Erasing Our Debt

The wife and I are in the market to finally purchase a washer and dryer. I've put this off as much as possible as I wanted to pay cash on it as much as possible. Well when we got married we were told by her grandparents that they would buy us one. That was in February. We finally received $500 yesterday.

I've deposited that into our savings until we get ready to go out and buy. But I decided I'm going to use that for a gift card from eBay instead. I've been watching auctions for gift cards for Lowe's. I've decided that I'm not going to buy a gift card for any less than 10% off including shipping costs. Anything less than 10% is just a waste of time.

I've actually seen auctions for the gift cards go for more than what they're worth. I guess that just proves that there are plenty of morons(is that too harsh?) out there. I was recently watching an auction for a $500 Wal-Mart gift card. Ending price: $512. Maybe someone was out there just jacking up the price but come on. That's not the only time I've ever seen something like that. A lot of times people don't consider the price of shipping into their final bid and end up paying more for the gift card than it's actual worth.  But hey, as I learned in a debt management seminar yesterday at work, American's spent $101 for every $100 earned. So I guess it only makes sense to do it on eBay too?

I've also purchased a 10% off coupon off eBay for Lowe's so I'll be saving some more cash. By my calculations, it looks like I'm going to be saving close to $100 if not more.

Next mission: find out if the Sears Appliance outlet accepts Sears gift cards and look on eBay for a Sears gift card at a discount.

Thoughts? Good or bad idea for doing this?

// posted by Ryan @ 1:17 PM