A Tale of some Liquor and a Rebate
What an odd title, right? Some of you know I’m not a beer drinker, and you may also know that my favorite alcohol is Kahlua. It’s unintentional that I’m the “Clever Dude”, and I also love the movie The Big Lebowski where the main character is “The Dude” and loves White Russians (made from Kahlua, vodka and cream).
So while shopping for some holiday booze the last 2 weeks, I stumbled upon a great sale on Kahlua at the county store. In addition, there was a rebate on the Kahlua family of products, which also includes Malibu Rum (another favorite). The rebate was $10 on 3 bottles of 750ml or more. The rebate also had offers if you got even more bottles, but I don’t want to look like too much of a lush.
Anyway, I got 2 bottles of Kahlua and a bottle of Malibu, went home and filed the rebate form and receipts away for a later date. That date was this past Sunday when I decided to “clean house”.
I read the details closely and noticed that it required the UPC labels off the bottles. Crap! I went out to the kitchen, got the bottles out and found the following:
- The Malibu bottle was shrink-wrapped in plastic, so I just had to cut out the UPC label off the plastic. Done.
- One bottle of Kahlua was out in the recycling bin, in the rain. That label came off fairly easily as it was wet. Done.
- The other bottle of Kahlua’s label was stuck on tight. I was able to peel it off in 2 pieces. Done.
How long did this all take me? Not counting the time I’m taking to write about it, I spent about 30 minutes between filling out the form, cutting off labels, taping the labels to a piece of paper so they don’t get lost, and filling out the envelope.
The amount of the rebate: $10
Is 30 minutes of my time, where I could be studying for a final or well, drinking more White Russians, worth a measly $10? Well, it’s a done deal now, but in the future, I’ll look more closely at the requirements and potential time to complete the rebate before buying into it. This was for a product I was going to buy anyway, and now that I know we’re having a New Year’s’ Eve party, I’ll be buying more. But for items you normally wouldn’t buy in that quantity, avoid the temptation to overbuy just to get “a deal”.
I am a big fan of White Russians too and I certainly think $10 was worth the time. If it had only been a dollar, I would not have put that much time into it.
Hmm. I’m entitled to a £150 ($300) rebate on my mobile phone contract. I just needed to save the first 6 phone bills, and post them registered post.
I went to pick them all up this morning as the 6th one came in. The very first bill is missing. For £150, I’m going to be turning my house upside down tonight.
I love the post title. The Big Lebowski was my introduction to White Russians and I’ve been hooked ever since. And I started drinking Dewars on the rocks after watching Swingers- am I lame or what? 🙂
I agree on the rebates. When I was filling out the rebate for the MacBook we bought last month I felt like I was reviewing my tax returns. I checked and double checked every little item to be sure I wouldn’t get burned by some technicality.
Indeed, plonkee. 🙂 $300 is not $10.
And good point, cleverdude. I’d say it depends on what you were going to be doing with that 1/2 hour.
Dude, $10 for 30 minutes is $20/hour or $40k a year! I say it’s totally worth it.
I’m not too fond of mail in rebates…you never know when it will be processed if ever. Online rebates are much better!
-Raymond
Oh, I never do rebates anymore. It’s too much work to get all of the items together, and it takes forever for them to send you your check… if they even do. Otherwise they may send you a refusal, and then you’ve got to do all the work to contest it…
I just ignore rebates and shop on price.
I’m kind of an expert on filling out rebate forms and getting UPC’s off of things, so it would have probably took me less than 5 minutes to get the $10. I usually do 3-5 rebates a week on things I would have bought anyways (meat, seafood, cheese, deli items, turkey, ham, fruit, etc). Check the wine labels and beer sections for rebates that say, “no wine (or beer) purchase necessary”.
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