Gift Cards To The Rescue!

I was in Coles yesterday doing my weekly shop, standing in the checkout queue and a thought stuck me 'I wonder if I can pay for my shopping with gift vouchers?'

So I whipped out all the gift cards I had in my wallet. I seem to accumulate a lot of these somehow, mainly through work rewards and incentives, but I've also got in the habit of claiming them back from my credit card reward schemes whenever I've got enough points.

Sure enough, my shopping came to just under $50 and 3 x $20 Coles Myer vouchers later, I walked out with cash in my wallet and my credit cards untouched. Sweet!

My mission this week is to locate all the gift cards I can find around my work desk, at home and in my handbag and see what I've actually got to play with.

I think I'd always 'saved' them to buy 'nice things' or 'treat myself' but didn't get around to actually using them, so now I can use them to buy things I actually need, and save my hard earned cash for paying off extra debt!

I really don't need any more stuff, so I think this is a far more effective use for them. What do you think?