Scrip Program

In the past few weeks I've taken an interest in our Scrip program at St. Peter. I've always known that it was there and how it works, but I wasn't making use of it. Do you know how Scrip works? Basically, our Scrip coordinator (Debbie Schulz) purchases gift cards for a wide variety of retailers at a discount. When the families of our church or school purchase those cards at face value, our school "earns" 1%-15% of the value of those cards. That money can really add up. Those funds are usually used for special projects, things that we might not otherwise be able to do.

I guess the financial benefits for St. Peter School are pretty obvious. What might not be so obvious are the advantages it has for the families who use Scrip. I can think of two main ones.

1. Do you purchase gifts cards for Christmas? If you have people on your list who are hard to shop for, you might find the convenience of gift cards or gift certificates appealing. But with Scrip you can buy all the cards you need all in one place. And if we don't have the place you're looking for, there's a good chance it can be ordered. In the near future, there may even be a way that you can order the Scrip you want online, it will be ordered, and you can just buy it the next time you're at church.
2. The other thing I've found is that Scrip can be helpful in budgeting for expenses. If you want to track your gas purchases for a month, you can buy a certain amount of Scrip at a couple different gas stations and see how long it lasts. Or if you know you only want to spend $200 on a home imporovement project, just buy that much Scrip and stop buying when the money runs out (if you can).

Those are just two things that I thought of. If you can think of any more, leave a comment and let me know. I'm also interested in any other comments you might have about Scrip. We're going to be doing more in the coming months to get the word out about this program and hope to get more people involved in it.