Upromise - do you do it?

[khorrell]

I have heard a bit about Upromise but I've never signed up. Even one of my CFP friends recommends it and I pretty much trust his judgment. However, I'm concerned about the privacy issue.

Does anyone have any experience with Upromise or know any "scoop?" Thanks!

[gt0163c]

I use Upromise as does my sister. Since I don't have any kids, the money goes to her. I don't get a lot, maybe $10/year on average, but I also don't buy a lot of the things that Upromise gives money for (soda, processed foods, some personal care stuff, etc). But it doesn't cost anything, doesn't take me time other than to register my cards and it earns some money for my nephews. It's not much, but maybe it will be books for a term or something by the time they get to college.

[lucille]

We decided not to. All the things that gain you points are processed foods or personal care products from big companies like Unilever. Since we rarely buy any of those brands it just wouldn't gain us much.

[DedicatedDad]

I've been doing Upromise since 2001 and I think it's great. I know people talk about privacy concerns but if you read their privacy policy, they don't share any of your personal information with any of their partners. I've saved over $4,000 since joining plus I opened a 529 with Upromise and have saved a lot of my own money since I know the free money won't pay for enough. But I have to disagree with the other person who said the only partners are processed foods or personal care. They have over 600 online partners like Target and Best Buy, gas stations and other places I would be shoppnig anyway. The only difference is I choose to do it with Upromise partners versus the competition since they offer me a rebate. If you're not doing it you're missing out.

[Julie Rains]

I was concerned about the privacy issue though I signed up years ago -- so didn't put all my cc numbers in, etc. and never really used it. But I have so many loyalty cards now, I kind of caved in on the privacy thing -- and my oldest is going to high school next year so I relooked at everything. Now that I think about it, I looked back into to do a post on 529s after the tax law changed (or rather the tax free status of withdrawals were made permanent). Anyway, I opened a 529 in addition to the kids' Coverdells, and I went ahead and signed up for Upromise. I thought I would get a few cents every week or so from grocery purchases but I haven't gotten anything! except for when I shopped through their links during Christmas. It's a great idea but hasn't proved useful for me yet.

[Rebecca]

is Upromise just for saving up for education or can it go towards student loans already taken out?

[jdp]

Ok. When my son was a baby I tried signing up for Upromise. Somewhere there was a glitch I never could get past for registering. Their "help" was less than helpful and I gave up. Ever since, whenever anyone asked about using them I would just grumble.

Then I saw this post so I went to try again. Sign up went smoothly. There are other options besides just buying certain products at the grocery store.

*There is a credit card (which I did not sign up for).
*There is a link to follow to buy a car and get credits/dollars/whatevertheyarecalled that way (wish I had known that last year).
*There is a link to follow to buy a home and get c/d/w that way (not feasible for my area).
*You can enter your shopper cards (only one of my local store cards was in their list, I live in podunk) to get c/d/w the way you all are talking about.
*You can download a upromise toolbar to remind you but you can always just start your online purchases through there to garner the c/d/w.
*You can enter your credit/debit card info to get c/d/w whenever you make purchases certain places.
*They seem to be having a "dining" push. Now you can look up local participating restaurants before you decide where to go to eat and earn 8% I believe it was. And if you do McD's they seem to be very happy partners. McD's was the only restaurant within an hour of me that participates.
*There is also a travel link - if you are a traveler it might be worth it to start your planning through their site.

In addition to all of that you can link to your 529 plan and move your upromise $'s into your 529 plan at certain intervals (I'm thinking I read something about $25).

And once again, another site where they offer you to send information to friends and family to get them to sign up to earn your kid some c/d/w. I'm so not comfortable with bothering people like that so I skipped that step.

Maybe somewhere in all those possibilities something will be comfortable for you to try. I don't have high hopes of this really funding my child's education or anything because we pretty much don't spend money like normal people. I don't ever foresee my farmers market linking with Upromise lol. BUT, hopefully soon I'll be buying a house and I see HomeDepot seems to be a big partner, chaching. If I remember and if I ever do/don't earn money I'll try and come back and update.

[Julie Rains]

Originally Posted by Rebecca

is Upromise just for saving up for education or can it go towards student loans already taken out?

Apparently, you can use Upromise to pay off your loans and as jdp mentioned, you can get other people to sign up and help you pay off the loans. Go to Upromise and look under Pay section. Upromise started as an independent business venture but has been bought out by Sallie Mae (2006).

[Brenna]

Both my husband and I have upromise but we are not actively using the 529 or loan link to SallieMae. Together we just haven't got to the point of getting $50 to invest over the past years. I have family members on the account to help when they shop but so far we haven't bought the items that would give us the money to invest in.

[GOTO Fashion]

I was a member for about 2 years. I didn't have any family members sign up, but basically I saved around 50 cents for those two years. I assume this is because we don't buy a lot of the products that would earn points - we're not big on processed foods and generally don't buy soda, etc. After realizing how little we actually were earning, I decided that the privacy tradeoff wasn't worth it and deleted my account.