Get 11% off CVS and 13% off on Regal Cinema gift cards this weekend at Raise.com

Buying Raise.com gift cards has become an important layer of saving money for me.  First of all, even without any promo codes at all, all of their gift cards are discounted.  That means that when I pay with a gift card from Raise.com, I'm automatically saving money, even if I never clip another coupon or use another promo code.

Now, parenthetically, you might think that I'm losing out on credit card points by paying for things with gift cards, but I'm not, because I'll pay for the gift cards that I buy on Raise.com with my credit card, so I still get my credit card rewards.

When Raise.com stacks the deck by offering a promo code discount on top of their already discounted cards, I pay attention.  This weekend, when you enter promo code TAKE5, you can receive an additional 5% off gift cards from CVS.com, Regal Cinemas, and Hancock Fabrics.  Of these vendors, the two that interest me the most are CVS and Regal Cinemas because I buy stuff at CVS and attend Regal Cinemas all the time.

Let's start with Regal Cinemas.  Joshua and I go to the movies quite a lot.  It's one of our favorite date nights.  About 2/3 of the movies we see are at a Regal Cinemas theater, so I belong to their Regal Crown Club rewards program, and I also download coupons from RecycleBank that give me $2.00 off every Regal movie ticket.  (I try to buy reduced ticket voucher packs from Costco, but they are usually $8.50 per ticket, and since we usually are charged $10.00 per ticket, I do slightly better with the $2.00 coupons; you can't combine vouchers and coupons.)

Raise.com has got $25.00 Regal gift cards for $23.00, a savings of 8%.  With the promo code TAKE 5, you'll get an additional 5% of that $23.00 off, or another $1.15, which drops the price on those $25.00 gift cards to $21.85.  Let's do a little math.  Say I buy two of those $25.00 gift cards, or $50 in gift cards, and pay $43.70.  Right away, I've saved myself  $6.30 (almost 13% of that $50.00), and I'm also going to save $2.00 on every ticket with my coupon.  So I'm going to be able to buy 6 tickets at $8.00 each with those gift cards ($48.00) and still have $2.00 left over in the balance.  If I bought those 6 tickets without doing anything, that would cost me $60.00 (at $10.00 per ticket).  Using the gift cards and coupons, I'll have paid $43.70 and still have $2.00 left over.  That's almost like getting two tickets for free.  That's what I mean by layering on the savings.

Now let's look at the CVS gift cards.  We don't have any CVS stores in Denver, but I use them frequently when I go to Omaha (my husband travels there on business) or New York, where my family lives.  Between the numerous coupons, specials and ExtraBucks rewards, I do very well at CVS.  CVS gift cards are currently discounted by 6% on Raise and with the 5% promo code, your final discount will be around 11%.  Imagine supplementing all of those discounts and ExtraBucks at CVS by an additional 11% discount right out of the gate!

And don't forget, if you're a brand new user to Raise.com, you can get $5 off your first $75 gift card purchase, when you click through this link and enter promo code RAISE75AF at checkout.  That's like getting an additional 7% off your purchase before you even buy anything, on top of the regular Raise gift card discounts.  The $75 minimum doesn't have to be on one gift card; it can be spread over several gift cards in one purchase.  You can only use one promo code at a time, so while this discount is higher than 5%, you also need to buy a minimum of $75 in gift cards, so figure out which one will work best for you right now.

Paying for stuff with discounted gift cards just makes tons of frugal sense and is my latest item on a list of no-brainer, low-effort ways to save money.

(And don't forget that if' you've got gift cards from stores that you never frequent, you can also sell them through Raise.  You'll lose a little money on the transaction, but better to have the cash in your pocket than to be dragging around a gift card that you'll never use.  We unloaded a few gift cards at non-kosher establishments that we had received through work this way, and are going to use the cash to treat ourselves to a fabulously expensive kosher dinner the next time we're in New York.)

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