Just a quick reminder –
If you haven’t signed up for Upromise, now is the time! They have extended their free $10 offer throughout June. Several readers took advantage of this offer in March and April, and now they’ve extended it until June 30th!
Click here to read more about Upromise and the free $10 offer. Or, if you are ready, go ahead and click here to sign up for you free Upromise account and save for college while you shop.
A site which is better than Upromise in just about every way is GradGold. Works on the same principle of online shopping through the site originally and giving rebate back. There are a few main differences than Upromise though.
1. Generally the amount back is 1-3% higher than Upromise gives or credit card shopping networks give.
2. Payout is considerably lower. I’ve had my Upromise account for 3 years and still haven’t received a payout because the threshold is $50. GradGold minimum is $1. It will automatically deposit your balance into your checking account once a quarter. And it does, after two quarters I have been paid !$30.
3. You don’t need to send the money directly towards a loan company. They deposit the amount into your checking or savings acct (I think you can request a check if you want instead). So anyone can receive the cash back.
4. GradGold also allows referrals. You can refer someone and they will receive the full amount into their account. But you will also receive 10% of what they save (anonymously). Now if only I could find some referrals for my account.
I don’t have any experience with GradGold, but I too have been less then impressed with Upromise. A lot of the benefit seems to come with online shopping which originates at their site (ie, buy something at Walmart.com, follow the walmart.com link from Upromise, receive 1-3% or so in your Upromise account) and any online shopping like that I do through my Chase rewards card. Honestly, I didn’t even know about the $50 minimum, but that is also a bummer. I’m not saying don’t sign up. It’s free and a $10 credit is not a bad thing. It just seems like that only way to get any serious rebates is to have all of your friends and relatives link their credit cards to your account and regularly use Upromise for online shopping.
In defense of Upromise, I’ve had it for several years. There are quiet a few Upromise brands (Lehigh Valley Dairy, ect.) at our local grocery store (Giant), and when we use our registered store discount card it gives us a credit to Upromise.
My entire (large) family got in on it, and we just buy what we normally would. It’s never much – about $5-10 each month. But it shaves about $100 off my student loans each year with very little effort.
When my student loans are paid off next year, we’ll be transfering the family funds to my 4-year-old niece. Then she’ll be getting the $100 per year, transfered to a 529 account in her name. That should be a nice family present when she starts college – $1,400 plus interest. Again it’s not much, but it doesn’t cost a dime and we just scan our discount cards at the register.