Free: Sharpie, Expo, Paper Mate

Do you regularly buy printer ink or some other office/school supply products? If so, here's a way to get FREE Sharpie pens and markers, Expo dry-erase markers, Paper Mate pens and mechanical pencils, and Uni-ball pens.

 I buy printer ink, probably about 4 times a year, give or take. I used to just go into Walmart and buy what they had, but then I learned I could be getting lots of Free (or very cheap) things for my money by joining the Office Supply Stores - Staples, Office Max, Office Depot - Rewards programs.

This week, 5/5 - 5/11, Office Max is offering 100% Rewards back on selected writing supplies.

You need to sign up online for a Free Rewards Member account. (Sign up for a Teacher account - parents are teachers, plus if you're like me, I donate a lot of the stuff I get to the local schools for the teachers there, too - to earn extra bonuses.)

If you aren't already a member at ShopAtHome or Ebates, sign up for a Free account to earn cash back when you shop through these pages.
They really do give you cash back on your purchases. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but at Christmas when I was doing a whole lot of online shopping, I went through Ebates to shop because I figured I didn't really have anything to lose, I was paying the same price at the shopping website anyway, but then around the first part of February they deposited $96.17 into my Paypal account. Made my awesome Black Friday deals even sweeter.

Anyway, login at Ebates or ShopAtHome and click through to the Office Max site.
Scroll down the page and look for "Get 5% Back in Rewards with MaxPerks", click on "View this week's offers".

Click on "Shop Now" to see the items you can get Free after Rewards.

There is a limit of (2) two per item. Enter (1) or (2) (you'll want to make sure you reach $50.00 to get Free Shipping) in the Quantity box and Add to Cart.

If you purchase the max amount of (2) of each item, your total purchase price will be $67.68. (Plus I had to pay $4.74 tax. The cost of doing deals, blah.)

The month following the end of the quarter the items are purchased (which will probably be around July, if I'm figuring rightly), unless I do any more deals between now and then, I should get back $67.68 MaxPerks Rewards to spend at Office Max.

Since my ink costs $66.99, it makes all the markers and pens Free, because I got all my money back to spend on something I would be buying anyway.

Because I have a Teacher membership, I earn a Bonus $10.00 for every $75.00 I spend.  This puts me $7.32 from reaching that point.

I could go ahead and add something for around that amount, while I'm getting free shipping, but if it's not close to the end of the quarter (I think June is the end of the quarter but I need to check) I'll wait and see if there will be any more MaxPerks deals. If it comes down to it I can always stop in the store and pick up something to get me up to the $75.00 mark so I can get the $10.00 Bonus.