How to Make Money with Receipts

Receipts—who knew they could make you money? These days though, if you have a smart phone or tablet with a rear facing camera, they can. Well, pictures of them can. As a mom of four, I’m always on the look-out to save money, and in couponing apps I found winning combination to reduce my grocery bill. If you shop online a lot, you might also enjoy these tips for saving money when shopping online.

Ibotta:
Ibotta

What is it?

Ibotta offers cash rebates on every day purchases. You shop, check the app for rebates on your purchases, watch a short video or view an ad to “unlock” the rebate, scan the items you bought with your phone, then just take a picture of your receipt. What I love about Ibotta is they offer “any brand” rebates. Often ranging from 20 to 50 cents, these rebates are for things most people buy often, such as milk, eggs, bread, and common vegetables like lettuce. You don’t have to buy certain brands to earn, though they do also offer more specific rebates with higher values. For instance, the rebate may be $3.00 for Similac so many ounce containers or $5.00 back on a 24-pack of Heineken (Yes! Ibotta has alcohol rebates).   They also offer monthly bonuses for redeeming so many offers, and those bonuses increase as you redeem more. You can withdraw your earnings as soon as they reach $20 via Paypal.

Ibotta sign up page

RecieptPal:
receiptpal
What is it?
ReciptPal offers points which then can be exchanged for gift cards or cash for pictures of your receipts. Essentially, they are gathering shopping-habit data for marketers (information you already share if you have say, a loyalty card). Every four receipts earns you 100 points. All you do is take a picture of your receipt.
ReceiptPal offers a stepped redemption system. How much your receipts are worth will vary on how many points you save before redeeming. The lowest value is 7 cents per receipt, the highest 15 cents as follows:

350 points for $1: 14 receipts/7 cents each
1,550 points for $5: 62 receipts/8 cents each
7,000 points for $25: 280 receipts/9 cents each
11,000 points for $50: 440 receipts/11 cents each
17,000 points for $100: 560 receipts/15 cents each

There is no limit on how many receipts you can submit, though there is a maximum of 3 receipts from the same retailer on the same day. Naturally, saving up 560 receipts will take awhile, but it only takes a second to snap a picture.

ReceiptPal Homepage

ReceiptHog:
receipthog
What is it?

ReceiptHog is just like ReceiptPal in function, though the rewards are slightly different. At ReceiptHog, you get a point value for the value of the receipt. Any receipt $10 or less is 5 points, $10-50 is 10 points, $50-100 is 15 points, and $100 or more is 20 points. You also get spins each week that you upload receipts to earn additional points. This point value system does make it harder to give a value per receipt, but too give an idea here are the lowest and highest cash out values by receipt value.

$5 cash out requires 1,000 points. This would require either 50 receipts at 20 points each for 10 cents each receipt, 66 at 15 points for 7 cents, 100 at 10 points for 5 cents, or 200 at 5 points for 2 cents.

$30 cash out requires 4,500 points. This would require 225 receipts at 20 points each for 13 cents each, 300 at 15 points each for 10 cents each, 450 at 10 points each for 6 cents each, and 900 at 5 points each for 3 cents each.

Note, there is also a $10 cash out (1,800 points) and a $20 cash out (3,200 points).

Obviously most people are going to have a mix of point value receipts, and with slots you’ll gain some bonus points here and there, so you can figure anywhere from 2 cents to 13 per receipt. Again, you are just snapping a quick picture.

ReceiptHog sign up page

What’s nice is you can use one receipt on Ibotta, RecieptPal, and ReceiptHog. While these earnings are slow (minus Ibotta I cash out around $10-20 a month there) they do add up. To maximize your savings, be sure to check online and in your local ad for coupons. By combining coupons, sales, and app savings, you can often even end up receiving items for free or at a significant discount.

A hypothetical (well, not really, it’s off my shopping from this week) say your store has cake mixes on sale $1.10 a piece. Now you find a coupon in the ad where you buy 3 and save $1. Ibotta has a 50 cent off rebate. You get 3 cake mixes for $3.30, you save the $1, you get the 50 cent rebate, you take a picture of your receipt for both apps. In the end, you got those cake mixes for 60 cents each. This does not count the eventual payout on ReceiptPal/Hog for 9 to 28 cents on the receipt. As a bonus, you can pay with a cash back credit card, then pay the balance before the due date to receive an additional 1-3% back without paying interest.

