Post: #1

Just like the post said, I will teach you how to make an extra $200 a month in tax free income. Well, it's actually $212.48, but $200 seemed like a nice round number. It'll take about an hour to setup and then maybe an hour a month reoccurring to keep it going.

This isn't going to be one of those personal finance blogs that say "get a tutoring job" or "collect cans in the park" or some vague bullshit like that... I'll show you step by step how to make this money. The detail I write with will make this seem much harder/longer than it actually is, but I figure it's better to be more specific to really break it down.

A few requirements however:

1. You have to live in America (social security number needed)
2. You have to have good to excellent credit (720+ FICO)
3. A checking or savings account that has billpay or ACH ability
4. You need access to CVS, Walgreens, 7-11's or the like that'll let you buy "cash equivalent reload cards" (more on that later) with a credit card

Step by Step:

1. Apply for a Wells Fargo 5% Cash back credit card here: This card allows you to earn 5% cash back for all gas, grocery and drug store purchases for six months. This card is designed for those with high FICO scores, so you should ideally have several years of solid credit history with no late payments or negative comments on your credit report.

If they deny you or give you a pending decision, try calling the numbers here and ask them to give you a decision over the phone. Once you have confirmation that you've accepted, move to Step 2.

2. Apply for a American Express Bluebird card here: You can also buy a starter card at Walmart for $3-$4, but it's just as easy to order one online and wait a week for it. This card doesn't hard pull your credit report, so you won't be dinged 3-5 points like with the Wells Fargo card, although you do need a social security number to validate your identity. This might seem useless, but I'll explain in later steps.

3. Once you have both the Wells Fargo card and the Bluebird in hand, go to any one of these stores listed here that qualify as a drugstore, gas station or grocery store and buy Vanilla Reload cards with your 5% Wells Fargo card. IMPORTANT: Make sure that these are "Vanilla Reload" cards and not "One Vanilla" "My Vanilla" or any other variant of the Vanilla brand. Make sure it looks like this:



The Vanilla Reload cards are reload packs that allow you to put cash on to many prepaid and debit cards. Unfortunately, they have a $3.95 charge per card and you can only load a maximum of $500 on each card. The tricky part is finding a gas/drug/market that allows you to buy Vanilla Reload cards with credit cards. A lot of them insist on cash and if they do allow you to buy with credit sometimes limit it to one or two cards a day. But once you do find them, buy them with your Wells Fargo 5% cash back card.

Depending on your credit limit and how much the store will sell you, try to buy as many as you can up to $5,000 a month. There's a reason for this limit. Remember, even though you're getting $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reload cards, you're going to be paying $5,000 + $39.50 ($3.95x10) for the cards.

4. Once you have the Vanilla Reload cards, go to vanillareload.com and enter the unique 10 digit PIN number into the box. You'll find it on the back of the vanilla reload card after you scratch it off, exactly like a lottery scratcher. After that, enter your 15 digit Bluebird card number in the "prepaid card number" box. Once you confirm that you want to load the $500, your bluebird will be loaded with the funds from the Vanilla Reload card. Bluebird only allows $5,000 a month to be loaded and a $1,000 daily limit, so this will take you a minimum of five days to accomplish the monthly max.

5. Once your $5,000 is loaded on to your Bluebird, go to the "settings" tab on the upper right and link your bank account. You can always do this when you first get the Bluebird card also. Once that's linked, you can transfer the entirety of the $5,000 from your bluebird account that you received through the Vanilla Reloads to your bank account using the "Withdraw funds" link.

6. Final Step: Now that you have the $5,000 in your bank account, use billpay or ACH to pay off the original $5,039.50 balance on your Wells Fargo card. You'll have completed the cycle:

1. $5,039.50 charged on Wells Fargo 5% cash back card for Vanilla Reloads
2. $5,000 moved from Vanilla Reloads to Bluebird card
3. $5,000 moved from Bluebird to bank account
4. $5,039.50 moved from bank account to pay off Wells Fargo credit card

You're left with
- $5,039.50 credit card balance that's been paid off
- 5% rebate of $5,039.50 ($251.98) minus the $39.50 you paid for the 10 Vanilla Reload cards.
- Total monthly haul: $212.48

A few things:

1. Don't tell the cashiers where you're buying the Vanilla Reload cards what you're doing. If they figured out that you can make $200+ so easy, they're either going to think you're some sort of money launderer or they're going to try and keep the cards for themselves. If cashiers ask, I tell them that they're presents or I say bonuses for my employees.

