I’m so annoyed that there used to be a frequent feeder reward at Pet Warehouse where you’d get discounts (iirc you got every tenth bag of the same brand free). That made a difference with a food intolerance cat that needs higher end dry food, but she had to change over and now that brand has gone under anyway.
Now I make combined orders from Petcircle to get much better prices on another expensive essential (her Zylkene). Occasionally I go supermarket though, for the foods or litter that are ok/needed to top up quickly (and am trialing a more inexpensive brand). But I haven’t sorted out any kind of smart system with Petcircle. Sometimes if you leave things in the Petcircle cart you get a coupon code emailed but that’s it. I don’t really want to sign up but may if it means benefits :(
The Woolies points are a bit of a joke with such low return on it, the higher delivery prices if you can’t get a cheap slot, the price gouging and worker mistreatment, and due to my own food sensitivities I can’t shop in a way that’s really budget smart.
(So mad that there are half price/extra point things I miss out on due to a very restricted diet and I just have to buy what I’m able to eat. I would go HAM on those canned soups at half price or when they had a lot of extra points. Also some very specific items can have a much higher price than the basic item.) I do stock up on toothbrushes when they give extra points and bank what credits I do get for Xmas.
I most often get Coles because of more generic options and very cheap off peak delivery slots but they don’t have everything I need and sometimes I have to go to the other duopoly bastard. I haven’t signed up for FlyBuys because there was nothing that interested me until I saw someone got a $50 Bunnings card??
I always feel a bit dirty when I talk about buying from these clowns or call out a cheap deal/loss leader to others… wish Aldi was more accessible but I’m physically disabled with no car.
Those extreme couponers in America are awesome. I just cannot hustle the system the way they do it.
It was probably me with the Bunnings card. I used to get the Flybuys dollars to spend when I did my shopping, but you can’t use them online and as I rarely shop in store I switched to the Bunnnings vouchers. Most of my points don’t actually come from shopping at Coles - I have a Coles credit card that I use for almost all of my spending (I put the money into an account I use like an offset account, so I don’t use it to spend money I don’t have and can earn interest on the money). The card gives me quite a few points, and there are quite a few other shops (including Bunnings) that give Flybuys points as well. I don’t do anything different that I would normally to get points, but receive somewhere between $100 and $150 a year in vouchers.
The couponers in America have a different system to work with - they get coupons from manufacturers as well as the shops themselves, and the norm seems to be that they can stack multiple offers, whereas we can generally only use one discount at at time. They also spend a lot of time collecting multiple catalogues and things to get the good deals.
Ah thanks for explaining! I’ve never actually had any type of credit card as the stories scared me off them (I don’t believe I could be trusted).
Yes. I don’t envy much about America at all, I wouldn’t survive for a second, but I would like being able to stack coupons.
And apparently you can buy a mobile home (trailer) in as is condition for about $3000 USD and it’s yours… the video talking about that was a few years old so maybe it’s inflated by now and the Aussie dollar could have dropped but just imagine. As shitty and small as it was you could buy yourself a stable little place. The dealbreaker would be the safety of the park and the condition of the electrical wiring though. And the residents kept being left without water?
Being wary of credit cards is a very wise thing. I have learned the hard way how much trouble they can be. I find that the way I am using it has been good for me, as I make sure everything is paid for when I buy it buy physically transferring the money into my offset account, and I go through the statement line by line and match it up to the payments to make sure nothing is missed - which also means I catch anything like recurring subscriptions I should have cancelled, or errors in direct debit amounts. I make sure I always have the money in the bank to pay off the full balance at any time - relying on expected money coming in in the future to pay it off can be the start of a cascade of problems if something goes wrong.
The credit reporting agencies in Australia don’t get any information about whether you are using your card or not, just whether or not there are overdue payments. So if you think having that credit record would be useful (and it is much less important here than in USA) you could get a no-fee credit card and not use it. That will give you an ongoing history of having a card with no missed payments.
