Last year I blogged quite a bit about saving money through the use of various coupon clipping apps and sites. Saving money isn’t easy. And like anything else that you strive to do, it requires some work and some devotion.

I currently use 3 money saving apps:

Checkout 51
iBotta
Receipt Hog

Checkout 51 allows you to buy certain products from any location. You upload your receipt and get a rebate just for buying that product. I like that you can buy the product from anywhere you want, but for me the product selection is pretty limited. You can also unlock other offers by reaching certain goals. So far this year I’ve only earned $1.00.

iBotta works the same way but gives you a larger selection of products and specific stores to purchase them from. I like that one product may be available from multiple stores, and there are a lot of generic products too where you can purchase any brand you want like a dozen eggs or a loaf of bread. They also have chances to just earn .25 cents for uploading a receipt from a certain store; no specific product has to be purchased. I currently have $17.00 in my account and have redeemed $51.70 to date.

Receipt Hog is my favorite and the only one I still use every single week. It doesn’t require you to purchase any certain products. Instead, you just upload all of your receipts and you earn rewards for each receipt. You might get a certain number of coins, or spins on their slot machine to earn more coins, or entries into their monthly drawings to earn coins. After you reach a certain number of coins, you can cash them out or use them toward Amazon.com or other store purchases. I redeemed $25 in cash back in January and will probably reach another $25 next month. Yeah, it takes a long time to build up just enough to cash out, but not a lot of effort is required and you can upload receipts from anywhere with no restrictions.

Inbox Dollars

Inbox Dollars is a survey website that pays you to read emails and answer surveys. For example, they’ll send you email offers and pay you 2 cents just to open each email. The emails are usually different offers that will pay you additional amounts for doing whatever they offer like sign up for a magazine subscription.

Inbox also pays you for doing surveys like 75 cents for a 15 minute survey; the only catch is you might find yourself having to spend 5 minutes to answer questions about the survey only to find out you are not qualified to take that survey. So it can become tedious after a while. There are other offers and games on their site where you can earn as well.

In 2015, I earned $132.00 in cash from them, and last year I earned $47.70. I haven’t devoted as much time to it this year and have only earned $13.00.  You have to earn a minimum of $30 before you can cash out.

___

So that’s it.  Like I said, it takes time and devotion but who doesn’t like to earn some extra money now and then? I’m definitely going to step up my game so I can hopefully cash out iBotta, Receipt Hog, and Inbox by Christmas.

What apps or sites do you enjoy that pay you back?