2. Finding cards is sometimes not easy. I live in SoCal and I'm constantly surprised how hard it is to find these cards. I've built up some good relationships with cashiers at stores that sell these cards and a lot of them will save them for me when they come in. In exchange, I'm nice and will sometimes bring in little knick knacks and cheap trinkets.

3. I'm not a tax professional but in all of my research, cash back is considered a discount and not taxable income. $212.48 really is $212.48. I'm expecting a round of drinks when I'm in your hood.

4. Shit sounds complicated, but it's actually a really easy form of arbitrage. Usually takes me 10 minutes to drive to the drugstore and buy $5,000 worth of cards, 10 minutes back, 2 minutes for each daily load x 5. Basically 30 minutes of work for $212.48. Wish I could have that hourly rate on a full time job.

Conclusion:

Nobody's going to get rich off of this six month hustle, but I don't think anyone would sneeze at $1,275 over six months of pure risk free profit. This is good going out/drinking money. Like I said before, I like this community and this is one way I can contribute.

Also, even though I laid out exactly how to run this hustle, there are additional ways to really maximize this deal. Personally, I make around $1,200-$1,800 a month from 5% cash back and I know someone who makes $10k-$15k monthly from this. I'm not going to talk about my personal strategy because not only did it take me hundreds of hours of trial and error but it could likely affect my own hustle. But if you're really driven to figure it out, I think I gave you the building blocks on how to scale it up an order of magnitude.

Comments and questions are welcome, but don't PM me or leave posts with "please tell me how to make $10,000/month". That just shows you're lazy and small minded and not worth my time.

Post: #2

This is a good strategy, the one I am using now, but I think you would be short changing yourself stopping with the 5% card, or starting with it for that matter. For instance, I just signed up for an AA Citi Executive card last month. It gives you 100k miles after spending $10k in 3 months. so after spending that you will have 110k miles. You can fly to Europe and South America off-season for 40k roundtrip. The card will give me a little less than 3 round trips. I value that at $3000. You can also do this with hotel credit cards and other airline cards. Doing to correctly you will never have to pay for travel again.

Post: #3

Also I would reocmmend using the BB card to pay a few bills or buy a few tanks of gas or something. I think you are flirting with danger when you withdraw the same exact amount you are putting in every month.

Post: #4

(03-07-2014 12:59 AM)ridiculous_nicholas Wrote:  Also I would reocmmend using the BB card to pay a few bills or buy a few tanks of gas or something. I think you are flirting with danger when you withdraw the same exact amount you are putting in every month.

Nice input. I've signed up for over 80 miles/points cards in the past couple of years so I've pretty much gotten the bonuses on all of the valuable cards out there, but you make a good point.

Cash back is pretty much the only thing I can do, although I did get the 100k bonus on the new Citi Executive recently. $250 fee down from $450 plus 110k AA miles was the kicker even though I have 300k already. I took care of the minimum spend in one purchase: rich friends in Asia that want high end bags that are 30% more there (rich people still like to save money) so I buy them and they reimburse me.

As for BB getting suspicious, I've had it since it came out and month in/out I do $5000 with no shut down. It's the most stable of all of the prepaid cards, I've never heard of anyone getting shut down for suspicious activity unless they really deserved it.

Post: #5

(03-07-2014 01:17 AM)booshala Wrote:  

(03-07-2014 12:59 AM)ridiculous_nicholas Wrote:  Also I would reocmmend using the BB card to pay a few bills or buy a few tanks of gas or something. I think you are flirting with danger when you withdraw the same exact amount you are putting in every month.

Nice input. I've signed up for over 80 miles/points cards in the past couple of years so I've pretty much gotten the bonuses on all of the valuable cards out there, but you make a good point.

