We have Alco stores around here, and I am a "member" meaning I have a store loyalty card and signed up for their emails.

In an email on Monday (I think) they showed a deal of "buy a $25 gift card, get a $5 gift card free." I didn't see that in their ad on line, and it wasn't in their paper at the front of the store, either.

I asked the teller, and she said yes, the promotion was still going on, and would be until Christmas. Sweet!

My brothers and sisters and I are giving my parents one of those fake tempurpedic beds for Christmas. They were on sale for $289 for a queen a few weeks ago, and there was only one. My husband and I decided to get one, kind of to try it out to make sure it wasn't crap, and to give us more space as we are bed-sharing with our 6 month old and didn't have enough room in our full sized bed. So, I got a rain check for the other bed for mom and dad, and I'm waiting for it to be delivered to the store so I can buy it.

I had my brothers and sisters pay me their share over Thanksgiving. Since there are 9 of us, with tax it ended up about $37 each. 3 haven't paid yet, but 5 others did, some with cash, some with a check.

I went to Alco, and they won't take 3rd party checks, so I decided to use all the cash and some out of my account to buy 8 $25 gift cards. This got me 8 $5 gift cards as well. There is no limit to how many you can do in a transaction, they just have to swipe each card and code the amount in for each, so it will take a while to get done.

I also had a rain check for Hunts ketchup that was on sale 10 for $10 and get a $5 gift card back. I bought some gifts for my nephew from me (as his Godmother) and from my son (gift exchange for the kids), for another nephew (DH's godson) and for my son.

I sent an email to some people at work about it. One lady said she was looking at an Xbox that was $300 and you get a $25 gift card when you purchase one. So, she went there tonight and did this, and will get the Xbox for about $225. With her other purchases, she is going to save almost $100.

Another lady said she would do this to get a Wii and save $25.

I know their intention is to get people to give gift cards to others so they will spend in the store...but I don't care I don't have to give them away...I can use them to automatically get 20% off anything I buy!