Just like the post said, I will teach you how to make an extra $200 a month in tax free income. Well, it's actually $212.48, but $200 seemed like a nice round number. It'll take about an hour to setup and then maybe an hour a month reoccurring to keep it going.
This isn't going to be one of those personal finance blogs that say "get a tutoring job" or "collect cans in the park" or some vague bullshit like that... I'll show you step by step how to make this money. The detail I write with will make this seem much harder/longer than it actually is, but I figure it's better to be more specific to really break it down.
A few requirements however:
1. You have to live in America (social security number needed)
2. You have to have good to excellent credit (720+ FICO)
3. A checking or savings account that has billpay or ACH ability
4. You need access to CVS, Walgreens, 7-11's or the like that'll let you buy "cash equivalent reload cards" (more on that later) with a credit card
Step by Step:
1. Apply for a Wells Fargo 5% Cash back credit card here: This card allows you to earn 5% cash back for all gas, grocery and drug store purchases for six months. This card is designed for those with high FICO scores, so you should ideally have several years of solid credit history with no late payments or negative comments on your credit report.
If they deny you or give you a pending decision, try calling the numbers here and ask them to give you a decision over the phone. Once you have confirmation that you've accepted, move to Step 2.
2. Apply for a American Express Bluebird card here: You can also buy a starter card at Walmart for $3-$4, but it's just as easy to order one online and wait a week for it. This card doesn't hard pull your credit report, so you won't be dinged 3-5 points like with the Wells Fargo card, although you do need a social security number to validate your identity. This might seem useless, but I'll explain in later steps.
3. Once you have both the Wells Fargo card and the Bluebird in hand, go to any one of these stores listed here that qualify as a drugstore, gas station or grocery store and buy Vanilla Reload cards with your 5% Wells Fargo card. IMPORTANT: Make sure that these are "Vanilla Reload" cards and not "One Vanilla" "My Vanilla" or any other variant of the Vanilla brand. Make sure it looks like this:
The Vanilla Reload cards are reload packs that allow you to put cash on to many prepaid and debit cards. Unfortunately, they have a $3.95 charge per card and you can only load a maximum of $500 on each card. The tricky part is finding a gas/drug/market that allows you to buy Vanilla Reload cards with credit cards. A lot of them insist on cash and if they do allow you to buy with credit sometimes limit it to one or two cards a day. But once you do find them, buy them with your Wells Fargo 5% cash back card.
Depending on your credit limit and how much the store will sell you, try to buy as many as you can up to $5,000 a month. There's a reason for this limit. Remember, even though you're getting $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reload cards, you're going to be paying $5,000 + $39.50 ($3.95x10) for the cards.
4. Once you have the Vanilla Reload cards, go to vanillareload.com and enter the unique 10 digit PIN number into the box. You'll find it on the back of the vanilla reload card after you scratch it off, exactly like a lottery scratcher. After that, enter your 15 digit Bluebird card number in the "prepaid card number" box. Once you confirm that you want to load the $500, your bluebird will be loaded with the funds from the Vanilla Reload card. Bluebird only allows $5,000 a month to be loaded and a $1,000 daily limit, so this will take you a minimum of five days to accomplish the monthly max.
5. Once your $5,000 is loaded on to your Bluebird, go to the "settings" tab on the upper right and link your bank account. You can always do this when you first get the Bluebird card also. Once that's linked, you can transfer the entirety of the $5,000 from your bluebird account that you received through the Vanilla Reloads to your bank account using the "Withdraw funds" link.
6. Final Step: Now that you have the $5,000 in your bank account, use billpay or ACH to pay off the original $5,039.50 balance on your Wells Fargo card. You'll have completed the cycle:
1. $5,039.50 charged on Wells Fargo 5% cash back card for Vanilla Reloads
2. $5,000 moved from Vanilla Reloads to Bluebird card
3. $5,000 moved from Bluebird to bank account
4. $5,039.50 moved from bank account to pay off Wells Fargo credit card
You're left with
- $5,039.50 credit card balance that's been paid off
- 5% rebate of $5,039.50 ($251.98) minus the $39.50 you paid for the 10 Vanilla Reload cards.
