Stacking Discounts | Snowboarding Edition
Highlighting the sheer absurdity of the financial ecosystem and my attempt to apply as many discounts as possible for this hefty purchase.
TLDR;
- Always buy off-season
- If possible, time it with a holiday sale
- Purchase in bulk to qualify for any spend requirements, but don’t spend just to hit a milestone
- Leverage cash back programs
- 0% APR programs are always ideal*
*but don’t get in the habit of forgetting this is a loan
End of Summer Sale
I recently bit the bullet and after 6 seasons of snowboarding, decided to buy my own gear for this upcoming season.
For this purchase, Instagram targeted my buddy who is super into snowboarding who then ended up forwarding the Ad to me.
I guess Instagram Ads do work after all. Ad is below.
Jumping on the deal I found a snowboard, bindings, and boots, which MSRP would have cost:
- $469.95, but was 26% off or $347.76 for the snowboard
- $199.95, but was 19% off or $161.95 for the boots
- $239.95, but was 19% off or $194.95 for the bindings
FYI, this post is not sponsored. Snowboard was the Burton Cartographer for those who care.
So altogether, MSRP was $909.85, but with the Summer Sale deal dropped to $704.66 for $205.19 in savings (22.5% off).
Always try to buy off-season or off-peak if you can help it.
Labor Day Sale
In addition, there was a labor day sale that was roughly offering 10% off depending on certain spending requirements, which in my case I was able to hit the highest “tier” of $60 of $600.
Unfortunately, my purchase exceeded that by $100, so was really an 8.5% off.
Where possible when it’s a fixed spend requirement, we want to just crest that requirement to get maximum benefit.
Free Shipping Min Spend
There was also a perk where spending $99 or more in a single order qualified for free shipping, which is worth about $10 for basic ground shipping.
Cash Back Extensions
So far, all of the discounts I mentioned were on-site discounts which are great and all, but we can do better.
Using a popular cash-back extension, Rakuten, I was able to stack another 4.5% off the total, or $31.70.
I linked my Rakuten referral for those who haven’t gotten it yet. It’s as simple as pressing “Activate” once on an eligible site and having the cash back deposited into the account.
Credit Rewards
The final “optimization” here is to figure out the payment method.
I could have used my Discover It which currently is rewarding purchases made through PayPal (an available payment option on-site) with 5% cash back or ~$35.
However, I actually opted to open a PayPal credit account which was offering $20 on account opening and more importantly, 6 months of 0% APR.
I linked my PayPal referral for those who don’t have an account yet.
This acts as a 0% interest loan that I can defer for a period of time, which was more valuable to me than the flat 5% cash back through Discover.
Personally, I prefer to defer large payments whenever possible or at least smooth out the payments over time instead of a lump sum payment.
Don’t forget though that this is still a loan and should be treated as such despite the 0% period.
Alternative Payment Option
The highest leverage option I didn’t mention, but love doing with large purchases is to open a new credit card with a large signup bonus.
The best thing to do is actually to collect a list of all the big ticket items you want to purchase (a trip is a great way to do this) and time it so that you can take advantage of both a deal and load all the spending onto a new card to immediately hit that signup bonus.
The key is to figure out what the expenses are first then open a credit card with a signup bonus to get a discount, rather than opening a card first and then seeking to find spend to put on it.
Final Accounting
The full cost without any discount would have run:
- $909.85 MSRP for all the gear
- $10 shipping
- Total: $919.85
The on-site discounts are:
- $205.19 summer sale
- $60 labor day sale
- free shipping ($10 value)
- Total: $275.19
The additional discounts came out to:
- $30.82 Rakuten cash back (4.5%)
- $20 PayPal credit bonus
- Total: $50.82
There was also a tax of $40.29.
This is an on-site total of $684.95 and a final cost of $634.23 (31% off).
Don’t forget there is a the hidden value of the 6-month 0% APR that I now get to defer over time instead of having to pay the upfront cost.
Now, none of this money is life-changing, but all of it is quite practical by keeping in mind timing and credit rewards.
I plan on doing a follow-up breakdown on why it made sense for me to finally buy equipment instead of continuing to rent.