This is just an example, of course you won’t find deals like that on everything you buy. Once you get in the habit of couponing and using the apps, it really doesn’t take long at all. I don’t spend hours and hours finding coupons. I just check online and in the paper about once a week. I almost always save at least 15%.

3 Easy Ways to Save Even More on Cyber Monday

The holiday season and I have a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, I love the process of dreaming up things that make other people smile. On the other hand, I hate what it does to my bank account. It was that second hand that led me to explore ways to save even more money during those awesome holiday sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I was quite happy with myself when I realized the saving methods I found work all year round.

Below you’ll find ideas beyond the typical “shop around,” “catch sales,” and “buy used” advice—which is good advice, don’t get me wrong, just what else can you do? For length’s sake, I broke this bad chicken into two parts, one with tips to save when online shopping and one for offline shopping so that you can maximize your savings on Black Friday and Cyber Monday no matter how you choose to shop. You can find the offline portion here.

Easy Ways to Save Money Shopping Online:

1. Rakuten

RakutenCyberMonday
What is it?
Rakuten works off referral income. You find the site you want to shop at on Rakuten, click it, and you’re redirected to the site. Then, just complete your purchase to receive a percentage of your total in cash back. Rakuten gets a portion of the sale for referring you and you get a portion of that. Rates vary by site. For example, Ebay is often 1%. Kohls is often 6%. I have seen rates as high as 25%.

There are a lot of sites like Rakuten out there, but in my experience at least, Rakuten often has the highest percentage back, and it is one of the few that offers cash back at Amazon. They pay all accumulated cash back quarterly (so four times a year) via Paypal. Rakuten also has a nifty toolbar that will blink when a site offers cash back. All you have to do is click the blinking button to get cash back rather than visiting Rakuten and searching for your store. Rakuten is free to use.

Tip: While you can’t double up on referral programs like Rakuten, you can double up using credit card rewards. So, if you pay with your credit card and use Rakuten, then pay the balance before your due date, you’ll earn double cash back without paying a penny in interest.

Rakuten Sign up link

PayPal Honey


What is it?

PayPal Honey works the same way as Rakuten, but offers “Honey Gold,” which can be exchanged for PayPal shopping credits, cash, or gift cards. Every 1,000 points equates to $10. The browser extension also takes things a step further: it automatically combs the web for coupon codes and allows you to try them with one click. It doesn’t always find every code available, but it does a decent job and really makes finding savings a quick process.

Another cool feature of Honey is that on some sites, like Amazon, it provides a price checker tool that will notify you if the product is available elsewhere for less and show price trends for that item so that you can ensure you’re getting the best deal. You can even add items to your “drop list” and get price alerts when the item is on sale. The only downside is that you can’t double up rewards with Rakuten and PayPal Honey, so you’ll need to compare the cashback percentages between the two. However, you can use all Honey’s tools and then just click Rakuten’s button right before you check out if necessary.

PayPal Honey sign up

Store Cards: (Also applicable on offline shopping)

If you frequent a store, consider getting their charge card. The interest rates are always ridiculous, so be sure to pay your balance before your due date, but many offer great savings. For instance, Amazon’s store card offers 5% back on all purchases. Target’s Red Card offers free shipping and a 5% discount. Kohl’s card comes with exclusive coupons which often stack. For example, last week there were three card member codes that could be used together for free shipping (no minimum), 30% off your total, and $10 off any $25 purchase, meaning if you spent $25, your total ended up $10.50, 58% savings!—even better, you could use these codes on the clearance section in conjunction with Rakuten cash back. (Can you tell Kohl’s is one of my favorite sites to save at?)

If a store doesn’t have a store card, consider checking to see if one of your existing cards offers a shopping program. For instance, Shop Discover has many cash-back offers for stores such as Home Depot. Though keep in mind, if the offer requires you to visit through a link from your credit card provider’s site, rather than just paying with your card, you cannot also use Rakuten or Honey, unfortunately. Compare the rates to see which offers better savings.

What I like best about these options is once you get Rakuten  and Honey set up, get a feel for which sites often have coupons and when, and apply for any store cards or find which of your credit cards offers bonuses, none of this is complicated or takes a ton of time. It saves, and it saves quickly.