Hello. I’m back from sunny California, the land of heavenly weather, wonderful scenery, heavy traffic, $3.93 gas and $5.99 almonds (they were only $3.99 back home on the tundra).

Apologies to those of you whose comments were stuck in moderation all weekend. And stuck in the rain/snow.

Many thanks to brilliant budget bride Aimee for holding down the fort.

I didn’t pay much attention to the money news when down in the valley. It was a vacation, after all. But I did notice a few stories about retailers offering deals to shoppers who use their stimulus checks to stimulate their earnings– and the economy.

As my colleague Jackie Crosby reported today, Lands’ End, Kmart, Sears, Roundy’s (Rainbow), and Cub are offering discounts to those of us who spend our rebate with them.

What if your rebate will be directly deposited into your bank account? Cub spokeswoman Haley Meyer said that Cub “will work with shoppers” who “show us proof” that the rebate was deposited. The proof needed is a copy of your bank statement or print-out of your online bank account. My guess is other retailers will also accommodate e-deposited funds.

I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to milk the “spend $300, we’ll give you $30 deal” that Cub announced and Rainbow matched.

Here’s my reasoning: I spend about $100 in groceries each week. Yes, that’s a lot of money tied up in grocery gift cards if I throw in the entire $1,800 my family expects. Yes, it will take me almost five months to use up those gift cards, but that’s a free $180–almost two weeks of groceries.

Tell me this: Where else can you get a risk free rate of return of 10 percent on your money in five months? Certainly not in an online savings account with the Fed expected to lower rates once again. Not in a CD. Not under my mattress. Not in short-term bonds. This is about the best short-term investment around. And if they’ll let me use my credit card that earns me 6 percent back on groceries to buy the gift cards, I’ll earn another $108.

Milk it? You bet.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm and is filed under saving, shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.