We all know I’m a sucker for marketing.
Catherine is frustrated that I use Tivo to replay commercials instead of skip them all the time.
I love the angles companies take to manipulate my wants and desires. They control me and I like it. I’m a consumer slave a lot of the times. Most of the time, I’d like to think it’s willingly and knowingly, but I’m probably giving myself too much credit.
Yet I’m cheap in ways that create conflicts for me. But that cheapness is a topic for later. This weekend perhaps. That’ll be my meditation during the bike ride. Last weekend’s ended up with a product enhancement and that’s just lead to frustration for the time being.
Tonight’s topic is the mystery of Upromise for me and how I just appreciate the service so much that I don’t mind it is a mystery.
Here’s their deal – you sign up and allow them to track your purchases at grocery stores, some restuarants, at various brick and mortar stores (pepboys!) and at various online establishments. In return, these merchants kick back some % of your purchases into a holding account. And quarterly, they’ll take your money in that holding account and drop it into a kid’s 529 plan for you.
They’ll split it up among several kids if you like. And they don’t even have to be your kids. They just have to be kids that have 529 plans that are linked into Upromise – which I think means that they have to be Vanguard funds.
So – when we’re buying a gift, we now goto Upromise first – and see if the store we want to buy a gift from is in their program. We got 4 bucks from Home Depot cause we bought a gift card through the online link. Best Buy just kicked Sal $5.40 for a printer. We got a nickel from Coke. PepBoys donated $.31 cause I bought some mirrors there. And Kikusushi has helped Salvador out with over 20 bucks in the last 3 months as we’ve dined there several times.
We used to be on iDine for American Airlines miles. But Upromise uses the same system for restaurants, so we had to choose – Upromise or miles. Kind of a no brainer for us – as miles won’t be that important to us soon, once Sal needs his own ticket, since we won’t be travelling as much…hee hee. Thing is, not all AA miles restaurants participate in the Upromise program. So there must be some different marketing dollars there. Miles are probably cheaper than cold hard cash that needs to go into a 529 plan. Which makes us like Kikusushi even more.
Same with our credit card. Capital One got me with all their barbarians and their “no hassle” promise. Which turned out to be kind of true. They never hassled me about the account we had, which gave 1% back. But they did send me tons of offers for new cards. Which was kind of strange. I got no offers till I signed up. Then I got the offers. Anyway, we’re off them, and onto the Upromise Citibank card. 1% goes to the 529 plan. It’s not like that 1% was really making a difference to our monthly statement anyway – so here, we just know we’re kicking Sal some savings without really trying. And for some bonus items (gas and groceries mainly) it can go up to 10%. Another no brainer. My chimp branded Discover card is also getting very little action now too.
So – these Upromise folk have complete control over me. They’ve made me change credit cards. They’ll steer me to restaurants when we goto a new city. They’ll guide me to a place to buy shoes online (shoes.com gives 8% to Sal while zappos and shoedini give nothing – so where am I going to go? Their prices are about the same…) And if I ever need to buy flowers (I don’t get into trouble any more, so no real need), but if I ever do need to, they’ve got tons of places to recommend as well.
Tires for the Corvette are pricey. Last time they were around $1400. Nuts right? Maybe that’s why I drive so slow – trying not to wear them out. I bought my last pair at America’s Tire. Was happy with them. But they’re not on Upromise. But the Tire Rack is. 4% will goto Salvador’s account. Now I’m thinking – “Only $1400?”
I don’t know how much the stores pay Upromise – it’s gotta be even more than they’re donating to Sal – and that’s the mysterious part to me.
But in our case, it is definitely getting them some business.
It doesn’t stop there though. Since you can donate to anyone’s kid, they want to use me as a salesman to get more people signed up to Upromise so that they could save for Salvador too. They want me to pitch their idea to my family and friends.
It works well on family. Though I think I have a few fewer friends now. But some have signed up – and even though we don’t expect them to change their habits like we have, I’m sure one day they’ll coincidentally eat at some restaurant (have I mentioned how good Kikusushi is, Shawn? Kelly even has a review for them…) and they’ll have helped Sal out without even trying.
Saving without effort. I love it. It’ll just be a matter of time before I start writing letters to my favorite businesses (Burger King) trying to get them onto Upromise.