I spent years clipping coupons. They’d come to me two ways: in flyers that came in the mail, and in my Sunday paper. I’d stack them all up, sit down with a cup of tea and a pair of scissors, and go through them methodically, snipping my favorites, which I’d then tuck into a coupon organizer that I kept in my purse.

What can I say? It was a great way to save money during college, and then during my early twenties, and then right up until the present when I have a family of my own and three growing boys. It pains me to say it, but recently I had to retire this old practice. Not because I stopped wanting to save money (never!) but because new technology gave me other ways to save. Now, I’ve moved on to scanning my grocery receipts for cash back.

If you’ve never heard of this marvel, don’t worry. It’s a relatively new way to save, one that’s been made possible largely by shopping rewards apps. Basically, how this all works is that after you’re done shopping you just take a quick second to scan your grocery receipt, and in exchange, you get points you can later trade for cash or gift cards! No coupons necessary. I know it’s a new concept, which is why I’d like to spend a bit of time today explaining how you can scan your own grocery receipts for cash back, too!

The 411: How to Scan Grocery Receipts and Get Cash Back

The single most important thing to know about how to scan your grocery receipt for cash back is that you need an app that turns your receipts into cash back. There are a variety of these apps on the market, but the best are shopping rewards apps, which give you cash back or gift cards for the shopping you do anyway. That includes, of course, scanning your grocery receipts. Also, you want an app that gives you many different opportunities to earn points, that you’re able to use at your favorite stores, and that is a blast to use.

Once you have the app that’s right for you, the rest is quite easy. You just open the app, choose the store receipt you want to scan, and point your smartphone at the receipt. Voila!

To Turn Grocery Receipts Into More Cash Back, Make a Routine

Back in my coupon clipping days, I’d generally save anywhere from $.50 to $10 a week. In and of itself, that doesn’t seem like a lot of money. However, I was not just an occasional coupon clipper, I was a regular, and over a year that can add up. Maybe $52 a year isn’t much, but $520? That can make a huge dent in your budget!

These days, I find the key to scanning grocery receipts for the most cash back is consistency. In order to establish a habit, I just made scanning my grocery receipt a part of my regular shopping routine. Now, whenever I finish shopping, I take a moment in my car to use one of the top retail shopping apps for cash back to scan my receipt right then and there. I make sure I do it before I even leave the parking lot. In the beginning, it took a little patience and remembering, but now I hardly even give it a second thought. I just crank up the tunes and scan away!

For the Most Cash Back From Grocery Receipts, Set Goals

Another tactic from my old couponing days that has proven useful with these news apps is setting savings goals. I remember back when I was sitting down with my stack of ads every Sunday, I’d make a little game out of my savings by setting a goal. Usually, I’d put it at $8, but sometimes if I was busy I’d drop it down to $6, or if I was feeling especially ambitious I’d up it to as much as $20!

I’ve always loved a good challenge, and so setting goals like this was an engaging way to make sure I stuck to my coupon cutting routine. These days I’ve made scanning my grocery receipts for cash back a major part of my shopping routine, but I still like to challenge myself. As I’ll show you in the next section, all my favorite rewards apps give you fun points for your purchases, so what I like to do now is set a goal of a certain amount of points and see if each week I can beat it! Feel free, of course, to develop your own system that works for you.

Make the Most of Scanning Grocery Receipts for Cash Back With the Right App

In my opinion, the absolute best shopping rewards app is called Shopkick, and how it works is simple: Shopkick gives you points for your normal everyday shopping activities, including walking into stores, scanning the barcodes on certain items for more information and—of course!—making purchases and scanning your receipts. You can then trade those points for gift cards to your favorite stores. It’s as simple as that!

Shopkick gives you points for your normal everyday shopping activities, including walking into stores, scanning the barcodes on certain items for more information and—of course!—making purchases and scanning your receipts.

It’s quite a bit easier to navigate than the old coupon clipping system was, and I have a ton of fun with Shopkick. I’m always setting points goals for the week, and then beating them, whether I’m doing it by scanning my receipts, by scanning the barcodes of certain items in the store, or by combining the many different ways there are to earn points.

