Buying groceries each week? Shopping for clothes? Earn rewards for shopping while using cashback and other shopping apps.
Use the free cash back apps to save money and earn money rebate rewards on your everyday purchases. Don’t miss out on these apps as part of your financial strategy to save more money this year. That’s a recurring goal for you each year I hope!
My three favorite cashback apps are: iBotta, Fetch Rewards, and Rakuten. I used other cashback apps when in the early days of these types of apps, but I found that some of the apps did not have a good return on investment for the pennies I was rewarded versus the amount of time I invested in using the app.
- iBotta. The app features thousands of retailers, including Hannaford, Shaw’s, Target, Walmart, Rite Aid, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market, Family Dollar, and Dollar General. When setting up your iBotta, you can link your store rewards to the iBotta app so that you don’t need to scan a receipt each time you go shopping. Some stores’ rewards programs can simply be linked to the cell phone number you use for that store’s rewards program. There are only a few stores that I need to take pictures of the receipts through the iBotta app. I do it with Walmart, but that store’s receipts have a QR code so it’s very simple. Other stores with long receipts might take up to 3 screenshots that the iBotta app stitches together into one receipt. It’s important to note that you must activate the deals for a store BEFORE you go shopping at that store. Before you go grocery shopping, scroll through your store’s rebates in iBotta and click on the plus + sign to activate that deal. I make this a habit every Saturday morning before I go grocery shopping. Also, deals don’t last forever so note the expiration date. I add the items that have rebates to my shopping lists. Some of the rebates are worth 10 cents and others are $3.00 and up. Some rebates are for “any” items such as any meat, any coffee creamer, any cereal, etc. You can have the rebates you earn released to you when the amount reaches $20. The money adds up quickly. One year I had $450 in rebates just from iBotta. I usually put the money on Amazon gift cards that I add to my Amazon account. It’s very simple. At times iBotta offers rewards for “friend referrals” so I might earn a referral (typically $5 put in my iBotta account) and sometimes the friend referred earns the same reward! iBotta does require that the friend use the app within 7 days of downloading it for the referral rewards to be given. So make sure you’re ready to learn the app and activate some deals soon after setting up your iBotta account. So easy!
Fetch Rewards. The reward rate is at most 1% of the purchase price but the app is VERY easy to use: no need to activate deals before shopping! You’ll find that you can upload receipts (take pictures through the app)from grocery stores, convenience stores, big-box stores, and restaurants. The receipt must be uploaded within 14 days of shopping. You can do this by linking your email and submitting an e-receipt or taking a photo of a physical receipt through the app. If items aren’t found in your receipt, Fetch usually offers 25 points just for uploading the receipt! Points can be exchanged for popular retailer gift cards just like in iBotta. You also have other redemption options, such as redeeming your points for charity donations or using your points to enter monthly cash sweepstakes. You accumulate points with the Fetch app which is different than the iBotta app which accumulates rebates. With Fetch, you can cash out with as little as 3,000 points. The first time you use the app, you have to wait until your points reach a $10 reward though. Since it’s so simple to earn points, this is a favorite app for people who want an easy, no-planning-necessary cash back rewards app.
Rakuten. Many shopping and cash back apps let you add a browser button which enables the app to notify you about deals for the retailer’s website you have open in the browser. You click “yes” to allow Rakuten to tell you what rebates or discounts are available at that retailer. You can have your rewards dropped into your PayPal account if you wish. It’s a very easy app to use. Rakuten has 528 retailer gift card offers (today Jan. 21) for discounted gift cards! The refer and earn program today is $30! And there are other “hot deals” in the app which can be used for both in-store and online shopping.
These cashback / rewards apps are convenient for saving money on a wide range of products that you are already purchasing, with customer service built in, update notifications. The cost-saving options include discounts, cashback, loyalty rewards, and exclusive offers. Let me know if you have any questions or if you know of any other cashback / rewards apps that I should be using.
Some apps group the friends who have referred each other into “tribes” so that when one friend earns, the whole tribe benefits toward tribe goals! And so there you have it! My top 3 favorite savings apps. Thanks for reading!
Read my earlier post about these savings apps here: https://livingwithdana.com/2018/12/save-money-with-these-apps-like-me-ibotta/