Cash back is pretty much the only thing I can do, although I did get the 100k bonus on the new Citi Executive recently. $250 fee down from $450 plus 110k AA miles was the kicker even though I have 300k already. I took care of the minimum spend in one purchase: rich friends in Asia that want high end bags that are 30% more there (rich people still like to save money) so I buy them and they reimburse me.

As for BB getting suspicious, I've had it since it came out and month in/out I do $5000 with no shut down. It's the most stable of all of the prepaid cards, I've never heard of anyone getting shut down for suspicious activity unless they really deserved it.

Thanks for the input, this is my first month using the vanilla reloads so I'm kind of new to it all. I've hit other card bonuses but $10k is too much for me to spend in 3 months without manufacturing. I read this about myvanilla, which is like the cousin of bluebird and it make me nervous: http://travel-summary.com/some-my-vanill...t-on-hold/ Not that having an account shut down would be a big deal, I'd just hate to have it done with thousands in it. How many VRs do you buy at one time?

Post: #6

Barf.

Post: #7

Move to Norway or Sweden. Get a job and pay tax for 12 months.
Get yourself fired and go on welfare.
Move away and live off $3-4k a month.

Thats my plan in progress.

Post: #8

(03-07-2014 12:10 AM)booshala Wrote:  Just like the post said, I will teach you how to make an extra $200 a month in tax free income. Well, it's actually $212.48, but $200 seemed like a nice round number. It'll take about an hour to setup and then maybe an hour a month reoccurring to keep it going.

This isn't going to be one of those personal finance blogs that say "get a tutoring job" or "collect cans in the park" or some vague bullshit like that... I'll show you step by step how to make this money. The detail I write with will make this seem much harder/longer than it actually is, but I figure it's better to be more specific to really break it down.

A few requirements however:

1. You have to live in America (social security number needed)
2. You have to have good to excellent credit (720+ FICO)
3. A checking or savings account that has billpay or ACH ability
4. You need access to CVS, Walgreens, 7-11's or the like that'll let you buy "cash equivalent reload cards" (more on that later) with a credit card

Step by Step:

1. Apply for a Wells Fargo 5% Cash back credit card here: This card allows you to earn 5% cash back for all gas, grocery and drug store purchases for six months. This card is designed for those with high FICO scores, so you should ideally have several years of solid credit history with no late payments or negative comments on your credit report.

If they deny you or give you a pending decision, try calling the numbers here and ask them to give you a decision over the phone. Once you have confirmation that you've accepted, move to Step 2.

2. Apply for a American Express Bluebird card here: You can also buy a starter card at Walmart for $3-$4, but it's just as easy to order one online and wait a week for it. This card doesn't hard pull your credit report, so you won't be dinged 3-5 points like with the Wells Fargo card, although you do need a social security number to validate your identity. This might seem useless, but I'll explain in later steps.

3. Once you have both the Wells Fargo card and the Bluebird in hand, go to any one of these stores listed here that qualify as a drugstore, gas station or grocery store and buy Vanilla Reload cards with your 5% Wells Fargo card. IMPORTANT: Make sure that these are "Vanilla Reload" cards and not "One Vanilla" "My Vanilla" or any other variant of the Vanilla brand. Make sure it looks like this:



The Vanilla Reload cards are reload packs that allow you to put cash on to many prepaid and debit cards. Unfortunately, they have a $3.95 charge per card and you can only load a maximum of $500 on each card. The tricky part is finding a gas/drug/market that allows you to buy Vanilla Reload cards with credit cards. A lot of them insist on cash and if they do allow you to buy with credit sometimes limit it to one or two cards a day. But once you do find them, buy them with your Wells Fargo 5% cash back card.

Depending on your credit limit and how much the store will sell you, try to buy as many as you can up to $5,000 a month. There's a reason for this limit. Remember, even though you're getting $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reload cards, you're going to be paying $5,000 + $39.50 ($3.95x10) for the cards.

