Lots of us were using Amazon reloads to easily meet credit and debit card small spend requirements. That method died yesterday when Amazon raised the minimum to $5.Â
As an example, one of my many bank accounts requires three debit transactions to be kept fee-free. I dutifully reloaded my Amazon account with three $1 reloads to keep the account fee free.
People also like making small transactions to drain down a small balance on a prepaid card. You can find and contribute data points on which retailers drain prepaid cards in this dedicated post. For example, the reports there indicate that Aldi and Albertson’s and many other grocery stores drain down prepaid cards when swiped.
Please share your method for meeting small transactions requirements below. I’ll try adding them in as well:
- Paying for one banana at a time at the self checkout aisle in the grocery store
- Paying small amounts at the gas pump
- Water, gas, electric bills
- Phone, internet bills
- Insurance bills, and really any other bill being paid online
- Vending machine
- Toll account load and metro card load
- Patreon for $1
- Cash app reloads
- Load your Apple balance for $1
- Google Fiber $.01 loads
- Split payments when paying with PaypalÂ
- $1 Amazon gift cards via the Pepper app
Anyone know of a vpn company that i can get service covered by these small balances credit waiver ?
There are some charities out there you can automate payments to for under $5. I set this up at one point, but scaled back because I got spammed to death with mailers / emails, but it did technically work.
How come no one is talking about buying Paypal bucks (PYUSD)? Zero fees to buy/sell/transer, can instantly transfer to someone else or covert back to USD…seems like its directly up your alley…made an offhand comment in another thread that got zero response so are you all just unaware of this?
https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/paypal/cryptocurrencies-tnc?locale.x=en-US#cryptocurrencies-tnc-stablecoin
“Your Visa debit ••••6919 is now linked to your PayPal account but can’t be used to purchase crypto.”
did you have success? it’s telling me cannot be used.. it’s a normal checking debit card
Weird…do you have an existing card you can try? Maybe you need to wait a few days after adding a new card…
yes above.. i tried.. i’ll also try waiting a few days too
Here are some online-only methods (obviously YMMV but I find all of this more palatable than strategies like buying individual bananas at the self-checkout)
It’s easy to buy books, music, movies, or other media for as low as $1. Amazon, Apple/iTunes, Google Play, etc all sell low-cost digital goods. Many services allow you to share content with family members. There’s also Humble Bundle, Bandcamp, and other “pay what you want” services. Steam sales often have games for less than $5.
Google Drive has a $2/month subscription for 100 GB storage. Zoho has a bunch of plans at $1-3/month. You can set up recurring donations with some charities too. NY EZpass reloads and Dunkin app reloads are $2 max.
The Wall Street Journal frequently runs sales where you can subscribe for $1-2 per week for 52 weeks. (This is one of the easiest automated methods.)
I use the google drive & icloud
Now trying to find a vpn & music subscription covered
I found I can make estimated tax payments to my state income tax (Iowa). $0.50 payments were getting a 0.01 transaction fee. It appears the bonus the fee is hitting my account as a separate transaction essentially doubling up the transactions.
free loan to the state, or if you owe estimated payments anyway this is a win-win to drive transaction count
are any of these methods easily automated?
A few people had their Cash App accounts shut down: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/contact-us/#comment-1877682
I am making $1/$2 Verizon Fios bill. However, they let you only make one payment at a time with the same amount.
You can pay the same amount as long as you use different cards.
This won’t work with VGC from PW/Incom right?
Seen someone mention on another thread that even Starbucks has this option, but when you charge $5+ for a coffee, multiple options of financing should be available.
I saw a new sticker on a gas pump yesterday. It said the minimum dispense amount is 4 gallons, and doing otherwise “may be a violation of federal law”. This was a regional chain, not a hole-in-the-wall gas station that would lie about such things.
Anyone know anything about this supposed federal law? Yeah, I know that not precisely following the directions on a can of hornet killer is technically a violation of federal law too. But if this gas pump thing is even close to true, this could lead to unpleasant confrontations with employees. And there’s a reason they put the sticker on there just recently.
I also don’t see what you’re supposed to do if you’re filling a small moped or a 1 gallon gas can for a chainsaw/etc. Seems like this would be impossible to enforce.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/vnnzs2/why_was_there_a_sticker_on_a_gas_pump_stating/
Wow thanks! For anyone who doesn’t want to visit the link, it’s because the person before you may have purchased 15% ethanol and that will still be in the hose. Even if you only wanted 10% ethanol or zero.
I do recall last night seeing a 15% sticker on the pump about 2001 and newer vehicles but not next to the blend I selected. The gas station doesn’t sell 15% as far as I know (they only sell ONE ethanol blend so it can’t possibly be 15?). It wasn’t labeled so I was concerned whether I was getting 10% or 15%. But for just a few dribbles it doesn’t matter.
Wow, that is unfortunate….I guess you’ll have to find a new line of “work”, lol
Yup I may have to become a gearhead and soup up my car so I can outrun the EPA cops when they try to arrest me for a $0.15 gas dispense. Shouldn’t be too hard since those environmentalists will be driving tiny fuel-efficient toys.