No Beer Purchase Required

My newest "money making scheme" (which really isn't a scheme at all) is the use of NBPR rebates.  NBPR stands for No Beer Purchase Required and luckily for those of us in North Carolina, we get a lot of these.

You've seen those tear pads at the stores- "Get a $5 rebate when you buy $5.01 or more worth of meat and two cases of Beerofyourchoice Lite!"  Maybe you pass them by because you don't drink Beerofyourchoice.  Next time, stop a minute and check out the fine print.  In a good number of states, you actually are not required to purchase the beer to get the rebate! So in this example, if I spent $5.01 on meat, I can get a $5.00 rebate back when I fill out the original form and mail it in. 

I found a tear pad at Walmart the other day for $5 back when we bought propane and beer- but oh wait! Right there in the fine print, NC is a NBPR state! So I can get $5 back just on buying the propane for our gas grill, which we buy anyway.

You can purchase NBPR original forms on ebay cheaply, which is a double edged sword.  You can get a lot of rebates from all over the country, but people also steal the entire tear pad so they can make a few bucks on ebay- meaning you have to pay for something that should be free.  The good sellers will type up which states don't require you to purchase beer and all the other little legal ins and outs as stated on the form- make sure if you do decide to purchase them, you buy only originals.  99.995% of the time, a copy is not acceptable to the companies and who can blame them?

This is a fantastic way to "find" money if you are lucky enough to live in a NBPR state- after all, you are probably going to spend $5.01 on meat at the grocery store anyway- why not get $5.00 back? 

Just make sure you keep track of which rebates you've submitted! Most state only one per household and run for several months, so you don't want to waste postage on a rebate you have already done!

-Kristen