Sat 19 May 2007
Money in the Mail
Pat and I think alike when it comes to money. Both of us grew up in families where every penny was carefully managed, and evidently we inherited that gene.
We read in Michelle Singletary’s column this week about a 48-year-old with $73,000 in credit card debt. That’s hard for us to grasp, because neither of us would consider carrying even a $3,000 balance, let alone $73,000.
To save more, Pat clips coupons, and I take charge of getting rebates. It can be tricky to get them, but if the money back is good enough, I’ll make the effort. We just deposited 3 rebate checks totaling $55 in our joint account, with another $50 still to come.
Most of the offers come with time-consuming hoops to jump through, and any missed step is reason enough for the company to deny your claim. However, sometimes you do everything right, and still the check doesn’t come, so you get to jump through the hoop of following up with the company.
That’s what I had to do for a rebate from Adobe for upgrading to Photoshop Elements 5. After 8 weeks, the Adobe rebate website still said they had no record of a submittal from me, so I phoned their customer service line, waited awhile, and eventually got a fax number to resubmit the claim. Fortunately, I’d made a copy of all the documents, so I faxed them over and the $20 check arrived just a few days later.
Close Encounters of the Cheap Kind has a good list of rebate tips to help you make sure you get what you deserve.
The M's said,
Sat 19 May 2007 at 20:08
My brother and his wife filed bankruptcy to wipe out over $120,000. I couldn’t believe it. We don’t have credit cards just for that reason. If you don’t have the cash, we don’t buy it.