Earn while you spend

The final way to help the grocery budget stretch is with a number of apps and programs that reward you for shopping in one way or another.

Store Loyalty- This sort of comes under this category. Having our local grocer's loyalty card gives us the cheapest price on each price tag, gives us fuel points for bringing our own bags as well as for spending money in the store (and gives our church points that translate into a check every quarter, by the way), and allows me to load e-coupons that are used automatically when I swipe my loyalty card. Definitely don't shop without it!

And when you are done shopping, take a few minutes to do the survey often announced on the bottom and earn more fuel points!

Card Rewards- The competition for your business is so hot right now that many cards offer rewards for your choosing them. PayPal, for example, pays me back 1% of all purchases I make with their debit card pretending its a credit card. So I move my grocery money to my PayPal debit card each week and push the credit button on the card reader. It's not much, but 1% is more than nothing, right?

At one time my Bluebird card offered 1% if I used a debit card to load it. Since PayPal considered this to be using the debit card as a credit card, I could have gotten double rewards by simply moving my grocery money from PayPal to Bluebird. Unfortunately the offer expired before I could get it worked all the way out, but keeping your eyes open for these types of deals is well worth it.

Savings Catcher- As I have mentioned before, once in a while I have to shop at Walmart. They are so committed to beating everyone else's prices that they have created an app just to make sure they are the lowest. After your purchase at Walmart enter your receipt into Savings Catcher. It will automatically check the ads for all local stores and compare the prices on everything you just bought. If someone else advertises any item cheaper, Walmart will give you back the difference. You can either print out the "return" and have the cashier scan it like a coupon or transfer the money to your Bluebird card where it is added to your "Walmart Bucks." Now, these can only be spent at Walmart, but I am saving mine up to use at Christmas time!

The reason I first got a Bluebird card was because Walmart offered to double the money back if you put it on the BB card instead of the printed coupon. I am watching out for similar deals.

Just a note about regular coupons, too. At most stores if the coupon is less than the purchase amount they lower the value of the coupon (i.e. $1 coupon for deodorant that costs $.98 will be lowered to $.98). Walmart gives you the full value of the coupon ($1 coupon for a $.98 item equals $1 off your bill.) So you can MAKE money just shopping the right items at Walmart. For more information see http://thekrazycouponlady.com/coupons-for/walmart/


Rebate apps- And while you are scanning that receipt anyway, enter it into Receipt Hog, Receipt Pal, Ibotta, Checkout 51, Saving Star, and Mobisave.

The first two simply give you rewards for scanning receipts.

The others are all apps/sites where you unlock the items you are going to buy (though Mobisave is the only one that insists you actually do it before you buy the item. The others will let you do it after your shopping trip). In the case of Ibotta, you watch a short video or take a survey to unlock each item. Then you scan your receipt, and sometimes the bar code on the item (Ibotta), and they will credit your account for a small amount of money ($.25-$1). You can cash out at $10-20, having the money sent to either Amazon or PayPal or several other options. Mobisave is unique in that they don't keep an account for you. They send your PayPal the money immediately, even if it is only $.25.

 In many ways these apps replace coupons, but there is no reason you can't use both, or actually all of them.

Now, I haven't made a lot of money this way, but I've have made a little. It helps. I am considering just not cashing anything in until Christmas, making this another way to save money.

If you use the referral code dvbjbw when you sign up for Ibotta you get a bit of a bonus and we become teammates. Also, any Facebook friends who are with ibotta become teammates. Teams are assigned goals and the bigger the team, the easier it is to meet those goals. Meeting goals equals financial rewards. Everyone wins!

For more information http://thekrazycouponlady.com/tips/finance/12-easy-ways-to-earn-after-making-a-purchase/

Also, there are apps that reward you for exercising, watching TV, having ads run on your lock screen, etc. Visit http://thekrazycouponlady.com/tips/finance/7-amazing-apps-that-literally-pay-you-for-doing-nothing-21606/ to see which ones will work for you.