We heard about some cash back apps and decided to give them a try. I'm amazed that after our first 6 weeks, we saved over $300 on groceries and made money!
It's totally legit and you don't need to be an extreme couponer to do it. We use the cash back apps, whatever coupons we get in the mail with our Wednesday grocery sales papers on online coupons. We don't buy Sunday's paper but if you do, you can even save more by bundling the cash back app rebates with the paper coupons. If you want a Sunday paper and don't subscribe and have a Dollar Store near you, go there and pick one up. At many Dollar Store's you can get up to 3 Sunday newspapers so if there is a really good deal that you want, grab the extras.
Cash back apps can be addicting and if you do online shopping there's some awesome apps to use to save you money on those purchases. The cash back apps are very user friendly and if you do run into a problem, the customer service is great. We've had where some of our purchases weren't found on the receipt and we submitted a help ticket to them and they took care of it quickly. Some receipts are faded so depending on your picture the products might be hard to detect.
You can also link many of your shopping cards directly to the cash back apps and they will automatically calculate your qualifying purchases. If you link your shopping cards you'll still want to manually check that you received all of your rebates in case some don't come through.
Cash back apps at groceries stores will oftentimes offer products free. You just buy them upfront and then you'll receive the rebate back in your account. Ibotta partnered with Walmart so they've had a lot of free foods. If you can't find them at your store you can also check the online shopping part of the app and if they are available for delivery go ahead and get them. We have a Safeway near us and the cash back apps have had a number of offers on Safeway sales items which has been awesome too.
You might be asking…how do you actually make money grocery shopping? This happens when the cash back app is offering more than the price that the store is charging for that item or you have a coupon and use that with the cash back app rebate. Also some companies are starting to do rebates via Paypal when you purchase their product which has been pretty cool. Recently there was a wine rebate that way, Brave Robot ice cream and Breyers Reese's Klondike bars. In some cases the rebate via Paypal is a few hours and some might be a week or two so be sure to read the fine print.
Here are the 6 best cash back apps we use:
- Ibotta – This is a MUST HAVE on your phone and latptop (download the browser extension). This has saved us the most…hands down. Please use Referral Code XJOSXIQ. Want to know more about how Ibotta works, check out our review.
- Fetch app – We love this one because it's easy. You just snap a picture of your receipt and get your points. There are products that they have on special and if you purchase those you'll get bonus points. You'll get 2,000 points when you snap your first receipt! Please use Referral Code J8HHKH. Want to know more about how Fetch works? Read our Fetch review here.
- Coinout app – Another simple app where you just snap a picture of your receipt. The money doesn't add up as fast but since you're snapping receipts, why not add it and get some extra cash in your pocket. Please use Referral Code M7PXZD9.
- Receipt Hog app – Another app where you just snap a picture of your receipt and you can link your email to receive credit for online receipts. There are also "slot pulls" that you can earn by snapping receipts and referrals along with product surveys to earn more money. Snap a picture of your receipt and get 5 extra spins. Please use Referral Code dect2662.
- Shopkick – The shopkick app not only gives you cash back on your purchases (on certain products), you also earn cash back for just snapping pictures of certain UPC codes in the store and for watching videos to get points toward free gift cards! I'll have my review here shortly. Please use code GOAL438724.
- Swagbucks – this one gives you a number of ways to earn from snapping receipts, shopping online, answering questions, doing surveys and playing games. You can check out more information on how Swagbucks works here.
**When you use our Referral Codes, there can be specials attached that the site is running when you are referred. Be sure to add the Referral Codes before you complete anything (like snapping your first receipt) so you get credited whatever bonus is being offered.
Let's take a look at some of the specials…
The only item we paid for were the strawberries which were on sale for 49 cents that week! The Killer Sammies were on a BOGO and I had a coupon for a BOGO and a coupon for a free one. Ibotta was offering $4 back on each one which meant we were up by $12 since the BOGO's gave the 2 free. With Ibotta it doesn't matter whether you paid for the product or got it at a discount because they were giving $4 back on each one that was on your receipt. The Fairlife ice creams were on sale and Ibotta was offering $3 back on each which made them free and the Brave Robot ice creams were on sale and Ibotta was offering $4 back on each and those were on sale for $2.99 so those were free too. The sorbet was free from Safeway when you spent $10 or more on ice cream that week. We ended up $14 ahead on this one which was amazing!
This was a back to school special were all the items were free or better. That means that the rebates were higher than the actual prices the store was charging. On top of that we had online coupons for both Smuckers and Skippy so ended up $3.53 ahead on this one.
This was from Safeway and ended up a $1.27 money maker due to rebates on both Ibotta and Fetch.
These were a combination of purchases from Sprouts, Target, Walmart and Safeway. Sprouts had a few of these either on sale or as a monthly freebie and then there were rebates attached. After it was all said and done we were up $7.75 on this group.
This was a 4th of July special and all the items except the hot dogs because the rebate was for the amount the store was charging.
All of these items were free. The Centrum was a combination of rebates from Ibotta, Fetch and Shopkick, the Kaboom was free from Swagbucks, The cereal was free from Ibotta. The wine was free from Barefoot wine as they had a Paypal rebate and the Ragu was free from Swagbucks.
These were Swagbucks deals and we paid $2 for all of it!!
Those are just a few examples of free groceries, beauty items and even alcohol and some money makers tossed in. Just this week we scored free All Free and Clear laundry detergent (Ibotta plus a coupon in the paper), a 4 pack of free plant based protein shakes from Evolve (on Ibotta too) and free plant based Alpha foods "chicken" nuggets and Jack and Annies Maple Breakfast Jackfruit Sausage Links (those were a Sprouts and Ibotta deal).