Ibotta – How It Works – Money Saving App
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Ibotta: How It Works
We have mentioned Ibotta a few times recently in some of our coupon matchups but we wanted to give you the full scoop on how it works! Ibotta is a FREE smartphone app which is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android users. By using this app, you can earn cash back on specific products you buy at grocery or drugstores or other retailers. I just started using it and I love how simple it is to do from your phone. They will have a variety of different products in every category, available to redeem offers and then for each product, you will have different short tasks you can do to earn cash-back. This will lower your out of pocket even more as this is cash-back after you have gone shopping (you can continue to use manufacturer and store coupons on the items in store).
Ibotta offers a variety of deals when you sign up and successfully use the app.
Once you start using ibotta the cash back offers are deposited into your account, you can then cash out via paypal.
Here are a few ways that you can earn cash-back on the specific products:
- Read a quick how-to or learn a fact about the product (I just did this for Green Apple Chapstick and it was a short sentence about using Chapstick daily to protect your lips & then I earn $.25 when I buy this product)
- Quick trivia questions
- Watch a short video
- Share on Facebook
- Take a poll – typically just 1 question about how much you use the product
- I read a quick how-to for $.25 cash-back
- Answered a trivia question ($.25)
- Watched a short video ($.50)
- Doing all 3 tasks earned me $1 in cash-back if I redeem the offer & submit my receipt
- Register for a new Ibotta account
- Then download the app to your smartphone through your App store (I have an Android phone, so I used the Google Play store and searched for “Ibotta”)
- Once you have downloaded the app, start looking through the offers (you can look by category or just see all of them together). Pick the items that you know that your family needs or compare to your favorite store’s weekly store matchups to see where you can find a great deal by buying the product and matching up a sale, store and/or manufacturer coupons and then also receiving cash-back on the item from Ibotta.
- Go thru and complete the offers for any products you plan on buying (I’m not sure how long the offers stay available in your account, but I would recommend doing the offers fairly quickly, just to make sure that the offers don’t disappear before you do the tasks).
- Once you’ve completed the tasks, choose which store you will buy this product at (from the list of participating stores) – I wouldn’t go to this next step until you are sure you’re ready to buy the product.
- When at the store, make sure to click “Redeem” on Ibotta for the offers you will be buying .
- Purchase the product and take a picture of your receipt using the Ibotta app and their instructions.
- You will be credited the cash back for the number of offers you did once Ibotta verifies your purchase (within 24 hours)
- Every time you redeem an offer from Ibotta, they will send you a new one in it’s place. The more you start using it, then they will send you more personalized deals on products you frequently use, too.
- You can cash- out via Paypal every time you reach $5 or more in your account (if you sign up by this Friday 1/11 and do your first offer by 1/17, then you can cash out after your first offer with the extra $5 credit you will earn).
Participating NW Stores:
- Safeway
- Fred Meyer
- QFC
- Target
- Costco
- Walmart
- Walgreens
- Rite Aid
- Winco
- Whole Foods
- 7-11
- Military Commissary
- and many more grocery & drugstore locations around the country
Earned $7.50 on my Wal-Mart purchases last night. I love that you can use the app to scan the item to make sure that it is the correct item.
Whoo hoo – that is fantastic Crystal!