4. Once you have the Vanilla Reload cards, go to vanillareload.com and enter the unique 10 digit PIN number into the box. You'll find it on the back of the vanilla reload card after you scratch it off, exactly like a lottery scratcher. After that, enter your 15 digit Bluebird card number in the "prepaid card number" box. Once you confirm that you want to load the $500, your bluebird will be loaded with the funds from the Vanilla Reload card. Bluebird only allows $5,000 a month to be loaded and a $1,000 daily limit, so this will take you a minimum of five days to accomplish the monthly max.

5. Once your $5,000 is loaded on to your Bluebird, go to the "settings" tab on the upper right and link your bank account. You can always do this when you first get the Bluebird card also. Once that's linked, you can transfer the entirety of the $5,000 from your bluebird account that you received through the Vanilla Reloads to your bank account using the "Withdraw funds" link.

6. Final Step: Now that you have the $5,000 in your bank account, use billpay or ACH to pay off the original $5,039.50 balance on your Wells Fargo card. You'll have completed the cycle:

1. $5,039.50 charged on Wells Fargo 5% cash back card for Vanilla Reloads
2. $5,000 moved from Vanilla Reloads to Bluebird card
3. $5,000 moved from Bluebird to bank account
4. $5,039.50 moved from bank account to pay off Wells Fargo credit card

You're left with
- $5,039.50 credit card balance that's been paid off
- 5% rebate of $5,039.50 ($251.98) minus the $39.50 you paid for the 10 Vanilla Reload cards.
- Total monthly haul: $212.48

A few things:

1. Don't tell the cashiers where you're buying the Vanilla Reload cards what you're doing. If they figured out that you can make $200+ so easy, they're either going to think you're some sort of money launderer or they're going to try and keep the cards for themselves. If cashiers ask, I tell them that they're presents or I say bonuses for my employees.

2. Finding cards is sometimes not easy. I live in SoCal and I'm constantly surprised how hard it is to find these cards. I've built up some good relationships with cashiers at stores that sell these cards and a lot of them will save them for me when they come in. In exchange, I'm nice and will sometimes bring in little knick knacks and cheap trinkets.

3. I'm not a tax professional but in all of my research, cash back is considered a discount and not taxable income. $212.48 really is $212.48. I'm expecting a round of drinks when I'm in your hood.

4. Shit sounds complicated, but it's actually a really easy form of arbitrage. Usually takes me 10 minutes to drive to the drugstore and buy $5,000 worth of cards, 10 minutes back, 2 minutes for each daily load x 5. Basically 30 minutes of work for $212.48. Wish I could have that hourly rate on a full time job.

Conclusion:

Nobody's going to get rich off of this six month hustle, but I don't think anyone would sneeze at $1,275 over six months of pure risk free profit. This is good going out/drinking money. Like I said before, I like this community and this is one way I can contribute.

Also, even though I laid out exactly how to run this hustle, there are additional ways to really maximize this deal. Personally, I make around $1,200-$1,800 a month from 5% cash back and I know someone who makes $10k-$15k monthly from this. I'm not going to talk about my personal strategy because not only did it take me hundreds of hours of trial and error but it could likely affect my own hustle. But if you're really driven to figure it out, I think I gave you the building blocks on how to scale it up an order of magnitude.

Comments and questions are welcome, but don't PM me or leave posts with "please tell me how to make $10,000/month". That just shows you're lazy and small minded and not worth my time.

Any hustle that makes even a little bit of money for doing very little is a good hustle. Great thread and idea, I've seen a few similar writeups about this before (not on RVF), but those usually involve a cash advance on one card, then transferring the balance to another card. Most cards will offer 12-18 months of no interest on a balance transfer, so you can get the cash advance and stick it in a CD or some other decent yielding account, making $$. Another good hustle.

Post: #9

Im not this broke.

Post: #10

Isn't this effectively stealing from the shop owner? The shop pays a fee - something along the lines of 1-3-% to take credit cards.

Post: #11

(03-07-2014 08:34 AM)aphelion Wrote:  Isn't this effectively stealing from the shop owner? The shop pays a fee - something along the lines of 1-3-% to take credit cards.

