I love, love, love new technology. My boys and I love learning new phones, apps, and other tech together—and I’m pretty good at it compared to some of the other moms I spend time with on the soccer sideline! Recently, my boys and I got such a kick when my old phone died and I had to get myself a new iPhone X. Absolutely had to (wink, wink).

The boys, who are far more tech savvy than I ever was at their age, heard about something called animojis from their friends at school. Apparently, you can create and share adorable cartoons that actually copy your voice and facial expressions. It’s so cool; I had no idea my new phone could do that. I’m proud to say I caught on quickly, but it made me wonder what other features my new phone had that I knew absolutely nothing about. Turns out, there were quite a few, like fake phone call apps for when you really need to appear busy and grocery rebate apps, which combine two of my favorite things: shopping and saving.

The best grocery rebate apps basically make me money while I shop. They’ve become as vital to my monthly budget as my smartphone is to keeping in touch with all my old college girlfriends. And, based on the sideline gossip, I’m not the only one who feels this way; all the other moms are talking about which grocery rebate app is best, too. Here’s what I’ve learned from listening in on my fellow soccer mom rave reviews.

The Best Grocery Rebate Apps All Have These Features

Just as certain features have become irreplaceable on our phones—camera, Bluetooth, maps—the best grocery rebate apps also have some features that I can’t live without (as well as some extra ones that make some of these apps even more amazing).  

The best cash back grocery rebate app features are:

• Cash back and gift cards to stores you love: This is the foundation of any great shopping rebate app, kind of like being able to make phone calls is for your phone (though my boys would say the foundation of any good phone is its internet connection). These apps simply must pay you for shopping; otherwise, they aren’t doing their jobs! Most of the best apps do this by giving you points after you make purchases and take photos of your receipt. You can then redeem those points for cash or gift cards to a variety of stores. Rewards vary from app to app.
• New product introductions: Another cool feature that some of the best grocery rebate apps have is helping you to learn about new products. This is usually done by paying you for scanning barcodes. Then, once you’ve scanned the barcode, the app gives you points as well as cool info about the price and details of featured products.
• Game-like feel: One of the things I love most about these apps is that the best of them turn shopping into a game by making it more like a fun scavenger hunt for rewards and points. Now I get excited for each grocery run as I compete with myself to see if I can earn more points than I’ve racked up before.
• Updates on the latest deals: Some of these apps will also give you alerts or weekly updates about the latest deals, which can help you plan your weekly shopping to maximize the reward points you earn.

The Best Grocery Rebate Apps. Period.

Knowing the features of the best cash back grocery rebate apps is a good place to start, but the natural next step is to learn which of these apps have any or all of these features. Here are a few of my own personal favorites:

• Checkout 51: This app is one of the simplest. After you’ve gone grocery shopping, you upload your receipt by taking a picture of it and earn credit for eligible purchases. Once you accumulate $20 of credit, you can cash out and Checkout 51 will mail you a check. Simple!
• SavingStar: SavingStar is a lot like Checkout 51, but it incentivizes healthy eating by giving you the chance to save 20% on your fruits and vegetables every week. I know my boys aren’t happy about this (they’d prefer one that rewards sugary snack foods), but as a health-conscious soccer mama, I love it!
• Shopkick: Shopkick, though, is my hands down favorite. It simply has the most features. With Shopkick, you can get points for taking pictures of your receipts, just like the other two apps on my list. But, Shopkick has additional features that allow you to earn points, called kicks, for other things you do every time you go to the store as well. How it works is simple: you have your Shopkick app open when you walk into a store, and you earn points. If you scan the barcodes of certain items to learn more about them, you get more points. You take pictures of your receipts after your trip, and, of course, you get more points. These extra features offered by Shopkick are great because they give you extra points, which leads to extra rewards! These features also mean that it’s easy to combine Shopkick with any of the other best grocery rebate apps, so you can use multiple rewards apps to maximize rewards! Now that’s a home run! Or should I say GOOOOAAAALLL!

Another thing I really like about Shopkick is that it has an amazingly engaged social media community. In the early days when I first started using it, I was able to go on Shopkick’s Facebook page and get all the help I needed with my questions—plus some bonus tips on non-shopping related mom stuff and a steady stream of absolutely hilarious jokes. You might say the best feature of all was the online friends I made. Shopkick truly kicks it out of the park!

Ready to explore one of the best grocery rebate apps—and have fun doing it? Download Shopkick for free and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered how rewarding it is to shop with us.

And, if you love social media as much as you love stretching your budget, join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily shopping inspiration.

Image courtesy obey leesin

Growing up, my mom always got stuck playing referee between my siblings and me. We were always fighting. Nothing serious, of course, just the usual kid stuff, but she still had to be the one to step in and break it up sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. Her strategy was to separate us first, then give us all a good lecture.

Now that I’m a mom of three boys, I can understand why the talking-to had to come second. Safety first, of course. While her speeches always varied depending on what had started our silly argument in the first place, she always ended them with the same line. The only thing that will always be there for you is your family.

It’s a great tidbit to remember, even now, because, adults or not, my brothers and sisters haven’t stopped being impossibly irritating every so often. But, I’d like to add a second part to my mom’s advice. My own mommy saying is, “The only things that will always be there for you are your family—and Walmart.”

And it’s really true. I mean, the Walmart where I live is even open 24 hours a day! No matter what I need or when I need it, Walmart is there for me. Poster boards to help with a last-minute science project at 10 pm? Check. Groceries for the bake sale tomorrow that my kids told me about after dinner? Check, check. Cleaning supplies for the new puppy my kids and my husband just had to bring home? Check, check, check! I can get all this and more at Walmart, all the time, and almost always at much lower prices than I’d find anywhere else.

So, yeah, I’m a Walmart devotee, which is why I was ecstatic recently when I discovered that there were programs that actually give you rewards for shopping at Walmart. Not to name any names, but I think with the new savings I’m racking up, Walmart is now technically there for me more than some of my siblings (they know who they are!).

Kidding, of course! But in all seriousness, the best programs that pay out rewards for shopping at Walmart are easy to use and will help all you other referees, I mean moms, out there stay under budget. Let me share my favorite Walmart rewards programs below.

Walmart’s Savings Catcher: Get Rewarded for Being a Vigilant Walmart Shopper

One of the main reasons I think of Walmart as always being there for me is because I always know what to expect from Walmart’s prices: low, low, low. That’s kind of their thing, really. Maybe that was why I was so surprised when I found out about Walmart’s Savings Catcher, which is a great way to push the store’s prices down even lower.

Walmart’s Savings Catcher is the type of rewards program that I’ve been familiar with for years. The way it works is super simple. If you can find a local competitor with a lower advertised price on something that you recently bought from Walmart, well, then, Walmart will make up the difference by giving you a Walmart Rewards eGift Card or even a Bluebird Card by American Express. It’s like getting paid just for saving your receipts!

If you can find a local competitor with a lower advertised price on something that you recently bought from Walmart, well, then, Walmart will make up the difference…

The downside? You can only use those rewards cards at Walmart, but, at least for me and my family, it’s never long before we have to make another shopping trip there. There are some other rules, too, though. For example, you can only submit seven receipts each week. I’ve never found that to be a problem, though, as that’s a pretty high bar to reach for the average shopper.

Chase Bank’s Reward Program for Shopping at Walmart

Come to think of it, there are actually quite a few things that I’ve been relying on for much of life. I have a favorite brand of shoes, I’ve always driven American-made cars, and I’ve always been a fan of the Chicago Bears (okay, maybe that last one is a bad example). I’ve also always used a Chase credit card.

Earlier this summer, Chase offered a Walmart rewards program to earn points for all the purchases I made at Walmart. This particular promotion was only available during the month of August for cardholders of Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and the Chase Freedom Unlimited cards, which luckily included me!

I was allowed to spend up to $250 (which I did) to earn up to 2,500 rewards points (again, nailed it). When I’m ready, I can cash those points in for travel rewards. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I’m putting this one on the list because my guess is that it’s only a matter of time before Chase runs this promotion again.

Shopkick: The Ultimate Rewards Program for Shopping at Walmart

The first two of these programs, you may have noticed, are only available at certain times or under certain circumstances. That’s why I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve saved the best rewards program for shopping at Walmart for last. Allow me to introduce you to Shopkick, which you can use any time of the year, day or night, to earn major rewards on featured products.

How Shopkick works is incredibly easy and intuitive. You earn points, called kicks, for walking into Walmart, for scanning barcodes on featured products, and, of course, for making purchases. You can then save up those points and trade them in for gift cards to a ton of popular stores. I’ve been using Shopkick for a while because it’s a great way to get paid to grocery shop and now that it’s available to use at Walmart—and at Walmart.com!—there’ll be no stopping me in my quest to stay on budget.

You earn points, called kicks, for walking into Walmart, for scanning barcodes on featured products, and, of course, for making purchases.

And, I’m super into Shopkick’s social media, too. I’m spending I don’t know how much time each day on their pages, enjoying all the jokes that Shopkick makes and sharing funny gifs with other Shopkickers in response to their statuses. Just like my real family, my Shopkick family can always be relied on to make me laugh! Shopping, fun, and savings all in one place—pinch me like my brother used to do when my mom wasn’t looking because I must be dreaming!

Learn how you can earn big rewards for shopping at Walmart. Download Shopkick’s free app and get ready to be wowed. Welcome to the fun, Shopkicker!

If you’re as social media savvy as you are shopping savvy, join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily fun and inspiration.

Image courtesy dolgachov

Remember when cellphones first became popular and they were used to, well, make phone calls? These days, phone calls are actually only one of a million ways I seem to use my cellphone (i.e why we now call them “smart”phones, ba-da-bing). It’s a map, a camera, an address book, a way to get messages to friends and family, a portal to the world, and, maybe most importantly, a way for me to do all my shopping at tons of stores no matter where I am physically.

I’ve suddenly remembered I was out of face wipes while at coffee with one of my ladies. A few clicks on Amazon and a new pack was on its way—and I didn’t have to spend my social hour trying to remember a mental shopping list. Or, let’s say I’m out of snacks for the kids’ lunches. I can buzz on over to my Target app to order crackers and trail mix while getting a much deserved monthly pedicure. I can even order my family’s dinner at Panera while I’m walking to my car in those silly flip flops and have a big brown bag of soups and sandwiches waiting to be picked up in minutes.

It’s all very convenient, but what makes it even better (and also more fun) are apps that let users get paid to shop online—for free! Imagine this: you order all the things I described above and, oh, you also get paid to do it. Okay, now stop imagining because it’s real! Here are some of my favorite apps for mobile shoppers. Give them a shot so we can all get paid to shop online for free, together! Maybe we can squeeze a second pedicure in this month thanks to the extra space in our budgets. See you at the spa!

Checkout 51: A Free App to Get Paid to Shop Online

My phone has so many functions that I can no longer live without—alarm clocks, notepads, and my work email, just to name a few—but I think the feature that has emerged as my clear and absolute favorite is, without question, the camera. I’m an Instagram addict—and I know I’m not alone! There’s nothing like posting a pic of some clever latte art or a floral arrangement I made for our mantle and just waiting for the little hearts to come pouring in from all my online buddies.

But, I also use my camera for more functional reasons, too. I use it to snap pictures of important slides during presentations at my office and to take pictures of important receipts so that I don’t lose them in the junk drawer. I think that’s why I’ve come to like Checkout 51 so much. It’s basically a rebate app, where you get paid to shop online for free after you make your purchases.

I like to use it both in-store and online. When you use it in-store, you just snap a quick picture of your receipt for purchasing certain products and offers and get paid; when you use it to shop online, you do the exact same thing with your purchases there. Easy, easy, easy!

Pro tips: The Checkout 51 app lists its new deals on Thursday of every week. And, it’s an especially effective choice if you’re in the market for free apps that pay you to grocery shop because you can use it with Amazon grocery.

Get Paid to Shop Online With the Free App BeFrugal

Another thing about my smartphone that I’ve gotten too used to these days to live without is the easy access to information. The website I search the most on my phone is IMDB, short for Internet Movie Database. It seems like I’m always having conversations about actors and actresses, like, “Was James Franco in this?” or, “I know Anne Hathaway was in that.” Sometimes, the only way to settle these debates about who was in what and when is to open up IMDB. What, I wonder, did we ever do without such quick access to information?

This next shopping reward app, BeFrugal, is a cool one because it’s also based on information. It’s another rebate site that gives you cash back for making certain purchases online. I’ve gotten deals for as much as 30% back! The rebates go into your account, and then you can cash them in using your PayPal account. Again, this one is also super easy.

The info part that I like so much is that, with BeFrugal, if you find another site offering a higher percentage back, BeFrugal not only applies that higher rate to your purchases, but it also gives you an extra 25% on top of it. How cool is that? Um, a whopping 25% more cool, I’d say.

Shopkick: The Best App to Get Paid to Shop Online for Free

Games. Have I mentioned the games on my smartphone yet? I’m a big fan of the popular puzzle ones, especially Candy Crush. Man, have I spent a lot of time crushing those little candies!

What I love about this third app, Shopkick, is that it turns any and all shopping into a game. The way the app works is that it gives you points, called kicks, for all kinds of things. When you go shopping at a store, this includes paying you to scan barcodes, purchase featured items, and even to simply walk into some popular retailers.

Shopkick also gives you points for the shopping you do online, as well as browsing webshops, watching videos, and, of course, making purchases. I love using this free app to hunt down piles of points and then convert them into gift cards to all my favorite stores. It’s soooo much better than Candy Crush since it comes with big savings!

So there you have it, three of my favorite apps that will turn your phone into an even more useful part of your life than it already is, i.e. a headquarters for getting paid to shop online with free apps. And, you can even combine apps like Checkout 51 with BeFrugal and Shopkick to take all your savings to the next level—and for doing things you already do!

Sometimes I try to think of ways my phone could be even more useful than it is now. Unless it actually grows legs and goes out and does all my shopping for me, thanks to free shopping rewards apps, I’m not sure it’s possible.

Start getting paid to shop online with Shopkick. Download the free shopping rewards app and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered the fun of shopping with us on your team!

And, if you love social media as much as you love your smartphone, join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Image courtesy Yastremska