Like Christmas in September... Sort of

The upside to the fact that the amount we charge each month to our American Express gold card over the last year has pretty much doubled from what it was before we moved to Charlotte is that we rack up lots of rewards points in short order - probably $700 worth in the last year I'd guess. I always redeem the points for gift cards. So last week I redeemed 20,000 points for a $100 Cheesecake Factory gift card (arrived in the mail Saturday, haven't used it yet) and a $100 Lands End gift card, which came in the mail today and I just used it to order Ben a new winter coat, a pair of cargo pants, and a shirt from landsend.com. The coat will be desperately needed once it gets cold -- I did not buy him a new coat last winter. He used the one he had from the winter before, which I bought big so he'd be able to use it for two winters. Suffice it to say that he's not going to get a third winter out of it.