How I get "free" suff from Amazon
I end up with a lot of change in my pockets each day, and it all gets dumped into a jar that I take down to my local supermarket's Coinstar machine every few weeks to turn into spendable value. The previous writeups talk about the fee that Coinstar charges, but fail to mention that if you choose to turn your cash into vouchers for many gift cards, there is no commission taken from you–presumably they take it from the retailer whose gift cards you choose. This means that I can dump my jar containing sometimes over a hundred dollars, and get that same value in Amazon gift card value. I take the receipt home, input the code into Amazon and it tops up my gift card balance by that much. Over the past couple of years I've amassed at least $300, which I occasionally use to treat myself to something I wouldn't ordinarily buy. It doesn't cost me any extra, may even cost Amazon a little, and I get nice things! It's the only way I shop; at Amazon as I'm normally not given to shopping at the megagiant data-stealer.
There is some variation from one location to another, but I've seen Apple, Google Store, Starbucks, various fast-food places and Lowes in their lists.
In a very, very small way, I feel like I'm sticking it to The Man, even if it's just pennies; it's just a great shame I can't apply for gift vouchers to help cover my medical bills, that would solve a lot of problems just now.
Update: I notied today that there's now a 5% charge for an AMazon voucher. They're catching on!
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For Terse Quest 2024