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SPONSORED POST: ING DIRECT was kind enough to provide $1,000 to fund my experience, all opinions contained within this post are my own, and not that of ING DIRECT.
January, that time of year where you make New Year’s resolutions and perhaps do some spring cleaning (well, middle-of-summer-cleaning) to refresh your life. For me I re-evaluate everything from my health & beauty regime to work, travel and even banking. So when ING DIRECT asked me last year if I would be willing to participate in their ING DIRECT Wave & Save promotion, I had to say yes. Why? Because when you spend $99.99 or less using your Visa debit payWave card you get 5% of your shopping total back. See some of the participating Wave&Save Merchant Locations here. Who doesn’t want a built in saving like that?
So armed with my ING DIRECT Visa Debit payWave Card, I was on a mission to sort out a few things in my life that needed to be dealt with.
The bathroom cabinet refresh
As many of you know, beauty products have an expiry date but most of us forget when certain items were purchased and they stay in rotation long after their used by date. So this weekend I went to my bathroom cabinet and painstakingly went through all my face washes, moisturisers and even my shampoo collection and threw out things that should have gone months ago.
With empty shelves waiting to be restocked, I went to Coles and parked the trolley and started adding products in like I was on a shopping game show. Everything from my favourite shampoo & conditioner, face wipes & wash, toothpaste, hair curl holding spray, deep conditioning treatment, moisturiser, blister plasters, SPF50+ sunscreen and more. Check out my photo above, can you believe all those products are part of my daily (or weekly) regime? Crazy.
Total cost at Coles: $138.08 (in two transactions)
Cash Back: $6.90
The Geek things
JBHiFi is one of my favourite stores, because they combine all my favourite things – geek toys and DVDs. Both of which I collect to a slightly crazy extent. Lately I haven’t exactly kept my files in the best shape (backing up, what?) and with a new year of blogging upon us I knew I had to get things sorted. So off I went to JBHiFi and purchased an external hard drive (on sale for $67!), an iPad camera attachment, an iTunes gift card (for portable blogging apps), a few USBs, a microSD card for my phone (extra storage for all those photos) and I couldn’t help but pick up the new Absolutely Fabulous 20 Years DVD.
Total cost at JBHiFi: $199 (in two transactions)
Cash Back: $10
The stationery
It may sound silly but at my house, mail is strewn all over the table in the entry area and it has been a pet peeve of mine. I have an addiction to buying random stationery so usually I try to avoid stores like Typo. But since they offer payWave- combined with post-Christmas sales, I let myself go into the store and grab a basket. As per usual I filled it with things I don’t foresee myself using (two packets of stripey straws – when will I need those?), anti-Valentine’s Day cards for my single girlfriends, notepads and finally a mail sorting tray. I nearly grabbed a few canvas prints, wooden letters and mugs with the initials of my flatmates… but I could just imagine myself carrying all that home. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight on the bus!
Total cost at Typo: $60
Cash Back: $3
A new suitcase
2012 was a banner year for travel for yours truly. This year I plan to see more of my own backyard, Australia. This makes for plenty of weekend trips – which meant I needed a new suitcase that was bigger than the ones you can take on board, but smaller than my medium suitcase for overseas travels. Again post-Christmas sales were still on so I had to go down to Myer and make the most of the deals they had on suitcases – from Antler to Samsonite there were markdowns as far as the eye could see. After wandering around for about 5 minutes I came across this adorable black suitcase by Monsac that was marked down by 50% and weighed only a fraction more than the lightest Antler’s and Samsonite’s and was a good fraction or two cheaper. It had pretty sturdy wheels and had an orange trim so I could spot it amongst the other solid black suitcases. Sold.
Total cost at Myer (using a Coles Myer Gift Card purchased at Coles): $79
Cash Back: $3.95
Giving good face
Earlier I had gone to Coles to stock up on things for my bathroom cabinet, but since I had purchased a few Coles Myer Gift Cards from Coles using payWave, I was back at Myer in the beauty department. My quest for 2013 is to have good skin, you know, the skin where you don’t need a foundation unless you’re doing something really glam. Instantly I knew I wanted to hit SK-II and buy another of their Pitera Essence Set (who doesn’t want skin like Cate Blanchett after all) which features their Facial Treatment Clear Lotion, Facial Treatment Essence and Facial Treatment Mask. Another must have (especially for summer) is Clinique’s Super City Block with SPF30+, it has a slight tint which makes it a pretty amazing tinted moisturiser for everyday use. Good skin starts with the basics after all.
Total cost at Myer (using a Coles Myer Gift Card purchased at Coles): $135
Cash Back: $6.75
What do we think of ING DIRECT Wave & Save?
This was the first time using the ING DIRECT Visa Debit Card, and payWave is my new favourite method of payment. If my purchase is under $100 there is no fiddling around with signing slips of paper or punching in my pin when I’m at the counter – and with my $1,000 I found I could buy a huge range of things, especially when let loose at some of Australia’s leading retailers!
After all our purchases, we had an extra $50 to spend thanks to the 5% cash back offer so we went to BWS and used our ING DIRECT payWave card to buy a bottle of wine after our shopping spree. It’s tough carrying all those bags around 😉
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