It was the first week back at the office after the New Year.
You know the kind of lunch - leftovers, gentle complaints about routines restarting, and that collective acceptance that holidays are officially over.
I thanked a colleague for reminding me to use some reward points before they expired. A small save. A small win.
She smiled.
Then casually asked,
“Hey, I’m thinking of buying an iPad. Should I go for 128GB or 256GB? I’m confused.”
So I did what most of us in tech instinctively do - I asked about usage.
“What are you planning to use it for?”
Nothing fancy.
Calendar management.
Some online activities.
Basic stuff.
I said, almost reflexively, “Honestly, 128GB should be more than enough. Most things are cloud-based these days.”
She nodded… then added, almost as an afterthought:
“Oh yeah, I also pay for 2TB of iCloud storage.”
I almost dropped my fork.
Two. Terabytes.
The conversation unfolded from there.
She hadn’t backed up her phone photos.
She had nearly 450GB of photos sitting on her iPhone.
So she always assumed she needed bigger storage - on her phone, and now on her iPad.
That assumption had quietly followed her for years.
I explained - gently - that if she already pays for cloud storage, she doesn’t need to keep overbuying physical storage on every device. She’s effectively paying twice for the same fear.
And this is someone working in a tech division.
If this is how awareness looks here, imagine how many others are bleeding money - month after month - on things they don’t fully understand, don’t actively use, or don’t actually need.
The reward points illusion
Then she mentioned something else, proudly.
“I’m using my reward points to buy the iPad.”
That pride was familiar. I’ve felt it too.
Reward points feel like magic money.
They don’t come from your bank account.
They don’t show up as a debit.
They feel earned, not spent.
So I asked - perhaps too bluntly:
“Are you trying to get the most value for your points…
or are you using them to convince yourself you made a smart choice?”
The same iPad, bought with cash at the right time, would cost around $369.
Using reward points through a retailer?
Closer to $500.
She laughed.
Then said,
“Hey, shut up.”
Not angrily.
More like… caught.
There was guilt in that laugh.
The kind that shows up when a story you’ve been telling yourself gets interrupted.
I’ve been that person too
This isn’t a story about her.
It’s a story about us.
I’ve optimised reward points for indulgence before.
For pampering.
For the “I deserve this” feeling.
Because in my head, it wasn’t real money.
And nothing feels wrong about spending freely when you’ve mentally disconnected the spending from effort.
But over time, I realised something uncomfortable:
When I use reward points purely for wants, I’m reinforcing an identity—
one that feeds consumption, not intention.
Every spend is a vote for who you’re becoming
Every action you take is an identity to the type of the person you are becoming - James Clear
Every action we take is a signal.
Not to others - but to ourselves.
If my identity is:
“I maximise the value of every dollar I earn”
Then my behaviour must align with that - even when the money feels invisible.
And that’s when the boring answer becomes the right one.
The best use of reward points, for me, isn’t gadgets or upgrades.
It’s Woolworths or Coles gift cards.
Groceries.
Essentials.
Real expenses I’d otherwise pay for anyway.
Not exciting.
Not Instagram-worthy.
But deeply aligned.
The quiet cost of not knowing
This whole lunch conversation had nothing to do with iPads.
It was about:
Paying for services we don’t fully use
Buying upgrades driven by fear, not need
Treating reward points as permission to stop thinking
And corporations love this version of us - the slightly confused, slightly guilty, “it’s free anyway” version.
Because money doesn’t just leak through big decisions.
It bleeds quietly through ignorance.
Reward points aren’t free money.
Unused subscriptions aren’t harmless.
And convenience often comes at the cost of awareness.
The question isn’t:
“What can I buy with this?”
It’s:
“What kind of person does this purchase reinforce me to be?”
Sometimes the most powerful financial decision isn’t an upgrade.
It’s choosing the boring option - and sleeping well knowing you didn’t fool yourself today.