AARP Rewards Online Community Budget Contest 2025

My situation is two-fold.  First, a large number of the AARP web articles have direct and/or indirect application to my household or personal finances/budget.  I try my best to read these articles and see how they fit with my current and future plans.  Second, I take a careful initial review of each reward that AARP offers, and determine if it's applicable to my current spending habits.  If it's applicable, then yes, I will take advantage of it.  What I don't want to do is to purchase rewards that are outside of the scope of my budgeted spending habits.  So, I would consider my usage of AARP Rewards to be very strategic when it comes which ones I will take advantage of. 

I am saving more because I joined AARP United Healthcare and the perks help me save. 

I like to earn points through my fitness tracker and by watching videos and completing quizzes. I’m trying to buy only essentials these days since I’m working less, and the small gift cards I can get with rewards are helpful for small fun purchases.

I use a spending tracking app. Once I’ve reached my monthly allotment for a category such as eating out and I don’t spend any more in that category. Every couple months I review my monthly spending totals and identify patterns.

We tend to use our AARP card everywhere, and when we eat out, we select restaurants that take it.  I do most of the shopping online and will try to select stores to which I can apply the AARP card. We don't go out much to eat out, but prefer to cook at home, so it is a little gift to ourselves when we do get to use the AARP card, because we know that every dollar counts. The site also helps us stay informed and safe, and it is very easy to understand how to use. Security is very important these days, more than ever.

Making conscious efforts to eat out way less 

I like reading the fraud watch articles and mentioning the latest scams to friends. I like to think it helps keep us aware of potential risks.

I use my rewards points to buy gift cards and enter contests. Plus, I enjoy learning new things

along the way!

Ditto like the previous replies. Earning points & using gift cards and the information learned to stretch our budget and keep aware of the changes. Thanks so much for updating our skills to navigate the changes.

We have used AARP recipes to create a special theme night dinner.  We go all out to  create a meal featuring a type of cuisine (i.e Ethiopian, Greek, Italian) or a theme ( 50’s, beach in winter, fine dining) .  This can be done much more economically and healthily than dining out but it feels really special.