I don't understand this reasoning at all... If you feel that making the vendor pay a merchant service fee is stealing then you must not use credit or debit cards and just carry a shit ton of cash.

I've heard from a CVS manager that they get a per card spread on the vanilla cards and their credit card fees reimbursed for these products by the company who run the reload programs. Also, you're not going to find any mom and pop shops that carry vanilla reloads, they're all going to be national chains like CVS Drugs or at the smallest, 7-11 franchises. Rest easy that you're not bankrupting anyone with this hustle.

Post: #12

(03-07-2014 01:58 AM)ridiculous_nicholas Wrote:  

(03-07-2014 01:17 AM)booshala Wrote:  

(03-07-2014 12:59 AM)ridiculous_nicholas Wrote:  Also I would reocmmend using the BB card to pay a few bills or buy a few tanks of gas or something. I think you are flirting with danger when you withdraw the same exact amount you are putting in every month.

Nice input. I've signed up for over 80 miles/points cards in the past couple of years so I've pretty much gotten the bonuses on all of the valuable cards out there, but you make a good point.

Cash back is pretty much the only thing I can do, although I did get the 100k bonus on the new Citi Executive recently. $250 fee down from $450 plus 110k AA miles was the kicker even though I have 300k already. I took care of the minimum spend in one purchase: rich friends in Asia that want high end bags that are 30% more there (rich people still like to save money) so I buy them and they reimburse me.

As for BB getting suspicious, I've had it since it came out and month in/out I do $5000 with no shut down. It's the most stable of all of the prepaid cards, I've never heard of anyone getting shut down for suspicious activity unless they really deserved it.

Thanks for the input, this is my first month using the vanilla reloads so I'm kind of new to it all. I've hit other card bonuses but $10k is too much for me to spend in 3 months without manufacturing. I read this about myvanilla, which is like the cousin of bluebird and it make me nervous: http://travel-summary.com/some-my-vanill...t-on-hold/ Not that having an account shut down would be a big deal, I'd just hate to have it done with thousands in it. How many VRs do you buy at one time?

My Vanillas are a pain in the ass but if you can stomach them shutting you down and waiting a month for your money, give it a shot. I usually buy 6-10 VR's at a time.

Post: #13

Is there a catch to this?

Why do you even need the bluebird card?

Post: #14

^ that article was written over a year ago, so it may no longer be relevant.

I think I'll give this a try. I don't need the money, but I'm trying to get in more of a money-making mindset, and that includes trying new things.

Post: #15

ridiculous_nicholas Wrote:

"This is a good strategy, the one I am using now, but I think you would be short changing yourself stopping with the 5% card, or starting with it for that matter. For instance, I just signed up for an AA Citi Executive card last month. It gives you 100k miles after spending $10k in 3 months. so after spending that you will have 110k miles. You can fly to Europe and South America off-season for 40k roundtrip. The card will give me a little less than 3 round trips. I value that at $3000. You can also do this with hotel credit cards and other airline cards. Doing to correctly you will never have to pay for travel again."

Do you have to spend 10K within 3 months? That'd be hard to do because my car is paid off and my rent/mortgage can only be paid by check.

Post: #16

My time is worth more than $212 to do this. I'll pass.

Post: #17

(03-07-2014 01:30 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  My time is worth more than $212 to do this. I'll pass.

Not being snarky but I'm really curious, Parlay. What is your time cost basis break even that would get you in on something like this?

I said the above takes about 30 minutes total with a $212.48 payoff. That's a $425/hr hourly rate. Unless you're a well respected lawyer hanging your shingle out for this much or some sort of finance guy or successful small business owner, I fail to see how anyone would make as much on an hourly basis.

Granted the setup takes about a 90 minutes which if you build that in for 6 months brings the hourly rate to $283.30.

I have several hustles just like this with a monthly 10-15 hour time commitment (but small scalability) going on simultaneously that make anywhere from $2000-$3000 a month. Trying to perhaps put a team of like minded individuals together from this forum to help scale up, so your input on your "time is more important" stance would be valuable. Thanks.

