How to Buy More Money

Here's a novel way to save some cash: buy someone's unwanted giftcard. Often you can find giftcards to any number of grocery, drug, or household stores for sale at a discount. And if you've planned ahead to shop during a sale, you stand to save a lot of money.

Check out swapagift or cardavenue to search for cards. You could also make an ad on craigslist (or post a myspace bulletin or a facebook note) offering to buy unwanted gift cards. Most gift card sites also offer the option to trade, so if your grandma gets you a Macy's card, but you're wise enough to be buying well-made clothing secondhand, you could swap the card out for a merchant with a little more utility.

Just be sure that you don't start blowing money on random giftcards that you don't need. For example, I've got some gardening projects coming up- so I'm hoping to offset costs by researching sales at Lowe's/Home Depot and then buying a gift card at a discount. When this month is over and I'm back to grocery shopping, I might try to buy a costco giftcard, so that I can buy baking supplies in bulk AND receive the built-in discount of having bought an $80 gift card for $70 or less. But I'm certainly not going to buy a $200 Nordstrom's card for $180.

Buying gift cards at a discount is also a great way to save on gift-giving. Not that you should encourage anyone's Starbucks habit, but if you really want to get someone a Starbucks card, might as well save some money on it, right?