So yeah, I spent all my money Black Friday shopping. But that’s fine, because I have gift cards from various money-saving and rebate apps to get me through the next few days.
This year, in a quest to save a bunch of money (something on The List), I signed up for a bunch of apps. And they’re pretty helpful, so I thought I’d do you guys the favor of giving you the referral codes. And I get points if I refer people…so it’s a mutual money-saving thing.
1. Fetch Rewards
This app is good because you just scan the receipt after buying things—and you get points for buying from specific brands. Things like Kraft and Suave and Campbell’s. I confess it wouldn’t have meant anything to me, since I’m a store brands kind of person, but I got a bunch of points for buying Plum Organics food pouches for Andrew. So if you want to use my referral code, we both get extra points.
My caveat is that it took a while to get enough points for a gift card. Like all money-saving apps, you can’t let it rule your shopping habits. But it’s pretty user-friendly.
Fetch Referral Code: YK7AF
I should add that you get 25 points per receipt even if there’s nothing on there worth anything. So that’s something. It adds up eventually.
2. Ibotta
I’d heard about this one for a long time, and it turned out to be worth it. Every week or so, they have new products that you can get rebates from—it’s not much, like I got $1.00 from a half-gallon of Lactaid milk at Walmart, but in the end that made the Lactaid like 5 cents cheaper than WalMart brand Lactose-free milk. With bonuses and stuff, I ended up getting $20.00 (the minimum cash out amount) pretty quickly.
Ibotta Referral Code: vvacbbd
Often, they’ll give you ten cents in rebates just for scanning ANY receipt, so that helps.
3. Shopkick
This is an app I have on my phone that gets you “kicks” or points for walking into stores, scanning products, and purchasing specific things.
This one takes some time—scanning is easy, and walking in is easier, but when you redeem the points for gift cards, it’s only a little bit of cash for a lot of time. 500 kicks will get you a $2 gift card at Target or WalMart.
I confess, this one is fun because I like the “dingdingDING” sound it makes when I scan something and get 25 kicks. And if you earn enough kicks, I think you can redeem them for KitchenAid mixers or a Vespa! The Vespa is like a million kicks, but a girl can dream.
I use this one faithfully, and I average about $4 a week if I were to redeem for gift cards that often.
Yesterday, Shopkick gave like 50 walk-in kicks at WalMart and Target, 150 at Carter’s and Marshall’s, and 500 for buying LEGO sets (which everybody wants at Christmas. Except Thomas. He says this year he’d rather have Amazon cards for all his grad school books. No more middle school LEGO sets for this 30-year-old man. It’s a somber Christmas.)
I don’t have the referral code for this one because my phone is on the other side of the room and…it’s vacation. Maybe say a prayer for me instead? Like I said, I spent all my money, Andrew’s new coat (a Black Friday find purchased with the help of Shopkick) is big enough for a kindergartener, and Thomas is too old for LEGOS. It’s an emotionally trying holiday for us all.
Anyway, you’re welcome, broke members of the Blob (the blog mob). 🙂
the heartfelt awkward 