wacky wednesday ... money doesn't grow on trees or does it?

When I was a child my mother would tell me, "Money doesn't grow on trees, you know!" when I would beg for some frivolous toy. I was sure she was wrong because I sometimes overheard her ask my dad if he could stop and get cash on his way home and where else, in the mind of a five year old, would you get cash but from a money tree?

As an adult, I bought a very pretty houseplant called a Malabar chestnut (Pachira aquatica) more commonly known as a Money Tree plant. Perhaps my mother really was wrong! After faithfully watering, talking to, fertilizing and turning (so it gets sun evenly) this plant for years, it has doubled in size and looks beautiful - but, sadly, has produced no money.

Beautiful green leaves but no greenbacks!

My husband and I have always shopped around for the best deal, used coupons, got reward cards and price-matched to get as much bang for our buck as possible. It has almost become a game to see how much money we can save. 

We also use credit cards that have no annual fee and offer "cash back" incentives  for using them (usually 1-5%) for everything we can AND PAY THEM ALL OFF EVERY SINGLE MONTH. This is very important so let me repeat myself. We never buy more than we can pay for each month and we use credit cards for everything from groceries to gas to movie tickets to paying bills online and more. We have done this for almost two decades and always enjoy getting our cash back bonus check in the mail. It's free money! (Remember, it is only free money if you pay off all your credit card bills every month!)

A few weeks ago, when we got another cash back bonus check, I wondered how much money on average we get each year in cash back bonuses. Since my husband tracks all receipts, income, etc. as part of our budget, it was easy enough for him to figure that out - about $1000 per year in cash back bonuses. Holy cow! That's a lot of free money! 

Money may not grow on trees but it can be delivered to your mailbox!