Credit Cards, Gift Cards, Money Orders, Manufactured Spending, And The Walmartization Of America

If you’ve read more than a post or two on this site, there’s one thing that you probably know about me.

I am not a Walmart fan.

Before taking up the miles game, I had never actually been in a Walmart.

But since then I’ve become well acquainted with it. In fact in many ways I now consider myself a Walmart connoisseur. 

When I was still using a BIuebird card to manufacture spend, Walmart was a necessary evil. It was simply the white trash bank I went to to load up my white trash Bluebird Card with white trash visa gift cards, purchased with my fancy miles earning credit cards

But aside from being elitist, this negative focus on walmart is not exactly fair. After all it’s not specifically Walmart that I object to.

It’s not as if I come from a family who made it’s millions by owning now defunct Woolworth’s franchises, after all.  (My family made its thousands in cabinet making, secretarial work, construction management, and architecture, thank you very much.)

Walmart is simply a handy metaphor for the cult of convenience. 

And I’m not a big fan of the cult of convenience.

Sadly, I’m the typical urbanite who idealizes the pastoral and the artisanal. 

My idea of a good shopping experience is a roadside watermelon stand in the country. A multi-generational family owned tofu shop on a back alley in Kyoto. A one dish Hainanese chicken and rice food cart in Portland.

My kind of Mall

I like the inefficiency of it all. The rustic imperfection. The human scale.

But let’s get real. There’s nothing rustic about the miles game.

The miles game is an exercise in economic arbitrage. And when you play the miles game, you’re more like a bean counter increasing efficiency by “streamlining”, than an artisan patiently forming rough pieces of pottery from wet clay. 

Which is to say that sometimes the Walmarization if America can be a damned useful thing if you play the miles game.

You see, I read a couple of articles yesterday (this one, and this one) and they had me very motivated to try out a new-to-me manufactured spending technique: money orders. 

And in forming my plan it occurred to me that the grocery store across the street from the clinic where I work might be a perfect place for me to spread my money-order-wings.

Mind you, the supermarket of which I speak is not a simple supermarket. It is a Fred Meyer supermarket. (Which is to say it is one of the two flavors of local Kroger supermarkets.)

But that is not what makes it special.

What makes it special is that it is a Mega-Freddie’s. It’s a wannabe Walmart. It’s the type of monstrosity that a corporation builds when it feels threatened by the expanding dominance of another corporation (I.e. Walmart.)

I would estimate that the supermarket is at least 90,000 ft.². Sure, it’s got produce and laundry detergent. But it also has a polyester clothing line. A video store. A moneycenter. An appliance store. A jewelry store. An electronics department. A bank. A deli. A shoe section. You get the idea.

And by now you know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

After finishing my vegan burrito for lunch, I sauntered over to the local megamart.

I carefully chose a small container of cut pineapple, and two 500$ Visa gift cards with my credit card.

Munching on the cold pineapple chunks, I set the pin on my two Visa gift cards (using my smart phone,) and made my way over to the Moneycenter.

There, I purchased a $999.19 money order, which together with the $.81 money order purchase fee brought my total to $1000. 

I paid (of course) with my two just-purchased $500 visa gift cards.

Money order (and pineapple) in hand I made my way over to the in-store Chase branch.

There I deposited my signed money order into my bank account to complete my round-trip.

Walking back to clinic to see the remainder of my patients for the day it occurred to me that perhaps the Walmartization of America was not at all bad. After all I had just manufactured $1000 in spending in about 10 minutes. No car required.

Try doing that at a country farmstand.

(Plus, the pineapple was quite refreshing.)

Addendum:  A trusted reader informed me that there are reports on the internets of Chase bank shutting down bank accounts for excessive deposits of money orders.  She has not personally experienced this but makes the point that since chase has the best credit card offers, this would be an unwelcome outcome.  

She makes a good point.  Caveat Emptor!