College savings and Upromise

[mrpaseo]

Has anyone taken advantage of this?

You sign up (Free) and register your credit cards; you then spend as you normally do. There are two ways to earn free money for your child’s college.

1) Certain products will give a return from 1-25% back to a college fund of your choice (A 529 account that you set up). So, you sign up, and use your card to charge your groceries and what not. Then they deposit the money in your 529 account.

2) If you are an on-line buyer as I am, you would go to the upromise site and surf for your items through this site. For example I often purchase supplements, so I go to Upromise and find the bodybuilding dot com site, I then buy as I normally do and they send a percentage to my 529 account.

So, you receive your rewards as normal from your cc then an additional bonus from upromise

I hope this helps,
Ray

[sweeps]

It's not all it's cracked up to be. The earnings are pretty slim. Is it worth letting Upromise know your personal information and entire purchasing history for a few bucks a year?

(Note you don't really have to deposit the money in a 529. You can mail in a form to have the money sent to you by check.)

[mrpaseo]

I figure big brother is already watching me anyway. I purchased some stuff from SAMS and about 8 months later I received a letter in the mail telling me to not eat something I had purchased because there was a change it was from a bad batch.... eight months later.

I am one to use my cc for most purchases though, so I figure why not.

I understand it's not for everyone.
Ray

[sweeps]

Actually, privacy issues aside...
1. You can earn more by using a different credit card. The 529 thing is kind of a gimmick to appeal to parents.
2. To earn the higher percentages you have to buy more expensive items. For example Tide will give you a little cash back, but Tide is also one of the most expensive laundry detergents out there.
3. As far as going through the web site to get additional cash back... Sites like Fatwallet and Ebates are much better for that, IMHO.

[Lori63]

Savings are slim, but anything is better than nothing. I do erewards surveys through Upromise and that's helped. I have my Kroger card and Martins card entered, but I don't plan my shopping around what the rewards are, just shop for my regular stuff and sometimes earn a little.

[bankaround]

I agree, the savings are pretty slim but you just shop normally and if you earn something, then you earn something, just don't go out of your way to buy more expensive items to earn more with upromise. Never makes sense to spend more to earn a few cents.

[disneysteve]

I've seen people post about getting hundreds through Upromise. That certainly hasn't been my experience. I signed up a few years ago and so far I've gotten about $30 back total. Of course, we really don't do much online shopping at participating sites. If we shop online, it is usually Amazon or Ebay. And the supermarket savings are few and far between, just a few cents here and there.

[mrpaseo]

I agree and practice what everyone has said, the important thing with this venue is to not change your spending habits, I have been in it for a few years and have earned all of $74.74 as of yesterday. The way I see it, free money is free money.

I did just reciently start using this site to do online purchases, there is a process but I never pay more to use this site. This is my buy process:

1) On line research for the best product.
2) In store research (Hands on).
3) On line research for best price (Usually bizrate dot com)
4) Verify is upromise has a discount for this site
5) Waiting period (Talk it over with the wife if we really need it)
6) Conduct the purchase
a) cc rewards
b) Upromise rewards
c) On line Coupon codes


There is something that has not been mentioned, you can get as many people as you can to sign up to contribute to your account (In my case, my daughters 529 account). Basically you send them a link, they register their cards and you receive the percentages.

For the record, even my own mom would not sign up due to "Privacy issues".

[moneybags]

Free money is free money, but I don't think Upromise is going to foot the college bill for my 2 children. I've been a member since 6/01 and have earned $285. When shopping online, I use Ebates, Upromise, Paypal, or Discover card to get some sort of additional discount. I check to see who has the highest rebate. Discover & Paypal have some up to 20%. I haven't seen any that high on Upromise.

[Coleroo]

i've been signed up for years and I think i've earned $25? ....and that's with our debit cards and my parents debit cards attatched to them...when we used credit cards we had those linked as well. it's definately not going to foot the bill for my kids college in 18 years.

Perhaps it will pay lfor his first lunch though...

[stressedmama]

I use this service and have been really pleased. I've made about $400 in 3 years. The way we make more through them is that we got their credit card (the only one we really use) and we put my DH's tuition on it. His company reimburses us so we pay off the card in full every month. We get cashback from that plus I only do a little internet shopping (usually at Christmas time) and usually will collect some $ that way as well. We have not changed our shopping habits at all.

While I might make a little more through other reward programs, since we don't use credit cards to much its just easier for us to put the small rewards we do get straight into our 529 plans. Hopefully that money will pay for a couple of books when the kiddos get ready to go to school. Every little bit helps!