Why I Spent $15 in Mental Convenience Fees

After much consternation, I woke up this morning convicted (read: anxious) to just be done thinking about these darn credit cards. I made a plan but for some reason, I just kept waiting to execute it.

I didn't want to keep it in my mental closet any longer. So I ate the $15 in gift card activation fees to free up some mental space.

Here was my initial plan:

Objective: Spend $1500 across 3 credit cards by Jun (1) and July (2)

Card 1:  $500 visa gift card purchased at a grocery store (should trigger a 5% cashback bonus) (next weekend)

Card 2: Split between Spectrum internet bill and upcoming auto-insurance premium (mid-June)

Card 3: Power bill (mid-June) (w/ $3.50 fee)


I completed Card 1's Spend Requirement sometime last week. It was so easy and a little bit thrilling. I vowed not to do it again and to just complete the other 2 Spend Requirements from the comfort of my home. But I just couldn't get mind to get on board with pre-paying bills. Maybe it's because of the potential COVID-related free money; maybe it's because I want to keep my money a little closer to the vest; maybe it's because of the upcoming transition of jobs. I don't know what it was. Come to think of it, maybe the routine of paying bills regularly each month was something I wanted. 

Whatever the reason, this morning I just nixed those plans and bought 2 gift cards. It was a lot of nervous sweating because the cashier at Food Lion had to get a manager to put in some code to buy the gift cards. If I think back, this happened with Card 1, but the cashier was close enough to the manager and just ended up scanning something from behind the Customer Service Desk. There was no back and forth. 

This time, Cashier called Manager. Manager asked if I was paying debit. And I said yes (white lie). Because sometimes people use debit/credit interchangeably. Manager had to wait since I paid for each Gift Card in separate transactions. After Transaction 2, Manager said that wasn't a debit card. I shrugged. What difference does it make? 

Luckily, nothing else happened and I walked out sweating profusely. I don't know why I'm nervous; I'm not actually doing anything wrong. I think the commenters on the site just scared me because they said these types of transactions can raise red flags. 

Then I had to come home to use the phone (since I don't have cell phone service at the moment) to activate the Gift Cards and get a pin. Once that was done, I wanted to finish the job. So, I drove to another Food Lion (again, undue nerves) to buy the money order.  I thought I could save $0.46 by buying one money order for $1k but no. She split it up into two. See this is where dealing with humans causes your experience to vary. I know I have purchased money orders before that were > $500 and only been charged for one money order.  Oh well.

This Cashier didn't make me feel like I was doing anything suspicious, but I was still nervous. I asked if I could split the payment on 2 cards and she said that was okay. I realized with the extra cost of the second money order, I didn't have enough so I had to pay an extra $0.46 cents in cash. Oh well. 

I'm just glad it's all done. I'll be locking my cards as soon as the transactions post and be done with that!!

I'm so happy to be done and just not thinking about it anymore. I'd love to say this is the last time I'll be doing this, but you know how I am. Only time will tell!

Happy Friday!