It’s always nice to earn unexpected rewards for expected spending. That’s exactly what happened to me this week.

After I dropped my pup off at his sitter’s house (who I booked on Rover), I got an email saying I just got a $25 bonus from Acorns.  And when I checked my account, I saw another 5% back from his monthly BarkBox!

This is free, easy money if you use either service with regularity. All you have to do is link your card within your Acorns account. Nothing to activate!

But of course me being me, I had to go and stack it to the Nth degree. 😬

I’ll share deals going on with both these popular merchants!

Get Acorns, Save With Rover and Barkbox

• Key Link: Sign-up for Acorns and get $5 to start investing

Acorns is a micro-investing service that charges $1 per month to manage your investments. They have built-in features like Round-Ups and Found Money that help you save, in addition to automatic transfers from your checking account.

• Round-Ups does just that – rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar amount and sends it to your investment account
• Found Money is free money for linking a debit or credit card and spending at certain merchants

So far, I have ~$800 saved, which is pretty cool. The idea is to invest for the future – and I have my portfolio set to Aggressive.

But you don’t have to select stocks. As part of the service, Acorns figures all that out for you.

It’s a fun account with a great app full of tools to help you learn and grow. Here’s $5 free when you download it and set it up.

1. Save with Rover

• Link: Signup for Rover

There are some good deals to save on a Rover booking. It’s a service that links you up to sitters who walk or board your pet while you’re away, like at work or out of town.

I’ve used it dozens of times without issue.

That’s why I was confused when I got this email:

New Rover customers get a $25 bonus for linking a card to Acorns and making a booking. But I’m far from a new customer. Nevertheless, it worked!

That’s great on its own, but you can take it further.

For example, there’s an Amex Offer to get $20 back on a $75+ booking. It’s good through December 21st, 2018.

If a booking is say, $100, you’d get $20 back from this deal and $25 in your investment account. That brings your net expense down to $55 ($100 – $45). Surely a nice savings!

But that’s not all. Amazon has some deals going on right now to save when you use 1 bank point as partial payment. These deals work on gift cards, including Rover gift cards.

I used 1 Amex point to get 20% off $50 Rover gift cards. That offer is done.

But promotions going on now are:

• $15 off $100+ with 1 Citi ThankYou point (link your account first – widely targeted)
• $15 off $60+ with 1 Chase Ultimate Rewards point (targeted)

You can get a discount with gift cards and still trigger the Acorns offer, as long as some amount goes on your linked payment card.

Or you can mix-n-match these deals if you have a couple of stays coming up. You can always get the discounted gift cards now and use them later – although I don’t know how long the Acorns deal will be around.

Even still, easy ways to save!

You could also push it another level with $10 cashback from either TopCashback or BeFrugal.

For TopCashback, there is no language about needing to be a new customer, so it should stack with the other deals, which is another easy way to save $10 more!

2. Save with BarkBox

• Link: BarkBox

BarkBox is a monthly subscription service that sends toys, treats, and snacks to your dog each month. Fenwick (my dog) LOVES his. He goes positively crazy when his box arrives.

This deal is supposed to be through February 28th, 2019, and you’ll get 5% of your purchase amount invested in your Acorns account. Pretty nice, especially if you’re already a subscriber.

And if you’re not, they have a deal going on right now to get double toys in your first box, which ships immediately.

5% back isn’t much, but easily covers Acorn’s $1 monthly fee. And all you have to do is link your card? Why not? I’ll take that automatic discount for a few months.

Bottom line

• Key Link: Sign-up for Acorns and get $5 to start investing
• Link: Signup for Rover
• Link: BarkBox

As a dog owner who regularly uses Rover and BarkBox, I was surprised to see I’d earned automatic cash in my Acorns investment account just for spending like normal.

Literally my only effort was linking my credit card within my Acorns account. You don’t have to activate these offers – I sure didn’t. They were automatic.

But of course, I found plenty of other ways to stack even more savings. As long as some portion of your purchase goes on your linked card for the Rover stay, you should trigger the bonus. I am NOT a new customer at all, but it worked for me, so… try your luck?

And the 5% back from BarkBox is pure icing on the cake. If you already subscribe, this is easy free money. Acorns isn’t my only investment account, but I’ll keep it open as long as these opportunities keep popping up, which seems to be often.

These deals are pretty…

• Don’t say it
• Don’t say it
• Don’t say it
• PAWESOME! 🦴🐶

Hope everyone is having a good holiday so far!

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