11/30):

+$320 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/streaming services)

+$70 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$144 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$804 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $2,137

I am just doing an update because I did another reward.

I am so insulated from consumerism (average middle class consumerism, it's not like we don't buy anything...). But I sometimes feel so insulated that I am exposed to it more on SA than anywhere. Every once in a while someone will mention something I haven't heard of, or something that sounds really cool.

Well, it happened. $150 happened. There as some mention in the forums of electronic gadgets. Most of them I hadn't even heard of and I marveled a bit since we clearly like our electronics. But I guess more "useful to our needs and wants" electronics, versus "what everyone else has" electronics. My husband did buy some expensive bone conducting headphones earlier in the year but I considered that more of a disability purchase. (He only has hearing in one ear, can't reasonably wear one ear bud and hear anything going on around him). I was dumbfounded when he told me he was not able to listen to anything at his job and he felt it would make his low-skill job more bearable. I was completely horrified, like yes you have to buy this yesterday! He's been listening to books on tape and I think makes the work day much more bearable.

But... I didn't think anything beyond that until I saw a conversation on SA about the same headphones. Yeah, I don't have any headphones and I could probably use some. But I have never liked ear buds. So I had my light bulb moment and asked MH to buy me some. It looked like they were on sale significantly from what we paid, but he did choose the premium ones. I told him, knock on wood, honestly I never lose or break my things and I just wanted to get the premium ones too. (He had bought some in the past he did not like and didn't keep. So there was definitely a huge step up in quality with the higher end ones that were worth the money).

He was looking on Amazon a couple of days ago, but it would be like $80 instead of $150 if we signed up for the Amazon Prime card. IT's not a card we have ever had, so it was a no brainer. MH was kind of, "Really?! I thought you wanted to slow down on the rewards. I thought you wouldn't do these things for less than $200." Pffffft. It doesn't get any easier than signing up for a credit card to instantly get $70. I don't need to do anything. We didn't even need to put the charge on the credit card. I could probably cancel it tomorrow and be done.

It's most likely I will just cancel the card very quickly. It does come with 5% back on Amazon purchases, but we already have a 4-card system and it's becoming more of a 5-card system if we are going to use MM's credit card to max out our grocery rewards. I don't want a 6-card system. We don't shop enough at Amazon to bother.

{How I manage is I set all my cards on a monthly cycle and just pay them all off the first of every month. No tracking statements whatsoever. I also use Quicken/transaction downloads so I have all our charges/balances compiled in one place. & I pay them all out of my bank bill pay, so just one place to track and one place to make all the payments every month. Still, I don't want a 6th card}.

I am sure I could have saved more money (I later saw the Amazon store card was $100-off sign up bonus). I am sure I could have strategized or planned better. But in the "this will take a couple of minutes of my life and save me $70 right now" category, it works for me.

I will have to update our December rewards next week, but will probably end up at $2,300 for the year.

Edited to add: Amazing purchase! I thought I would just use for listening to podcasts on my phone (keeping up with Top 100 movies podcast), but I have been loving the hands-free phone calls. Makes my cell phone generally more usable (for calls). I was talking to my friend the other day while running around doing other things. I might be able to use at the gym but I have to make room for music on my phone. I don't have any other bluetooth devices so will need to use a cell phone to listen to music on new headphones. (In the past I've been more of a "cell phone for emergency" cell user, but I am slowly using more phone functionality. I've absolutely never played any music on my phone before, so I need to figure that out).

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***