Collecting points

I have many cards in my wallet that are for specific shops – that allows me to collect “reward points” for purchases. I used to think these things were brilliant – getting points for items that you’d purchase anyway! Looking through the brochures I saw that points could be redeemed for vacations, Vespas, kitchenware, and even gift certificates to my favorite stores. I’ve been using this collection of cards for several years and have discovered something that I should have known from the beginning – collecting points is futile because it takes so very long to gather enough points to redeem for anything. Unless you are spending huge amounts of money when collecting points, it may not be worth it. Buying 3 tomatoes and a package of English muffins gets me very few points. Yesterday I was in the drug store, where as usual I presented my rewards card. But this time there was a surprise – the cashier asked me if I wanted to redeem my points for $5 off my purchase. Unfortunately I completely misunderstood the cashier and promptly responded “no thank you”. After realizing what the cashier was talking about, I reviewed my receipt and realized that I’m only 2000 points away from getting $10 off my purchase. So I guess I’ll just save up for that – probably reach that goal in another 3 years.