Post: #18

(03-07-2014 04:54 PM)booshala Wrote:  I have several hustles just like this with a monthly 10-15 hour time commitment (but small scalability) going on simultaneously that make anywhere from $2000-$3000 a month. Trying to perhaps put a team of like minded individuals together from this forum to help scale up, so your input on your "time is more important" stance would be valuable. Thanks.

Dang...

Post: #19

@booshala--I like the way you think. Have you ever had any trouble with WF regarding this technique? I know some people who have tried similar arbitrage strategies with AMEX and got a FR (financial review) because AMEX did not like the manufactured spending.

Post: #20

(03-07-2014 05:46 PM)Flavius Aetius Wrote:  @booshala--I like the way you think. Have you ever had any trouble with WF regarding this technique? I know some people who have tried similar arbitrage strategies with AMEX and got a FR (financial review) because AMEX did not like the manufactured spending.

Thanks Flavius. I guess this isn't for everyone but nice to know someone is thinking along the same lines as I am.

No problems yet with Wells Fargo, but I've had a biz banking account with then since the late 90's. Still, most people say $5k monthly spend won't ruffle their feathers too much.

Gone through the Financial Review dog and pony show with AMEX when I was buying mint coins a few years ago. It's actually not as bad as people make it out to be: you give them tax records and as long as they match up with the info you used when you applied, they ease off quickly. A bit of a pain in the ass having your accounts suspended, but now they know my income and business activities are legit and don't bat an eye when I put big spend down.

I think of it almost like a rite of passage; sorta like you aren't really a player unless you've had an STD.

Post: #21

Delete

Post: #22

There is an article very similar to the OP's instructions on how to how to do this to rack up credit card miles on the cheap. I believe the OP mentioned buying from the mint which is another way too do this.

Post: #23

(03-07-2014 06:58 PM)booshala Wrote:  Gone through the Financial Review dog and pony show with AMEX when I was buying mint coins a few years ago. It's actually not as bad as people make it out to be: you give them tax records and as long as they match up with the info you used when you applied, they ease off quickly

Providing tax records to a credit card company?

Post: #24

(03-09-2014 01:47 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

(03-07-2014 06:58 PM)booshala Wrote:  Gone through the Financial Review dog and pony show with AMEX when I was buying mint coins a few years ago. It's actually not as bad as people make it out to be: you give them tax records and as long as they match up with the info you used when you applied, they ease off quickly

Providing tax records to a credit card company?

Yeah, unfortunate part of the Financial Review process with AMEX but necessary if you want to take the holds off of your credit cards. They're basically checking to see if your income matches up with the income you stated when you signed up for the card.

This is usually only applicable when you're spending a shit-ton of money on a card. For the above $5,000 monthly spend, I doubt that they would FR that.

Post: #25

Quote:barf

Quote:My time is worth more than $212 to do this. I'll pass.

Quote:Im not this broke.

Why would you all even take the time to write these replies? This guy took time out of his day to show you how to make extra money - FREE MONEY - for the next half a year with literally about 5 minutes of work. What you all fail to recognize is that it's not about $212 dollars per month - it's about cultivating a mentality that you can use the system against itself and how to recognize a good hustle.

I also have a friend who does these hustles and supports himself solely off of them. He lives in a nice house, has a nice car, and a hot ass girlfriend. I have never seen him lift a finger before. Some of you will never be successful - or as successful as you could be I should say, because you have a defeatist attitude.

"Ah, that's not worth my time..." Yeah, maybe this particular hustle isn't but learning it will give you the skills to recognize when a good hustle actually does come along and how to be able to exploit it to the fullest.

Booshala, I am not hurting for cash at all but I'm going to do this hustle just to counter these three negative posters - just to put some positive karma into this thread. In fact, I just went to my local Walgreens, CVS, and Valero and I found that the Walgreens and CVS by my house - both less than 1 mile from my house - sell the Vanilla Reload cards and will accept credit purchases.

I'm gonna post a picture of me eating a nice steak dinner for free just to thumb my nose at the haters.

Thanks for the info, it's greatly appreciated.