Money for Nothin'

This is what I heard myself say to my husband yesterday:

"Honey, I put all of our telecom and internet expenses on the Ink card because they're giving 5X the points for every dollar. Use that one for any office supply stores too because that's also worth 5x the points, oh, and they give 2x the points on gas, so buy gas with it too, but use the Freedom card for the three reward categories they're having right now, which are restaurants, movies and Lowes (not that we ever go there), but only until June when the categories change and they give 5% cash back on something else, and then put everything else on the Venture card because they give 2 miles per dollar.  Oh, but use the Venture card at Trader Joe's because they're giving 5x the points there, but only until the end of July.  Have you got all that?  Honey?

The Amex card?  No, I'm not using that one anymore.  The rewards weren't as good."

Have you noticed how complicated shopping has become?  Last year I wrote about this, and I swear it's now gotten much worse.  The banks have figured out how my irrational brain functions, and they know they can tease me with the promise of getting something for free, so I will spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out which is the smartest way to pay for things.  If I need some t-shirts, I can go to the Gap and buy them, or I can go to the Gap website and buy them using the coupon code they emailed me for a discount, and I can start from the Upromise portal so that 5% of my purchase goes towards my kid's college fund,  or I can go check through the shopping function of each of my credit cards to figure out which will give me the greatest point bonus for shopping through their site --- points that I can use for travel, if I could ever actually make that work, or the massage that I will need after all this insanity.  And I can spend an hour or so trying to turn a 5% contribution on a $50 purchase into $2.50 to be split among the college funds of my three kids.  Great use of time!

And then you look at the other rewards you're killing yourself to earn.  I spent $67 at Trader Joe's one day, and I was so happy because I was going to get 5 bonus points per dollar by using the Venture card, and that's 335 points, which is really exciting until you realize that in the CapitalOne system, you move the decimal point over two places, so you're getting a whopping $3.35 in miles.  WOOHOO!

But still, I can't not do it.  Even though I know the payoff for all this effort is low, my brain can't get past that promise of getting a better deal.  I know it's irrational, and yes, compulsive.  

My poor husband.  I know he stands there at the cashier and thinks, wait, which card was I supposed to use for guitar strings?