You don't have a car yet you are playing Manufactured Spending game? Might want to check your priorities.

...some people live in cities where, you know, you don't need or want a car.

Are you kidding? Not everyone has, needs, or can afford a car. I'm a student, I take the bus to class and work, and go grocery shopping with my roommate who has a car. How the hell is having a car a prerequisite for MS?

Well that's pretty much my point. You said "don't have a car, so I can't easily get out to my MO places... "
If you want to play this game it, in many cases, requires mobility so you can get out to the various locations to do your MS.
But hey, as you also said, you take the bus and your roommate has a car. So no need to bother someone for a PM to get their info.

And maybe, just maybe, you might want to be on these boards a little longer than you have before asking people to share their hard won strategies. Longevity goes a long way towards building credibility.

Having a car is not a prereq, but you won't find much sympathy available when you have issues scaling. MS without a car is probably quite doable at low level signup bonus min-spend type stuff. It's probably quite doable in a few select areas with just the right mix of retailers and decent public transit. Outside those two edge cases.... Good luck, you're gonna need it.

You've nailed my case :) I only go for minimum spends (though more than low-level! just signed up for Plat, PRG, and ED), and I have good retailers and transit.

I believe the original question was about mobile MO deposits? For small volume, most banks will have little to no problem. Read the Mobile Deposit thread a bit and PM me if you want any pointers. :)

Indeed, when home all my modest amount of MS is via public transportation and walking. MS in quantity is best done with low overhead cost. :cool:

Does cvs still carry paypal reload cards?
I dont see one available around my area.

I do my MS with a plug-in electric car. Due to solar, my annual net electric bill is zero. The small amount of extra energy for MS still leaves it at zero. The main cost is depreciation maintenance due to the extra miles - the later of which not much on my Volt.

Solar is good, but walking is better for your health. At least when you walk, you don't have to worry about your batteries going Samsung on you.:p

Agree walking would be better for my health, just not practical in my location for doing MS or much of anything else, as I'm on top of a hill with 15% grade and several miles away from most civilization. If I lived in a more urban area, sure. But then I wouldn't have deers in my front yard every other day, or a view of the whole bay area.

Unless you are walking with a samsung in your pocket :D

Which I do, but my Samsung Note is a 4, which has a user-replaceable battery. And no fires have been reported with this one. I hope the Note 7 debacle causes the smartphone industry to reverse the consumer-hostile and environmentally disastrous trend of having non user-replaceable batteries. I have never bought such a phone and don't intend to.

All plug-in electric cars including the Volt have sealed LiOn battery packs, so the risk of explosion/fire is much less than with a phone. I do think we are in need some better battery technology though - both safer and less expensive. Don't know how likely that is in my lifetime.

Blackhawk is selling these "Five Back" Visa gift cards that give you 5% back when you make purchases at (among other stores) CVS. There's a promo currently going on in some supermarkets where you can buy these variable $200 gift cards for less than face value. That's nice enough, but it becomes a better deal when you take them to a CVS and buy One Vanillas with them -- and get 5% cashback on that purchase.

I did that at one CVS store that had no problem taking these gift cards to buy other gift cards on a split tender basis (it seems to help if you first run them as credit, and then run the last car as debit). But then I tried it at other CVS stores and they said no way. Is there a corporate rules on this? Am I supposed to be allowed to buy gift cards with Visa gift cards, or is it a store-by-store decision?