Gift Giving Made Easy for Busy Working Moms: CardNow Review

Inside: A review of CardNow, the ultimate busy mom life hack for gift giving made easy! Thank you to CardNow for sponsoring this post. All opinions are my own.

Picture this.

It’s been a week at work. And not just any week, A WEEK. Everyone seems to want something from you and they wanted it yesterday and you could really use a nap.

At the same time, you’re trying to help your son with his math homework, teach your daughter to tie her shoes, spend time talking to your spouse about things that are not upcoming dentist appointments, and remember to shower.

Oh and by the way, the dog just ate a shoe.

Here’s the real kicker though. The kids came home with a notice that tomorrow is teacher appreciation day. And your niece’s birthday is in three days and all you know about tweens is that VSCO may or may not be a thing. AND your co-worker is having a baby and the shower is tomorrow.

Are you breaking out in a cold sweat yet? Me too. But I can help you solve three of those problems with the help of CardNow!

Spoiler alert, it’s not the dog and the shoe incident. I’ve got nothing on that.

What is Card Now?

When I first heard the concept behind the company, CardNow, I was instantly into the idea. So brilliant! Here’s the deal:

CardNow is a company that was launched based on one of the best working mom life hacks there is – the gift closet! Co-Founder Matt Frye remembered his grandmother having a closet at her house that was stocked with last-minute gifts, wrapping paper, and gift bags. When she had a birthday party/housewarming/other short-notice occasions to attend, Grandma would head to the closet instead of running to the store and off to the party she went!

Years later, Matt’s wife Dee Dee opened up the “gift card drawer” in their house when their 10-year-old was running out the door to a birthday party. What they found in the drawer was a bunch of unused and partially used gift cards that wouldn’t work for a kid, or that were covered in Sharpie. Yikes! We can’t give Tommy $6.75 to Pier One! That’s not going to work.

So, Matt and his co-founder, David Jones, got to thinking. How could they combine the ease of gift card gift-giving with Grandma’s gift closet? How could they make gift cards grab and go with the help of technology? Ah, I smell an idea brewing!

They took that idea and created CardNow. The company partners with major brands to provide you with a customized stash of inactive gift cards that can be easily loaded and activated at home using their mobile app. So, so smart!

How To Get Started with CardNow

Ready to see how this works? Let’s dive in.

First head over to the CardNow website to place an order for the type of CardNow starter kit you’d like. Each box comes with 25 gift cards and you can choose from special boxes for foodies or for the workplace or create your own custom box choosing from CardNow partner brands.

Since I know I’ll be gifting lots of teachers, teens, and moms over the next year I leaned into Amazon and got 10 of those cards. Then I got 5 Happy Teen cards, 5 Happy Moments cards, and 5 Bed Bath & Beyond brand cards. There are lots of other options too including Kohls, Lowes, SpaFinder, and a bunch of restaurants. You pick your mix!

Once you add all your cards to your CardNow starter box you can place your order and wait impatiently by the mailbox.

Get Gifting Ready

When your CardNow box arrives open that cute little package up and see how much time you’ve just saved yourself! What a gift saved time is, eh?

And now that you’ve reveled in your time savings, look at all those gift cards, ready to be loaded and gifted!

To start adding money onto the cards, pick up your phone and download the CardNow app. Once you have the app ready to roll, you’ve created your account, and you’ve stored your credit card information, you can start adding money to your gift cards.

Pick up a card out of your gift card box, scan the code on the back and then choose the amount you’d like to add. Boop, boop, boop. It’s that easy!

Finish up by putting your gift card in one of the gift card holders then into a card or gift bag and you, my friend, are done!

Why is CardNow the Ultimate Gift Giving Made Easy Hack for Busy Moms?

So now you know how CardNow works, but why is it perfect for gift giving made easy?

Well, I would love to be the mom who sends her kids to school with themed baskets for each teacher on holidays. It would be cool if I was the aunt who knew how to shop for a 13-year-old without going too babyish. And what I would love the most is if I was a mom who remembered any of these occasions with more than 24 hours notice.

But I’ll be honest with you, I’m just not that mom. Sometimes I am able to pull it out and that teacher gift is actually in a bag and includes a box of chocolates, but even when I’m at my most together they are still getting a gift card.

The beauty of this is that everyone loves gift cards! Everyone! Show me someone who would rather receive a novelty paperweight instead of a gift card and I’ll show you a liar. Or someone with a LOT of paper who overheats easily and uses several fans in their office, perhaps.

So giving a gift card is a win, but having a box of gift cards ready in your closet that you can load up from your phone!? That’s amazing! No running out to CVS at 8:35 pm in your sweatpants. Actually there are no pants required at all! A mom hack that doesn’t require pants always gets top billing on my list.

Oh, and I didn’t mention that when you run out of inactive gift cards you just go onto the app and order more for free to be sent to your door. Bah – amazing!

Key Takeaways

I’ve learned a little something in my years as a writer. As much as I love all things reading and writing, sometimes when I get all excited and go on and on it helps to have a TLDR version.

That starts for Too Long Didn’t Read.

So the key takeaways here: