iBotta

I'm not usually one to promote an app, but I am always looking for ways to save money (or make a little extra) and this app is the easiest way I've found so far! I did Swagbucks for a while. Still do when I remember, and I've earned a lot of Amazon cards that way, but it's not instant, and it can take time to earn enough bucks to get a $5 card.

Enter iBotta. iBotta is an app that you download to your phone and pays you money for brands that you probably already use.  Here's how it works.

1. Sign up here and then download the app
2. Complete the offers for the items you want/need to buy. Most are easy - answer a question, watch a video, read a recipe. (You can also post things to your Facebook wall for many of the items. I don't do those, because my wall is not a product billboard.)

Here is what the offer pages look like.



And what the"tasks" page looks like

1. Redeem your offers. To do so, you select the store you shopped at and submit your receipt. Then you scan the bar codes for the items you purchased.  It says the money will be in your iBotta account within 24hrs. Mine was there in less than an hour.
• In the store, you can click on the item you want to buy and scan the barcode to make sure it is included in the offer.  I did that for a few things that I thought would be included, but weren't, and one that I thought was not, but it was!
2. Once in your iBotta account, you can link that to your Paypal account and transfer the funds.

I was skeptical at first. I went to Target yesterday and it worked! I got paid $7.25 just for buying the things I was going to buy anyway.

The downside to iBotta is that you don't get new offers until you use the ones on there. There are several on there for products that I don't use, and probably won't. As you redeem offers, new ones appear.

The upside is that it doesn't matter what you paid for the items for you to get the money back. I had coupons and shopped sales to get some of my items yesterday.

Thus ends my first app/product review. Try it out!