Budgeting rambles
I’m so annoyed that there used to be a frequent feeder reward at Pet Warehouse where you’d get discounts (iirc you got every tenth bag of the same brand free). That made a difference with a food intolerance cat that needs higher end dry food, but she had to change over and now that brand has gone under anyway.
Now I make combined orders from Petcircle to get much better prices on another expensive essential (her Zylkene). Occasionally I go supermarket though, for the foods or litter that are ok/needed to top up quickly (and am trialing a more inexpensive brand). But I haven’t sorted out any kind of smart system with Petcircle. Sometimes if you leave things in the Petcircle cart you get a coupon code emailed but that’s it. I don’t really want to sign up but may if it means benefits :(
The Woolies points are a bit of a joke with such low return on it, the higher delivery prices if you can’t get a cheap slot, the price gouging and worker mistreatment, and due to my own food sensitivities I can’t shop in a way that’s really budget smart.
(So mad that there are half price/extra point things I miss out on due to a very restricted diet and I just have to buy what I’m able to eat. I would go HAM on those canned soups at half price or when they had a lot of extra points. Also some very specific items can have a much higher price than the basic item.) I do stock up on toothbrushes when they give extra points and bank what credits I do get for Xmas.
I most often get Coles because of more generic options and very cheap off peak delivery slots but they don’t have everything I need and sometimes I have to go to the other duopoly bastard. I haven’t signed up for FlyBuys because there was nothing that interested me until I saw someone got a $50 Bunnings card??
I always feel a bit dirty when I talk about buying from these clowns or call out a cheap deal/loss leader to others… wish Aldi was more accessible but I’m physically disabled with no car.
Those extreme couponers in America are awesome. I just cannot hustle the system the way they do it.
It was probably me with the Bunnings card. I used to get the Flybuys dollars to spend when I did my shopping, but you can’t use them online and as I rarely shop in store I switched to the Bunnnings vouchers. Most of my points don’t actually come from shopping at Coles - I have a Coles credit card that I use for almost all of my spending (I put the money into an account I use like an offset account, so I don’t use it to spend money I don’t have and can earn interest on the money). The card gives me quite a few points, and there are quite a few other shops (including Bunnings) that give Flybuys points as well. I don’t do anything different that I would normally to get points, but receive somewhere between $100 and $150 a year in vouchers.
The couponers in America have a different system to work with - they get coupons from manufacturers as well as the shops themselves, and the norm seems to be that they can stack multiple offers, whereas we can generally only use one discount at at time. They also spend a lot of time collecting multiple catalogues and things to get the good deals.
Ah thanks for explaining! I’ve never actually had any type of credit card as the stories scared me off them (I don’t believe I could be trusted).
Yes. I don’t envy much about America at all, I wouldn’t survive for a second, but I would like being able to stack coupons.
And apparently you can buy a mobile home (trailer) in as is condition for about $3000 USD and it’s yours… the video talking about that was a few years old so maybe it’s inflated by now and the Aussie dollar could have dropped but just imagine. As shitty and small as it was you could buy yourself a stable little place. The dealbreaker would be the safety of the park and the condition of the electrical wiring though. And the residents kept being left without water?
Being wary of credit cards is a very wise thing. I have learned the hard way how much trouble they can be. I find that the way I am using it has been good for me, as I make sure everything is paid for when I buy it buy physically transferring the money into my offset account, and I go through the statement line by line and match it up to the payments to make sure nothing is missed - which also means I catch anything like recurring subscriptions I should have cancelled, or errors in direct debit amounts. I make sure I always have the money in the bank to pay off the full balance at any time - relying on expected money coming in in the future to pay it off can be the start of a cascade of problems if something goes wrong.
Ah, I considered doing that to build good credit but my brain gets so scatty I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
The credit reporting agencies in Australia don’t get any information about whether you are using your card or not, just whether or not there are overdue payments. So if you think having that credit record would be useful (and it is much less important here than in USA) you could get a no-fee credit card and not use it. That will give you an ongoing history of having a card with no missed payments.
Good idea