[Grubb's] Random Thoughts of the Day

[Potter]

hahahaha I totally forgot about that

[Merk]

lol what game is that?

[Potter]

lol, It was a sloppy city I modeled in Cinema 4D, then composited in the fire and sky etc and at request, riots head in NukeX

http://i.imgur.com/zmKTWET.jpg

[Merk]

Man, how the fuck is everyone doing? With IRC being a thing I feel like people don't post too much here because all the sweet .jpegs and newsworthy articles get posted on IRC and then forgotten about.

[Fluffyumpkins]

Did you guys know you can pound chicken? Pounded chicken is OP. I want to try to grill some up and put Mexi-stuff inside.

[Merk]

You mean like, you flatten the chicken so that it's a thin piece of meat and then you wrap the flattened meat around some stuff?

I believe that's essentially what "Chicken Kiev" is.

[Ho]

Mmm...Chicken Kiev.

[Merk]

Since we're moving into a new quarter I decided to take a look at my Chase cash back rewards and figured out that Chase isn't listing grocery stores as one of the 5% cash back categories this year. I applied for an American Express card over the weekend that gets you 6% back on groceries and 3% back on gas and it comes with an annual $75 fee. I did the math and it turns out that I'll end up with more money with the AMEX and the fee than I would with the Chase even if they did 5% year round.

As you can imagine, I spend a fuck load of money on groceries between myself and my ladyfriend. I budget $700 for groceries every month and I come close to exceeding that just about every month.

Does anyone have any experience with AMEX? I know it's not as widely accepted as Visa but I think I'll be fine if I use the card exclusively for groceries.

[Ho]

You should get a Costco AMEX and get all your groceries at Costco. With the executive membership, you'd get 2% back on everything plus 1% on everything on the AMEX (and some higher rewards for various things...like 3% for gas). There's no annual fee, but the Costco Executive membership is $110. And if you don't get at least $55 back as a rebate (for the 2% part--the AMEX 1% is just gravy), they'll refund the difference between whatever you got and $55. So the maximum amount you'd be "out" is $55 , which is less than the $75 you're talking about. You'll also probably pay less for a lot of the things you're already buying (groceries and more), so you could end up saving even more money than your calculations at 6% less the annual fee.

As for AMEX itself, I don't have too much trouble with it being accepted most places I go. Visa and Mastercard are definitely the leaders (as far as acceptance) with Discover and AMEX following, but I haven't found it to be a showstopper very often.

[Merk]

Whoa whoa whoa I thought Costco was exclusively a cash shop?

[Ho]

AMEX is the only credit card they accept. Otherwise, it's cash or debit cards. They might accept checks? I don't know. I haven't actually carried my checkbook in years.

[SoDeepPolaris]

Hard to beat costco gas prices too.

[Ho]

Truth!

Bottom line: If you were willing to pay $75 to save some money, I think you would get more value out of a $110 Costco membership with AMEX card (no fee on the Costco AMEX). And you're really only spending $55 since you can get a refund if your rebate isn't at least $55. But if you spend as much as you say you do just on groceries, you won't have any trouble getting at least that much. Not to mention that Costco has a lot more things you can buy.

[Merk]

I love Costco but unfortunately they don't have one in Bloomington which is admittedly where I do the majority of my grocery shopping. Buying in bulk is awesome but I make a lot of produce and meat purchases during my grocery trips and buying those in bulk is not recommended unless I know I'm going to be tucking into that meat all the time because otherwise it's going to go bad. I have not been 100% impressed with their produce selection either, the last time I went to Costco I needed to get some jalapenos for a taco pizza and the Costco up in Fort Wayne didn't have them.

If my ladyfriend moves up to Indy then I am definitely going to get in on some Costco. I wish Indy would get a Jungle Jim's but alas, that's a pipe-dream.

[Fluffyumpkins]

I love Costco but unfortunately they don't have one in Bloomington which is admittedly where I do the majority of my grocery shopping. Buying in bulk is awesome but I make a lot of produce and meat purchases during my grocery trips and buying those in bulk is not recommended unless I know I'm going to be tucking into that meat all the time because otherwise it's going to go bad. I have not been 100% impressed with their produce selection either, the last time I went to Costco I needed to get some jalapenos for a taco pizza and the Costco up in Fort Wayne didn't have them.

If my ladyfriend moves up to Indy then I am definitely going to get in on some Costco. I wish Indy would get a Jungle Jim's but alas, that's a pipe-dream.

FYI, if you want to use my membership card I don't mind sharing.