- Total monthly haul: $212.48
A few things:
1. Don't tell the cashiers where you're buying the Vanilla Reload cards what you're doing. If they figured out that you can make $200+ so easy, they're either going to think you're some sort of money launderer or they're going to try and keep the cards for themselves. If cashiers ask, I tell them that they're presents or I say bonuses for my employees.
2. Finding cards is sometimes not easy. I live in SoCal and I'm constantly surprised how hard it is to find these cards. I've built up some good relationships with cashiers at stores that sell these cards and a lot of them will save them for me when they come in. In exchange, I'm nice and will sometimes bring in little knick knacks and cheap trinkets.
3. I'm not a tax professional but in all of my research, cash back is considered a discount and not taxable income. $212.48 really is $212.48. I'm expecting a round of drinks when I'm in your hood.
4. Shit sounds complicated, but it's actually a really easy form of arbitrage. Usually takes me 10 minutes to drive to the drugstore and buy $5,000 worth of cards, 10 minutes back, 2 minutes for each daily load x 5. Basically 30 minutes of work for $212.48. Wish I could have that hourly rate on a full time job.
Conclusion:
Nobody's going to get rich off of this six month hustle, but I don't think anyone would sneeze at $1,275 over six months of pure risk free profit. This is good going out/drinking money. Like I said before, I like this community and this is one way I can contribute.
Also, even though I laid out exactly how to run this hustle, there are additional ways to really maximize this deal. Personally, I make around $1,200-$1,800 a month from 5% cash back and I know someone who makes $10k-$15k monthly from this. I'm not going to talk about my personal strategy because not only did it take me hundreds of hours of trial and error but it could likely affect my own hustle. But if you're really driven to figure it out, I think I gave you the building blocks on how to scale it up an order of magnitude.
Comments and questions are welcome, but don't PM me or leave posts with "please tell me how to make $10,000/month". That just shows you're lazy and small minded and not worth my time.
This isn't going to be one of those personal finance blogs that say "get a tutoring job" or "collect cans in the park" or some vague bullshit like that... I'll show you step by step how to make this money. The detail I write with will make this seem much harder/longer than it actually is, but I figure it's better to be more specific to really break it down.
A few requirements however:
1. You have to live in America (social security number needed)
2. You have to have good to excellent credit (720+ FICO)
3. A checking or savings account that has billpay or ACH ability
4. You need access to CVS, Walgreens, 7-11's or the like that'll let you buy "cash equivalent reload cards" (more on that later) with a credit card
Step by Step:
1. Apply for a Wells Fargo 5% Cash back credit card here: This card allows you to earn 5% cash back for all gas, grocery and drug store purchases for six months. This card is designed for those with high FICO scores, so you should ideally have several years of solid credit history with no late payments or negative comments on your credit report.
If they deny you or give you a pending decision, try calling the numbers here and ask them to give you a decision over the phone. Once you have confirmation that you've accepted, move to Step 2.
2. Apply for a American Express Bluebird card here: You can also buy a starter card at Walmart for $3-$4, but it's just as easy to order one online and wait a week for it. This card doesn't hard pull your credit report, so you won't be dinged 3-5 points like with the Wells Fargo card, although you do need a social security number to validate your identity. This might seem useless, but I'll explain in later steps.
3. Once you have both the Wells Fargo card and the Bluebird in hand, go to any one of these stores listed here that qualify as a drugstore, gas station or grocery store and buy Vanilla Reload cards with your 5% Wells Fargo card. IMPORTANT: Make sure that these are "Vanilla Reload" cards and not "One Vanilla" "My Vanilla" or any other variant of the Vanilla brand. Make sure it looks like this:
The Vanilla Reload cards are reload packs that allow you to put cash on to many prepaid and debit cards. Unfortunately, they have a $3.95 charge per card and you can only load a maximum of $500 on each card. The tricky part is finding a gas/drug/market that allows you to buy Vanilla Reload cards with credit cards. A lot of them insist on cash and if they do allow you to buy with credit sometimes limit it to one or two cards a day. But once you do find them, buy them with your Wells Fargo 5% cash back card.
