Once you’ve applied the most valuable promo codes to your online order, make sure you’re also earning cash back on your purchases. It’s easy to get started through mobile apps as well as browser extensions.
It depends on where you shop and which shopping portal or app you use. You can earn anywhere between 1 percent and 10 percent—and sometimes even more—when you shop a specific participating retailer through Rakuten.
Meanwhile, Ibotta offers a dollar-value rebate for various products when you shop in-store (for example, get 25 cents when you buy a specific brand of cereal); it also offers percentage-back opportunities to earn in stores beyond grocery and big-box chains.
You might be wondering what the app gets out of this deal. It depends on the program. Retailers typically pay to participate by sharing a sliver of your purchase total with the cash-back portal. In addition, rebate programs make money by selling information about consumer purchasing. They may not use your personal demographic information, like age and location (check their terms and conditions to be sure), but they typically aggregate the buying patterns from their users to provide information about sales trends or product preferences.
To make sure the rebate program doesn’t encourage you to spend more, make your shopping list before you log on to look for applicable rebates and cash-back offers.