Emrys, Bitrefill, The Corner: pay for your shopping with gift cards to save money and even earn cash!

You probably won't have missed the fact that prices have skyrocketed in recent months, from the price of gas to a simple bag of pasta. With purchasing power having shrunk considerably, we're all looking for ways to improve it: this can be done by earning more, through various financial investments, as we've already seen; but it can also be done, of course, by paying less for our daily groceries. One popular technique is to pay for your groceries with gift cards. Emrys, Bitrefill, and The Corner allow you to buy gift cards in bulk for a wide range of brands, saving you a lot of money. The Corner: the simplest The Corner is a service offered by the Boursorama bank. It often goes unnoticed, but it's simple and effective. To take advantage of it, you'll of course need to have a Boursorama account and accept The Corner's terms of use. The service can be viewed via the Products / Cashback & Discounts menu. Here, you can purchase gift cards from over 80 retailers. Whether it's for grocery shopping, buying furniture, or planning a leisure outing, many retailers allow you to purchase gift cards of varying values ​​directly here. For example, for groceries: If I take the example of Carrefour, which offers a 5% discount, this means that on a €100 gift card, I could save €5. For example, if I wanted to buy a €200 gift card, I would only pay €190. But it would still allow me to buy €200 worth of groceries in-store: It may not seem like much, but depending on the composition of the household, it's easy to spend €500 on groceries in a month. By purchasing gift cards onThe Corner and paying for in-store groceries with these gift cards, you can save €25 on Carrefour groceries here alone. The service offers many brands for all types of purchases: By getting into the habit of buying gift cards in advance for your various purchases, you can save a lot of money each month.

Gift cards can be used on all purchases (including food, of course), and are sent in PDF format, which you can print or simply keep on your smartphone, simply showing at checkout.The only downside, in my opinion: when paying for gift cards, the amount is directly debited from your Boursorama account. It's impossible to pay with a Curve or Plutus bank card to earn cashback on purchases at the same time.

Bitrefill: Paying for your groceries in cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrencies are the future. But there's still a long way to go before they're used in our everyday lives. While countries like El Salvador have declared Bitcoin their official currency, allowing anyone to shop and pay in crypto, this is still far from being the case in Europe. As a result, some people use the Bitrefill service, which allows you to purchase gift cards directly in cryptocurrency from a wide variety of stores, whether it's to shop at Carrefour, buy a book on Amazon, or even top up your Netflix account: Simply select the desired store, enter the gift card amount if necessary, and proceed to payment. Payment can then be made using various cryptocurrencies, from USDT to Bitcoin, including Dogecoin :pEach purchase also earns cashback in cryptocurrency, credited directly to your Bitrefill account, and can be used on future purchases.

Here too, gift cards can be used on all purchases (including food, of course), and are sent in PDF format, which can be printed or simply stored on your smartphone, simply by showing it at the checkout. Be careful, however: according to French regulations, capital gains tax on cryptocurrency is applied upon conversion to fiat (e.g., euros), but also upon the purchase of goods or services. In other words, if you are French and you purchase a cryptocurrency gift card, you will have to declare this conversion at the current rate to calculate the capital gain. In short, while this service has the advantage of being available to easily spend gains made on cryptocurrency investments, for example, in France, its use may be rather restrictive in terms of taxes. It's up to each individual to use it according to their own conscience and to inquire about the legislation specific to their country, as this type of use does not pose any reporting issues in other countries.Emrys: The most advantageous in the long term Emrys is undoubtedly a name that will ring a bell, as the French cooperative has been in the news a lot in recent months, notably with appearances on TV shows and newspapers about purchasing power. Unfortunately, these articles are often biased, as journalists buy a gift card and expect to magically collect money. But Emrys is a profitable solution over the long term: it takes several months, using the service for the maximum amount of your spending, to truly assess the power of this concept.Emrys is a French cooperative founded in 2014 and based in Annecy. Its operation is simple: by purchasing gift cards en masse from various retailers, and as the leading reseller of gift cards in Europe (175 million in revenue in 2022), it benefits from discounts on their prices, which will be redistributed to the cooperative's members. Today, more than 170,000 members benefit from this service.

Emrys keeps 20% of the discounts it receives from retailers to fund its operations and distributes 80% to its members.

As a member of the cooperative, each gift card purchase earns loyalty points (Emrys Coins).

Example: a €250 Carrefour gift card earning 6 Emrys Coins

6 loyalty points are like getting a stamp on your loyalty card (= one share). And after 10 shares, you earn shopping credit in euros, which you can use to purchase new gift cards. In the long run, there are even some purchases you no longer pay for: While the principle may seem complex at first, it develops its full power over time: when you fully validate a level 1 loyalty card, you collect €9 in shopping credit, you also get a new level 1 card, but more importantly, a new level 2 card, which will earn you much more (€15, + a level 3 card, etc.). The levels go up to 15. After a few months of use, you quickly accumulate many cards of different levels, and it's sometimes possible to create a domino effect with a single purchase: the purchase validates the level 1 card, which, by giving you a new level 2 share, also validates a level 2 card, etc. While it may seem like a long time before you actually receive anything at first, when everything is validated, you often unlock a nice little pot of cash!Cashback on Emrys takes a little longer, but is more rewarding! Of course, to take full advantage of them, you should use gift cards to cover as many everyday expenses as possible: from groceries to gas, entertainment, vacations, furniture, and more. And with the ever-growing number of brands available, it's pretty easy to find the ones you use most:

This is just a small sample, as it's also possible to earn loyalty points with online purchases (similar to iGraal, Joko, etc., except that this further increases the Emrys pot).

