What was your favorite book when you were growing up? If you’re like us, Roald Dahl’s classic “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” likely topped your book list. Willy Wonka’s world of wonder and chocolate and colorful candy was one we wanted to inhabit. And, who didn’t dream of finding a golden ticket? Well, your dream may become a reality because golden tickets and millions of kicks will be up for grabs next week!
Monday, May 24 is National Scavenger Hunt Day, and Shopkick is celebrating the best way we know how – with a week-long scavenger hunt filled with nostalgia and plenty of kicks! We’re launching a scan mission at Walmart stores throughout the country where you can scan a select grouping of products in order to earn 100 bonus kicks.
But, there’s more!
(Because, of course there is.)
To give you even more of an incentive to go on your own scavenger hunt in honor of National Scavenger Hunt Day, allow us to unveil the biggest news of all…
We’re hiding a limited number of Shopkick golden tickets in stores throughout the country worth $500 in kicks (each)! Your job is to find one and mail it in by May 31 to receive your prize!
We aren’t sharing the locations (what kind of scavenger hunt would!?), but we can share a few hints. One city is located in Colorado, another is in Florida, and one more is in Florida…!
So, what are you waiting for? Get your search on!
P.S: If you’re looking for even more chances to win kicks, we’re also giving away 35,000 kicks to select Shopkickers who share their Shopkick Scavenger Hunt journey! Simply snap a photo or video of you (and your crew!) completing the Shopkick Scavenger Hunt and upload it to the app. We’ll announce the winners once our week of scavenger hunt fun is complete!
But, it recently came to my attention that while almost everyone knows 
So this first app on my list is the one that I mentioned earlier—the one that started this whole list thing. And if you can probably already tell, it’s my favorite. It’s an app called 
I know I joked earlier about books taking over my budget, but they seriously do! It seems like books in college cost way more than they should but they’re a necessity that I can’t avoid—trust me, I’ve tried. Thankfully, I discovered an app that can help us college students spend less money on books. BookScouter is this super dope app that you can use it to find the places that give you awesome value on your books. It works both ways, too, because I can use it to find places (usually online) where I can purchase books at really low prices and then I can use it again later when the semester is over to find the places that are paying the best prices when it’s time to sell my books back. It’s usually just a few bucks here and there, but when your budget is as tight as mine, every dollar counts.
The first time I heard about Google Opinion Rewards, I was kind of like, “Nah, I’m good.” It’s because the way this app works is that you have to earn your rewards by answering questions. I mean, I’m all about earning rewards but I wasn’t too thrilled with having to answer a bunch of questions to do so. But then I gave this app a try, and, I have to be straight up about it, I didn’t really mind it at all. One of the reasons I like it is because I didn’t have to spend a lot of time answering the survey questions; they were pretty short. In exchange, the app gave me Google Play credit, which I can use to buy other apps and games in the Google store. This is perfect for me because I love a good photo editing app and the good ones usually aren’t free. 
This next app is called iPoll and it’s a lot like Google Opinion Rewards, but the big difference is that instead of getting Google Play Credits, you can gift cards for answering questions about things you’ve bought or places you’ve visited. You do you, and you get gift cards for it. Easy. I also like that you can take more surveys on the iPoll website so you don’t have to use up the battery life on your phone. This app is a little bit more limited than Google Opinion Rewards in terms of when you can take the surveys to earn your gift cards, but you can set it to send you alerts on your phone to let you know whenever there’s a new survey available. 
This next app is pretty cool for the picture-taking enthusiasts out there. While I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a photographer, I do happen to love playing around with filters and taking and editing photos on my phone. I typically upload my favorite photos to Instagram but when I discovered Foap, I started uploading my photos and videos there too. Foap is for creators to sell their content, which is a big mood right now, to be honest. I’m more than happy to sell some of the pictures and videos I’ve been taking with my phone. The way Foap works is that you upload videos and photos, and if a brand wants to use it for their own content, you get paid for it. How much? It depends. But note that whatever price you charge, you have to split the profit with Foap. 
If taking polls or snapping pics isn’t your thing, you should be able to relate to this next app. Sweatcoin rewards you for walking. That’s right! You can earn rewards for working out or for simply walking across campus from class to class. If you walk enough, you get what the app calls sweat coins, and then you can trade them in for health stuff like energy drinks, health bars, running shoes, and even some digital wearables like watches. Everyone always talks about ways to avoid the dreaded “Freshman 15”—using Sweatcoin is definitely one of those ways.
If you’re new to money-saving apps for groceries, Coupons.com is a great gateway app because it revolves around a familiar concept: coupons. If you’re ever used coupons, I’m sure you remember searching through newspapers for the best deals of the week, cutting them out with scissors, and carrying them along with you to the store. Or, perhaps you remember walking down the aisles and pulling the strips out of the coupon machines. Either way, this app features a familiar way to save.
You might remember the Target Cartwheel app, well now it’s called Circle. Basically the way this app works is that it rewards you for purchases made at Target. The more you purchase, the more rewards you receive. For me, shopping at Target isn’t a problem at all. The unfortunate part, for my budget, is that I end up spending way too much on other items; it kind of defeats the purpose of saving on groceries when I’m just going to use it as an excuse to spend the savings on something else.
The next app on my list is called Rakuten, but until recently, it was a site called eBates. For a long time, it was a great site to use for online shopping. It would basically give you cash back for online shopping from a variety of online stores—that’s now changed.
SavingStar is another cashback shopping app worth adding to the list but it is a bit more complicated to use than the others. Because SavingStar is a rebate app, you’re only rewarded cashback on purchases that have an active rebate. This can be helpful if you find that most of the items on your list offer rebates but it’s likely to change on a regular basis.
