Why the Target Prepaid Card is Awesome

Some red cards. But not THE red card.

I usually try to stay away from any type of store credit or debit cards.  Even though they offer some decent discounts, they wed you to one store which may not have the best deals all the time.  But all that changed when I laid my eyes on the relatively new Target Prepaid Card.  Just to clear up any confusion, Target has 3 separate products which are all called Redcard: a credit card, a debit card and the new prepaid card which is what this post is about.

As a brief introduction, the Target Prepaid card is basically what it sounds like: a prepaid card you load at Target and use everywhere else.  When you load it up with money, you can use it anywhere and for anything, but if you use it at Target you get a 5% discount off your purchases along with free shipping.  Not bad.  But it gets much better:

Disclaimer 1:  None of these links are affiliate links.  I don’t even know if there are affiliate links for this.  This post just describes my personal experience with the card.

Disclaimer 2:  The card is currently available in a few states.  Check here to find out where you can get one.

Once you find the card at a participating store, you have to register it online and wait for your actual card in the mail.  Once it arrives, the fun begins.  Here is what you can do with the Target Prepaid Card in two easy steps:

Step One:  Load the card

Most prepaid cards only allow you to load with cash.  But with the Target Prepaid Card, you can go to Target and load with cash, debit or credit.  That’s right.  You can use a CREDIT CARD to load your prepaid card.  This is not a mistake and is virtually unheard of in the prepaid card world.  There are so many possibilities as you can use a cash back card to get some cash from the load, or load it with a card you are using to get a sign up bonus.  There’s a load limit of $5000/month so you can’t go TOO crazy.  But you can go a little crazy.

Step Two: Unload the card

Target would love for you to load the card and spend money at its store.  After all you get 5% off every purchase.  This is what I do to some extent since I buy my son’s diapers and other various baby stuff from Target anyway.  I’ll take that 5% off thank you very much.

But what if you don’t shop at Target?  What do you do with the rest of the money?  It’s simple.  I recommend one of two things to easily unload your card:

-Use the bill pay feature of the card to pay off your credit card bill online.

-Link your checking account and transfer the money

And that’s all there is to it.  You can get some easy sign up bonuses every month with this card.  For anyone starting off in the world of manufactured spending, this is a nice and lucrative place to start.