Share Your Tips For Meeting Small $1 Spend Transactions

Lots of us were using Amazon reloads to easily meet credit and debit card small spend requirements. That method died yesterday when Amazon raised the minimum to $5. 

As an example, one of my many bank accounts requires three debit transactions to be kept fee-free. I dutifully reloaded my Amazon account with three $1 reloads to keep the account fee free.

People also like making small transactions to drain down a small balance on a prepaid card. You can find and contribute data points on which retailers drain prepaid cards in this dedicated post. For example, the reports there indicate that Aldi and Albertson’s and many other grocery stores drain down prepaid cards when swiped.

Please share your method for meeting small transactions requirements below. I’ll try adding them in as well:

  • Paying for one banana at a time at the self checkout aisle in the grocery store
  • Paying small amounts at the gas pump
  • Water, gas, electric bills
  • Phone, internet bills
  • Insurance bills, and really any other bill being paid online
  • Vending machine
  • Toll account load and metro card load
  • Patreon for $1
  • Cash app reloads
  • Load  your Apple balance for $1
  • Google Fiber $.01 loads
  • Split payments when paying with Paypal
  • $1 Amazon gift cards via the Pepper app
    Chuck
  • On May 30, 2024, 13:31

View Comments (535)

  • I buy 50cents cards from dollar tree, and just ring each one up separately. That's something I will reuse for my family.

      • If I don't have self-checkout, I'll ask them to ring each one up separately. I just have a conversation with them about their day while doing it. They finish with a smile, and my task is accomplished. They also assume that I just want the receipts for an app, but they never ask.

    • Take care of yourself, TJ. I hope that you have good health insurance @guest_2034852

      • A measly 5% coinsurance after hitting the $1500 "high deductible". I can't complain.

  • Can't believe I never noticed reloading my metro clipper card for 1 dollar was possible. I've been doing iCloud but had an extra dollar I needed to waive somehow.

  • For some class actions rewards I got, I have 12 cents on some Blackhawk issued visa debit cards (ecard, not physical). I can't figure out how to use these up. 12 cents is below the minimum for Amazon, my Verizon bill, my Comcast bill, my electricity bill etc. anyone know what vendor would take such a low amount in one transaction?

  • Anyone know of a vpn company that i can get service covered by these small balances credit waiver ?

  • There are some charities out there you can automate payments to for under $5. I set this up at one point, but scaled back because I got spammed to death with mailers / emails, but it did technically work.

  • Here are some online-only methods (obviously YMMV but I find all of this more palatable than strategies like buying individual bananas at the self-checkout)

    It's easy to buy books, music, movies, or other media for as low as $1. Amazon, Apple/iTunes, Google Play, etc all sell low-cost digital goods. Many services allow you to share content with family members. There's also Humble Bundle, Bandcamp, and other "pay what you want" services. Steam sales often have games for less than $5.

    Google Drive has a $2/month subscription for 100 GB storage. Zoho has a bunch of plans at $1-3/month. You can set up recurring donations with some charities too. NY EZpass reloads and Dunkin app reloads are $2 max.

    The Wall Street Journal frequently runs sales where you can subscribe for $1-2 per week for 52 weeks. (This is one of the easiest automated methods.)

  • I found I can make estimated tax payments to my state income tax (Iowa). $0.50 payments were getting a 0.01 transaction fee. It appears the bonus the fee is hitting my account as a separate transaction essentially doubling up the transactions.
    free loan to the state, or if you owe estimated payments anyway this is a win-win to drive transaction count

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