The Best Money Saving Apps (that you’ll use every week!)

The best money saving apps to help stretch your budget by saving money and earning extra cash at the grocery store, online and more!

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I still remember how pumped I was five years ago when I got a smartphone and knew that I could finally start using all the best money saving apps that I kept hearing about from my friends!

You know me and how I love to save money.  Well, it was driving me crazy that I kept missing out on savings just because I had a “dumb” phone.  Having a smartphone opened up a whole new world of money saving potential!

Related: How We Easily Save Over $250 a Year on Our Cellphone Bill 

It can be hard to know which money saving apps are worth using and which ones are a scam or total waste of time.  I should know because I’ve tried most of the popular money saving apps at one time or another.  And I’ll be honest, many of them either didn’t feel worth my time or they were clunky to use.

But there are a few cell phone apps that I found myself consistently saving decent money with (or in some cases making money!) and using regularly.  These are the best money saving apps in my opinion and are the ones that I deemed worthy of cluttering up my phone.  And they are apps that I’m sharing with you all here so that you can also benefit and save yourself money too!

Money Saving Apps- my favorites

FETCH REWARDS 

Fetch Reward allows you to earn for purchasing items from over 180+ partnering grocery brands, such as Aquafina, Baker’s, Breakstone’s, Campbell’s, Classico, Dove, Izze, Kraft, Hellman’s, Pace, Oscar Mayer, Tresemme and more.  The neat thing is that their app recognizes the items on your receipt and will usually know if you’ve purchased one of the partnering brands, which means that most times, you can upload your receipt and let the app do the rest!  Occasionally there also generous receipt bonuses that you can earn as well!

What I Love:

• Get 2,000 free points ($2.00) when you sign up using referral code GE0EG!
• It takes literally 15-30 seconds to submit a receipt, which is awesome, painless and easy!  I typically just submit all grocery receipts since sometimes I forget that something I bought was a qualifying brand.
• The variety of rewards offered- Amazon, Target, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Hotels.com, Panera Bread, Chili’s, Domino’s, Visa gift cards and lots more!
• The low cash out threshold of $3.00.
• You have 14 days to redeem a receipt.

What to be Aware Of:

• If an account is inactive for 90 days, the points will expire.

>>>SIGN UP FOR FETCH REWARDS HERE<<<

IBOTTA

Ibotta is a free smartphone app that allows you to earn cashback for purchases both in-store and online.  Savings offers will be anywhere from $0.25 to $5.00 depending on the item purchased.  You can use Ibotta at nearly 200 stores, including Target, Costco, Whole Foods, Giant, Weis, Publix, Wegmans, CVS and Walgreens.  I even recently saved $5.00 off a purchase at Jo-Ann Fabrics!

To use Ibotta, simply go into the app before you shop and activate any offers that you think you may use.  Then once you purchase the product you simply upload a picture of your receipt.  Sometimes you will also be asked to scan the product’s bar code too.  And that’s it!  Super simple!

What I Love:

• They frequently have $0.25 offers on any item- you simply need to upload a receipt.  
• Occasionally there are “Any Brand” offers for everyday basics like milk, bread, produce, yogurt, eggs and laundry detergent.  With these offers you don’t need to purchase a specific brand, any brand will do, even store brands, which is pretty awesome!
• You can redeem offers on receipts up to a week old!  So for example, say you purchase Daisy cottage cheese and then a new Ibotta offer becomes available 2 days later.  You can still upload that receipt and get cashback!
• Lots of bonus offers that allow you to earn more.
• Your payment is actual cash, not gift cards!

What to be Aware Of:

• The cash out threshold is $20.00.
• If an account is inactive for over a year and has an account balance, inactivity fees will be applied to that account and taken out of the balance.

>>SIGN UP FOR IBOTTA HERE<<<

SAVING STAR

Saving Star is a sort of online digital grocery coupon site.  You activate offers on their site, go shopping and for most stores, you’ll automatically receive your savings since you’ll link your grocery store’s loyalty card to your account.  For the few stores that don’t have that option, you simply need to take a picture of your receipt and submit it that way.

