But your time has a cost. How much time do you spend cutting coupons, seeking discounts, finding, and then pursuing rebates, cash back offers, etc? Could you spend it doing something else? Would that time expenditure make more money than $3k/yr? The last calculations I saw, you were almost always better off picking up a part-time job or a hobby that makes stuff you can sell.
Not nearly as much time as you think. And $3000 is the low-end that I used to make a point.
In truth, last year, using those things I mentioned, I received slightly over $25,000 in extra perks and bonuses. That's not an exaggeration. The bulk of that is 2 free first class tickets to Europe. After that, about $3k in coupon savings, and $2k in cashback on my credit card, and a few hundred dollars in the "open this checking account and get a $100 bonus" type of rewards.
This is in addition to 50-60 hour weeks billing hourly and working from my home office.
Next year I probably won't be able to repeat that: it looks like I'll only be scoring _one_ free first class ticket to CDG. Even still, that's an estimated $16k this year
