Live Cashback tips

Using Live Search, it has been possible to get cashback on certain products for some time now. Most notably, eBay has offered some very high cash back rates, and they are currently offering 25% cash back on "Buy It Now" items. Now what makes this interesting is that some people have begun selling gift cards on eBay for greater than the price of the card itself - for example a $500 card for $550. If you make 25% cash back on that $550, you end up with $137.50 back, so you only pay $412.50 for a $500 card, the seller makes a profit, and you both win! What makes it even sweeter is that when you buy something using "Buy It Now" on eBay, you'll get another 25% off that item, and you're paying for it with a gift card that you got for less than face value! Perhaps this is too good to be true, and it may end pretty quickly if it catches on too much, but if you're going to be doing any Christmas shopping on eBay, or anywhere else that has gift cards for that matter, it's not a bad way to get some gift cards at a discount.

For those of you afraid that eBay is going to come after your a** like convicts over Ted Stevens' pale Alaskan hide, then there is a little less sneaky way, and you even get to save on gas. First, you can buy eBay gift cards at Kroger using a credit card that offers 5% cashback at grocery stores. You can do a quick search on the internet, but a fellow blogger also has a nice article over here on some cards which offer that deal. So I essentially spent $47.50 for a $50 card. Now Kroger has a deal where if you spend $100 on groceries, you get $0.10 off/gallon of gas at the stores with a gas station attached OR the same deal applies if you buy $50 in gift cards! Then, you use that same card which offers that 5% cash back on groceries and gas to pay for your gas, and voila, you save 30% (25% live cashback + 5% credit card cash back) at eBay and $0.10 off/gallon + 5% cash back on that gas! Not a bad deal if you are gonna be shopping at Kroger anyways, and that Kroger happens to have an attached gas station. Sorry if I am a little excited about this deal, but they don't call me the Stingy Student for nothing :-)