Depending on your credit limit and how much the store will sell you, try to buy as many as you can up to $5,000 a month. There's a reason for this limit. Remember, even though you're getting $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reload cards, you're going to be paying $5,000 + $39.50 ($3.95x10) for the cards.
4. Once you have the Vanilla Reload cards, go to vanillareload.com and enter the unique 10 digit PIN number into the box. You'll find it on the back of the vanilla reload card after you scratch it off, exactly like a lottery scratcher. After that, enter your 15 digit Bluebird card number in the "prepaid card number" box. Once you confirm that you want to load the $500, your bluebird will be loaded with the funds from the Vanilla Reload card. Bluebird only allows $5,000 a month to be loaded and a $1,000 daily limit, so this will take you a minimum of five days to accomplish the monthly max.
5. Once your $5,000 is loaded on to your Bluebird, go to the "settings" tab on the upper right and link your bank account. You can always do this when you first get the Bluebird card also. Once that's linked, you can transfer the entirety of the $5,000 from your bluebird account that you received through the Vanilla Reloads to your bank account using the "Withdraw funds" link.
6. Final Step: Now that you have the $5,000 in your bank account, use billpay or ACH to pay off the original $5,039.50 balance on your Wells Fargo card. You'll have completed the cycle:
1. $5,039.50 charged on Wells Fargo 5% cash back card for Vanilla Reloads
2. $5,000 moved from Vanilla Reloads to Bluebird card
3. $5,000 moved from Bluebird to bank account
4. $5,039.50 moved from bank account to pay off Wells Fargo credit card
You're left with
- $5,039.50 credit card balance that's been paid off
- 5% rebate of $5,039.50 ($251.98) minus the $39.50 you paid for the 10 Vanilla Reload cards.
- Total monthly haul: $212.48
A few things:
1. Don't tell the cashiers where you're buying the Vanilla Reload cards what you're doing. If they figured out that you can make $200+ so easy, they're either going to think you're some sort of money launderer or they're going to try and keep the cards for themselves. If cashiers ask, I tell them that they're presents or I say bonuses for my employees.
2. Finding cards is sometimes not easy. I live in SoCal and I'm constantly surprised how hard it is to find these cards. I've built up some good relationships with cashiers at stores that sell these cards and a lot of them will save them for me when they come in. In exchange, I'm nice and will sometimes bring in little knick knacks and cheap trinkets.
3. I'm not a tax professional but in all of my research, cash back is considered a discount and not taxable income. $212.48 really is $212.48. I'm expecting a round of drinks when I'm in your hood.
4. Shit sounds complicated, but it's actually a really easy form of arbitrage. Usually takes me 10 minutes to drive to the drugstore and buy $5,000 worth of cards, 10 minutes back, 2 minutes for each daily load x 5. Basically 30 minutes of work for $212.48. Wish I could have that hourly rate on a full time job.
Conclusion:
Nobody's going to get rich off of this six month hustle, but I don't think anyone would sneeze at $1,275 over six months of pure risk free profit. This is good going out/drinking money. Like I said before, I like this community and this is one way I can contribute.
Also, even though I laid out exactly how to run this hustle, there are additional ways to really maximize this deal. Personally, I make around $1,200-$1,800 a month from 5% cash back and I know someone who makes $10k-$15k monthly from this. I'm not going to talk about my personal strategy because not only did it take me hundreds of hours of trial and error but it could likely affect my own hustle. But if you're really driven to figure it out, I think I gave you the building blocks on how to scale it up an order of magnitude.
Comments and questions are welcome, but don't PM me or leave posts with "please tell me how to make $10,000/month". That just shows you're lazy and small minded and not worth my time.