What I Love:

• How painless it is for the majority of stores.  I love not needing to worry about uploading pictures of my receipts!
• You can get your payment as cash…or a Starbucks gift card.
• The One or Many Offers that allow you to save big on larger purchases of an item.  Combine them with a sale and you can often do quite well!
• You can also access Saving Star on your desktop too, which is sometimes more convenient for me.

What to be Aware Of:

• The cash out threshold is $20.00.
• If you activate your grocery store load-to-card coupon offers to your store’s loyalty card and it’s the same as an offer on Saving Star, your Saving Star offer will most likely not redeem.  Basically, since the offers are for the same product and the same dollar value, it’s considered the same coupon and so can only be redeemed on one site, not both.

>>>SIGN UP FOR SAVING STAR HERE<<<

SHOPKICK 

This app works a bit differently than the ones that I already mentioned.  Basically, the app allows you to earn “kicks” for things like walking into a store (it’s really that simple!), scanning specific product barcodes while in a store (it’s like going on a treasure hunt!) and for certain purchases made in-store and online.  You can then redeem the kicks for gift cards.

What I Love:

• You get 250 kicks (the same as $1.00) the first time you do a walk-in or scan!
• The fact that you don’t even have to make a purchase to earn something is pretty awesome!
• The wide range of stores to earn kicks from.  I find myself using it the most at Target and the grocery store.

What to be Aware Of:

• The cash out threshold is $2.00.
• You will need a data plan to earn kicks at some stores…or you can just stick with stores that have free wifi.  🙂
• It’s not a fast way to earn, but if you have a little extra time, it’s kind of a fun thing to do!

>>>SIGN UP FOR SHOPKICK HERE <<< (use promo code THRIFTY5 at sign up to get an extra 3000 point)

EBATES (get $10 when you make your first purchase of $25 or more!)

If you do any online shopping, using Ebates is a no brainer because it allows you to earn cashback on online purchases at over 2,500 stores!  It’s super simple.  When you are ready to shop, simply open the app, find the store you want to shop at and click through to visit the store’s website…and just like that, you’ll earn cashback on whatever you purchase!

What I Love:

• You get a whopping $10 when you make your first purchase if it’s $25 or more!
• Getting money for buying things that I was already going to buy is definitely pretty great!
• Payments are made in cash.
• You can access Ebates on your desktop too, allowing you to earn from purchases that way too.

What to be Aware Of:

• Payment isn’t made until your cashback balance is at least $5.
• Payments are only made every 3 months.

>>SIGN UP FOR EBATES HERE<<<
Get $10 free when you make your first purchase of $25 or more!

CHECKOUT 51 —get $2 when you redeem your first offer!

With Checkout 51, you can redeem money saving offers on your favorite grocery and household brands by simply selecting the offer, purchasing the item and then uploading your receipt.

What I Love:

• Typically there are several offers each week that are good for any brand of a certain item- super handy that you don’t have to buy a specific brand to redeem those!
• Your payment is actual cash, not gift cards!

What to be Aware Of:

• The cash out threshold is $20.00.
• Offers refresh every Thursday, which means that you need to be on your toes to make sure any current offers are redeemed before the new ones start.

>>>SIGN UP FOR CHECKOUT 51 HERE<<<
Get $2 when you redeem your first offer!  

TARGET (Cartwheel)

Any Target shopper will appreciate how easy it is to save with the Cartwheel portion of the Target app!  On average, Cartwheel offers will save you anywhere from 5% to 50% on specific items when shopping in store.  You can look for offers by category, search for offers using the search bar, or even easier, when you find an item you want to buy, scan the item’s UPC barcode and the app will let you know if there are any savings available.

What I Love:

• Savings are received the moment you buy- no waiting!
• The barcode scanning option is super handy and is a big time saver in my opinion.

What to be Aware Of:

• Nothing…other than you may be tempted to impulse buy when you see savings are available!  🙂

>>>SIGN UP FOR TARGET (Cartwheel) HERE<<<

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