So, we’re big fans already of Upromise. It seems like I’d rather obsess about using particular vendors than explicitly save. But that’s a different issue.

As I was looking through their online catalog for where to buy gifts this holiday season, I saw their gift certificate section. We don’t normally give gift certificates, but after I saw that Old Navy was on there, I though maybe I should buy a gift card for myself.

We buy a lot of our kid’s clothes at Old Navy. They’re cute and cost effective. He also likes shopping there because they have big super bouncy balls for only a quarter. We’ll buy him one, and he’ll chase it through the store. It suits all our needs pretty much. So I know we’ll be spending money there.

The epiphany came this morning when I thought - why not spend money off a gift certificate? Upromise will put 3% of the gift card purchase into his college fund. We’ll use the gift card ourselves, because over the next few years, he’ll be going through clothes at a good rate. It is just another win to shopping at Old Navy.

They have a lot of stores signed up for their gift cards and the % savings varies from merchant to merchant. You can check out their list here. Nordstrom’s, Home Depot and Panera are other places we might be getting ourselves gift cards for.

If only they had gas station cards. Or Visa/Mastercard cards.  I’ll keep my eye out for them though.

Tags: parenting, upromise, gift certificates, saving for college