Using Rewards Apps To Make Bank

REWARDS Apps:

I'm really trying to pay for this trip without spending much out of pocket. One of the ways I am doing this is by using receipt and rebate rewards apps.

Today I'm going to break down my process and how I managed to get us to Disney last time, and how I'm going to do more to get us there this time.














I use the following apps (with short descriptions).

Receipt Hog:

Receipt Hog allows you to submit ANY receipt (with few exceptions like movie theaters), and get points. You simply save your paper receipts, snap a photo of them, and then tell Receipt Hog who was shopping. They collect the demographics and benefit from your receipts that way. I have not connected my email or my Amazon account.

The points breakdown is 1,000 coins for $5.00 and can be cashed out via PayPal. If you save your points long enough, you actually get a better deal. 6,500 points becomes $40 (instead of 8,000 coins if you went in the $5 cashouts).


I'm saving my points until I hit 6,500 and then I'll cashout either via Visa or PayPal. Either one will work for me. Stay tuned for what I'll do with my payout later, as I'm adding it to my Disney Fund and earning rewards for doing that.

Fetch Rewards:

 

Fetch Rewards is another receipt submission app. This app gives 25 points for every receipt from a grocery store, big box store, or convenience store. They also give points for buying certain brands like Oscar Mayer, Kleenex, and Pepsi Cola. There's dozens of brands on the list, and then there's bonuses for buying specific brands/items.



The payout scale isn't great if you're just submitting generic receipts, but if you're buying on-brand, which is what they want you to do, you can really make bank with your grocery trips.

I'm aiming for a $25 visa or master card gift card from this program. That's 27,000 points. With each receipt being worth 25 points, it looks like this goal could be unattainable, but wait, because it's not as hard as you think.



Each week there are bonuses for items we regularly use. For example, this week there was a "50% points back" bonus for Hidden Valley Wafer bars. We use these, so I picked up a $3 box. Boom! I got 30 points for the bars, 25 points for the receipt, and 1,500 points in the "50% points back" scheme. That's a whopping 1,555 points for a $3.00 item.

If we figure out that a cash out costs 27,000 points for $25.00 in gift cards, and you bought ONLY the 50% points back items, you'd have to spend $53 in real cash to get a $25 gift card, and that's not shabby. That's a 47% kick-back. With the added 25 point bonus for each receipt, it might even be as much as 50-53% of a kick-back.



I'm saving up my Fetch Rewards points for to buy a Rainforest Cafe gift cards that we can use at the cafe in Animal Kingdom park. This will make for a nice sit-down meal when we get to AK.

SavingStar:

 

SavingStar is a branded rewards app that offers cash back for buying certain grocery items. I hardly use this one, but the nice thing about it is that if you clip every single offer each week, you'll occasionally match something they're asking you to buy.




Of course, you can always buy whichever items they're asking, but that seems an unnecessary expense just to get rewards. Their minimum cash out is $20 and it's to PayPal.




I'm saving up until I get $20 in my account and then cashing out in PayPal.

Ibotta:

Ibotta is a grocery rebates rewards app. You get money for buying the types of items the app has advertised. You'll have to prove your purchases with a receipt. You'll also need a bit of planning to clip the items that are required before you head to the store. If you clip them after you've shopped and have a rewards card linked, you'll not get credited. So, prior plan. If there's something on their list that I need, I'll clip it. Otherwise I clip the "Any" receipts for $0.10 in rewards each.



The nice thing about this app is that the rewards can be compounded with teammates, other friends and family who are using the app. I've cashed out the most out of this app. Much more than any other. There are bonuses for redeeming certain amounts of offers, too, and those bonuses can help you reach the $20 minimum cash out much more quickly. You can also earn cash through online purchases within the app, but that can take 60-90 days to arrive. 



Recently I've learned about Pay with Ibotta and have used it successfully. You go to the store, and at the cash register, once you're ready to pay your bill, open your Ibotta app. For Walmart, for example, there's a 1% Ibotta reward for using Pay with Ibotta. I had a $79 grocery bill. Ibotta asked me the total, I entered $79 and it immediately charged my debit card for a $79 Walmart Gift Card. It was instant and popped up in the Ibotta screen. All I had to do was scan that gift card code on my phone and my groceries were paid. My debit card was charged $79, and my Ibotta gave me an instant $0.79 in my app balance. What I REALLY like about this feature is that my debit card was NOT in Walmart's machine. It kept my number/chip clear of the scanner, and we all know how often our cards are compromised by stores.



With Ibotta, I'm planning to cash out at $25 because that's the minimum price of a Disney gift card. Watch and see what I do with them.

ShopKick:

ShopKick is a rebate app that allows you to scan items in the store (no purchase necessary) or submit a receipt for the purchase of specific items in order to earn Kicks. You can also make purchases online through the ShopKick app in order to earn further kicks, usually in a kickback amount like 1 kick per $1 spent.

This is the pinnacle of the apps for me because it works for everything I need. I can earn kicks just by walking through the doorway of a store (75 a day at TJ Maxx, for example!), the payout number is achievable and comes in the form of a Disney Gift Card, and I can earn more for making purchases online.





You can set up your cash out goal as any gift card in their list, and in different amounts. I'll be cashing out a $25 Disney gift card at a price of 6,250 kicks. This should take approximately 4-6 weeks with my shopping habits.




If I hit Walmart every week on my day off and JUST scan 500 kicks worth of items, I’ll have a gift card every 12.5 weeks. That’s $100 a year in just scanning cards. With a trip being planned every 3 years or so, that’s $300 off of our grand total. I did mess up today at TJ Maxx. I lost kicks because I used debit instead of credit when I paid with our linked card. Drat!

Stay tuned to my next blog post to find out what I'm doing with all these Disney Gift Cards, how to consolidate them, and future blog posts about saving money on your trip planning by planning your vacation yourself (it's easy!). As we delve further into this, I'll be giving tips about your parks stay, and the best way to get free airfare to Walt Disney World.

UPDATED: You cannot earn kicks from buying Gift Cards through ShopDisney on Shop Kicks app. I tried and was disappointed to find I did not earn any kicks. Darn! They're excluded. Would have been great to earn from my earnings though!

Sam's Club:

We found out that purchasing Disney gift cards through box clubs gets you a better deal - like $48 for a $50 gift card at Sam’s Club. So, save those reward cash outs and go for the $50, $75 gift card deals as they have the most savings per dollar. Definitely skip the cards that are a higher value than that, if you can, because the percentage off is not as high. It's about 4% off with the $50 and $75 cards.

Now here's a REAL money-saving tip. We saved our cash in our bank account, then used our Disney Rewards Visa card to buy our Disney gift cards. This gave us 4% off the cards AND we got the Disney Rewards points which we used to bank another $160 in "Disney Rewards" cards (gift cards usable at Disney properties). But that's not all! Suddenly our Sam's Plus account had a cash back rebate - I don't know how or what the percentage is, but we got $56.00 in rewards after our $1,500 purchase of gift cards. Phenomenal!