A rebate is money back, normally by mail, when you purchase a particular product or products. It is very important to read the rebate forms carefully and follow the instructions exactly.

A Satisfaction Guarantee is not a rebate. Most if not all products give you a satisfaction guarantee which is very different than a rebate. A satisfaction guarantee gives you your money back if you are not satisfied with the product. A rebate is a reward (usually a check to take to the bank) for purchasing the product.

Look for a Try Me Free peelie on products, this would be a rebate for trying the product.

Rebate forms are photographed and posted on Frugal Fairhope when we find one in the store. Rebate forms are posted on Frugal Fairhope when we find a link to an online rebate form. The rebates we find online are also posted on the Fixed Pages on the right sidebar of Frugal Fairhope. This will give you the opportunity to find all the current rebates in one spot without having to go through pages and pages of Frugal Fairhope posts.

We will change the date when the Fixed Page has been updated with a new rebate.

Here are some tips for rebates:

• Read Read Read. Pull out your magnifying glass and READ the rebate form. If the instructions are not clear you can call the manufacture by searching for the company name on Swagbucks (good opportunity to get some Swagbucks ) and ask for more details. Sometimes a 800 number is listed on the rebate form.
• Tracking. If we are not familiar with the company we will document the date, make a copy of the rebate, receipt and any additional information the rebate requires. You might want to track the rebate form on a spreadsheet.
• OnLine Tracking. Sometimes the company offering the rebate will participate in online tracking programs. Check out the CMS Rebate Tracking Center to view your rebate status. You can find the website for tracking your rebate on the rebate form.
• Neatness Counts. Make sure your name and address are clearly written on the rebate form. If your handwriting is difficult to read, it will be difficult to process your rebate form.
• Keeping Receipts & UPCs. You should think about keeping your receipts for future rebates. We keep ours in a wipes tub for the year and toss everything except for December receipts at the end of the year. We do not keep UPCs. Do you remember your grandmother with a closet of shoe boxes of UPC codes?

Rebates are the last step of our Ultimate Shopping Trip. Some of you may remember our talks from the Free Frugal Fairhope Coupon Workshops or from this post http://www.frugalfairhope.com/the-ideal-shopping-trip where we showed you a great example of how to stack all of these in one Publix trip.

Store Sale
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Store Promotion (ECBs, RRs, +UP reward, gift card)
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Store Coupon
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Manufacture Coupon
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Glove Box Coupon & Register Reward (Publix or Winn-Dixie)
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Rebate (check by mail)

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This entry was posted by Frances on Sunday, March 20th, 2011 at 8:23 am and is filed under Rebates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.