Most gift cards are digital, so they're quickly received as PDFs, which can be printed or stored on your smartphone. Some brands still use physical cards, which are then sent by mail, such as Total cards or multi-brand gift voucher books, such as Shopping Pass, Live in Shop, illicado, SUPER Card, Happycard, etc. These multi-brand cards are another aspect worth exploring more closely, because often, even if a brand isn't directly available as gift cards (like Leclerc, for example), it can be used via these multi-brand cards. In addition to all this, there are two major advantages for me:

First, the shopping credit we receive is… shopping credit, like what a retailer might give us on our loyalty card when we take advantage of a promotion. This shopping credit is not taxable!

Second, gift cards can be purchased by credit card. You can therefore use a card like Curve or Binance, for example, to receive even more cashback on gift card purchases, and thus accumulate benefits! One point to clarify, however, because we sometimes see talk of a Ponzi scheme surrounding Emrys. The cooperative certainly uses MLM, which is a marketing technique to find new members. Emrys has no salespeople: it's the members who promote it by talking about it to others. To thank them, the cooperative gives them shopping credit. Everything is perfectly explained on the website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBKXJk1-vUA MLM is commonly used today by many companies: when you refer a friend to your insurance company, bring another friend to the gym for a small discount, etc., that's MLM. This doesn't mean they're Ponzi schemes. A Ponzi scheme is a system that collapses when there are no new members. Obviously, since the old members are paid with the new members' money, if there's no new blood, there's no more remuneration. Emrys doesn't fit this pattern at all, because everyone will always need to shop. So even if no one joined Emrys, current members would continue to buy their gift cards every day to pay for their groceries, and would receive their shopping credit paid out by Emrys and the retailers. The cooperative can be self-sufficient indefinitely, even without any new members. In short, Emrys is completely viable in this regard. And while some can make a “career” in the cooperative by recruiting new members, it's by no means an obligation, and you can simply buy gift cards and receive shopping credit, which is already a nice perk.

In fact, the cooperative offers three options, as you must become an Emrys member to purchase gift cards:The Buyer card simply allows you to become a member of the cooperative to purchase gift cards and receive shopping credit on them. This is the “minimum” license.

The Enchanter card is especially for those who plan to sponsor a lot of people. This card allows you to bring in friends as well as associations or businesses.

The best compromise, in my opinion, is the Enchanted Buyer card: it allows you to benefit from the shopping credit, but also to refer a few friends. And honestly, once you've tried Emrys, you'll quickly start talking about it to family and friends, even innocently, without specifically wanting to refer someone, but simply because you're happy with the system and the savings. With this card level, you can bring them into Emrys and benefit from the referral process. Whereas with a simple “Buyer” card, you'll have to redirect your friends to your referrer or another member of the cooperative, and it's the latter who will benefit from the referral. Note that the price displayed here for the Enchanted plan is for the first year. Renewal the following year costs half as much, which makes the Enchanted license only €50, compared to €40 for the Enchanted Buyer license. The Enchanted license can therefore be very attractive if you want to enjoy all the benefits. I'm in my second year, and the cost of the card has more than paid for itself!My Practical Use

As I said in the introduction, to improve your purchasing power, there are no two ways about it: either increase your income or reduce your expenses. Personally, I combine the two!

I increase my income through various financial investments, more or less long-term: trading, real estate, cryptocurrencies, etc.

And I reduce my expenses by combining gift card payments with cashback from my Curve and Plutus cards.

In concrete terms, what does this mean? It's simple: at the beginning of each month, I make a transfer to my Plutus account to top up my bank card.

Once my card is topped up, I buy my gift cards on Emrys. I have more or less the same budget every month, for food, gas, and a few extras like movies, books, etc. So I buy the amount of gift cards I think I'll need. I also always have a few gift cards in reserve, like an Yves Rocher gift card, because I know they'll end up being used at some point. Gift cards are generally valid for one year, so it's not a problem. I even sometimes buy them for gifts (birthdays, Christmas, etc.): rather than buying the gift card from a retailer, I buy the same one through Emrys.All these gift cards are stored as images on my smartphone, in a dedicated album called “Gift Cards,” and accessible via a shortcut directly from my smartphone's home screen. So, when I check out, I no longer take out my bank card; I simply pull out my smartphone and display the code on the store's gift card. When the gift card is fully used (because you can deduct a little from the card at each checkout, there's no obligation to use it all), I delete it from the album. It's not more complicated than that! I also sometimes have a few physical cards for stores that haven't yet gone digital (Total or multi-store vouchers, for example).

It's a habit to get into, but it's ultimately not that restrictive once you're organized, and it can lead to significant savings at the end of the year! Simply replace your payment card with gift cards! I've been using this system for almost two years, and to date, I haven't found a better combo: Curve + Plutus + Emerys!

Updated May 9, 2023

Plutus has unfortunately blocked cashback on purchases using the Emrys name, so it's no longer possible to accumulate cashback like I did with Plutus. But other cards still allow it, like Binance, Revolut, etc. If you use such a solution, please share it with us in the comments! Regardless, Emrys remains a very profitable solution in the long run.

If you have any other tips like this, or if you have any questions about the three solutions mentioned here, don't hesitate to ask; that's what the comments are for!