Financial Friday: Surveys

One of my monthly rituals is to clean out my envelope system so that I can start fresh on the first of every month. Throughout the preceding month, every time I used money from one of the envelopes, I would tuck the receipt into that envelope. Then at the end of the month when it’s time to prepare for the next month, I can look back and see where my money had gone. This is also helpful for having receipts handy when needing to return something to the store or if you happen to get a tank of bad gas. You have proof of where that gas came from.

So this morning, I am sitting here on the couch and sorting my receipts. I had leftover cash in one of my envelopes. Every month when that happens, I sweep the leftover cash into an entirely different envelope I keep elsewhere marked “Christmas money.” For 2019, I had managed to accumulate almost $300 for Christmas gifts! That’s a nice little sum to alleviate some of the burden that people subject themselves to in order to buy gifts for a seemingly endless list of recipients. Anyway, I digress.

As I was sorting through the receipts, I noticed that a couple had circles highlighting a survey to participate in. On a whim, I decided to go ahead and fill out the surveys. I had three surveys for our local grocery store, chances at a $100 gift card. Who knows how many people actually do that but I figure, hey, it’s free money just sitting there to try for so why not? If nothing else, it might help improve customer service at the stores. Another receipt was for a local fast food store. If you complete the survey, you can get a free food item. Well, that right there is incentive enough for me!

I need to take my eldest with me to work tomorrow since school has not started back yet and it will be a fairly quiet day in the office catching up from the holidays. For Christmas, he and his brother received gift cards to a local fast food place. Well, his gift card plus my free food item mean lunch out for both of us and it will not cost me very much, if any, money at all, especially if I don’t order a beverage or side. I will probably buy a side but I have my bee water cup that I can use for my drink.

I think this might be fairly common with food places offering free food items in exchange for customer surveys. As long as you’re not picky, this could net you more free food more often. Just another small way to save a few dollars here and there. And who knows… maybe you could get lucky with the other surveys offering chances to win gift cards! It might not hurt to set up an email account specifically for these types of offers so if they start spamming you, it doesn’t clutter up the inbox of your primary email address.