CHESSNOID

First of all, I have known about the staples rewards program for a few years. I have even got some stuff for free from Staples every so often. It was only until recently by reading a slick deals forum, that I learned you can get great stuff for free or almost free.

The last two months, Staples has been doing a rewards promotion on duracell batteries, where you buy a package and get rewarded with the amount spent on them excluding taxes I think. I use batteries all the time for many gadgets, but try to get the cheapest prices buying them online from Amazon.com. However, free is hard to beat. I recently recycled 10 ink cartridges last month and 2 so far this month. They give you staples reward credit of $2 each.

Since I started a conscious effort of earning staples rewards by buying batteries, some paper, and other free knick knacks, plus recycling my ink cartridges, I have accumulated $135 worth of Staples rewards that I will eventually use by 2/28/2012 to purchase something from Staples. I am leaning towards an external hard drive or an android tablet. In December, Staples had a program that gave you a promotional $10 gift card (can be used only in January) with every $50 purchased staples gift card. So what I would do first is buy the $50 gift card, then turn around and use that to purchase the batteries and what nots. Neat trick that I am hoping to repeat next December.

Right now they have the kindle fire for $199, but I am hoping they to get a higher grade android tablet in the next month. My prediction is that the tablet prices will fall soon as technology keeps getting better. They have an android tablet that runs on ICS o/s for $99 called the Ainol Novo 7 tablet (and yes the first word sounds like anal).

My other option is to buy a new laptop using the rewards towards the purchase. I guess it will depend on what goes on sale before my rewards expires. This gives me plenty of time to sell some of my old gadgets if I go this route.

One interesting tidbit I wanted to share with you is I buy my ink at Amazon for less than $7 for a 10 pack. Then staples allows me to recycle each of them for $2 a piece per calendar month. So I am ahead of the game already knowing I am up $13 net. Isn’t that crazy.