Scanning my grocery receipt for cash back with Shopkick has become just a part of my everyday shopping routine, and I hope that with everything you’ve learned, it becomes part of yours, too. I remember way back when I clipped coupons I’d see other shoppers at the store with their little binders of coupons, too. Now I see them using Shopkick instead and it warms my heart!

Ready to have some fun scanning your grocery receipt for cash back? Download Shopkick for free and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered how rewarding—and fun—shopping with us can be!

And, if you love using your smartphone to stay up on social media, join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily shopping inspiration.

Image courtesy stokkete

So you’ve been Shopkicking for a while now, and you’re wondering if there are ways to improve your game. Did you know that some Shopkickers consistently earn enough kicks for a free gift card a month?

Whether you’re saving up for a big payout for the holidays, a birthday, or a family vacation; you want to reduce your Walmart, Target, or Amazon bill each month; or you just like to treat yourself to a fancy Starbucks drink every week, take a hint from some master Shopkickers. Here are there top tips on how to get Shopkick points fast—and earn a gift card a month!

10 Top Pro Tips to Get Shopkick Points Fast and Earn a Gift Card a Month

1: Make A Plan

Go with a mission in mind.

Christy McElwain from Ohio plans her shopping trip around kicks in advance. “I make a plan before I leave the house. I end up doing a big circle and I don’t end up wasting time or additional gas.”

Donna Panelli from California makes a list of scans in the same order as her grocery list, and maps that list out based on their locations in the store.

“If you want to go a step further,” notes Melissa Barker from Dallas, TX, “you can add the kick items to your shopping list with an asterisk* to make sure you don’t miss a thing!”

Becky Kaloczi from Ohio tackles Best Buy by focusing on a few key areas, such as video games, small appliances, and electronics. By doing so, she says she can get in and out with 100 scans in an hour!

2: Team Up to Get Shopkick Points Fast

Go Shopkicking with your friends and family to rack up kicks more quickly.

Virginia Doyle-Diamond from Navarre, FL says, “Go Shopkicking with a friend who also has Shopkick. You can find kicks faster by telling each other which aisle certain products are on.”

Cheryl Avery Bigelow from Las Vegas, NV recruits her kids to help track down where products are located in the store as a scavenger hunt. “Not only do I get kicks,” she says, “but it makes shopping fun for my kids.”

Shopkicker Doug Miller from West Palm Beach, FL has even teamed up with other Shopkickers he’s met in the aisle! “The most fun I ever had Shopkicking was at a Target in Palm Beach,” he says. “We met another couple doing the same thing, teamed up, and got through several hundred kicks in record time. The four of us went out for drinks afterward and laughed ourselves silly comparing each other’s Shopkick stories.”

3: Get Your Invite Kicks

You can get Shopkick points fast kicks by inviting friends, making it one of the speediest ways to earn a gift card a month. If you’re going to recruit friends and family to go kicking together, don’t forget to have them download using your referral code—and get your kicks for inviting them!

Lara Gonzaga from Fort Worth, TX even earns an extra 250 kicks when she’s out Shopkicking by telling others about it in the aisle. “While you’re out Shopkicking, start asking people close by if they have the app,” she says. “If they say no, tell them briefly about it and send them an invite to join right there in person!”

4: Make It a Habit

Nicole Cribbs from North Carolina says, “It only takes 21 days to form a new habit. You just have to get in the habit of checking Shopkick every time you walk into a store!”

Shopkicker Diane Kesel from Syracuse, NY starts her morning by checking Shopkick alongside her coffee.

Carolyn Brown from North Carolina recommends checking the app wherever you are. You never know when there could be a store close to the gym, office, or whatever, and “you never know when you might land those jumbo kicks,” she says.

5: Make Shopkick Part of Your Workout

The best way to make Shopkicking part of your routine? Make it part of your fitness routine!

Susie from Sarasota is walking her way to 10,000 steps and kicks on the weekends. “Shopkick is my cardio” is her mantra, and she loves to get rewarded with free gift cards for all the steps she puts in while on scan missions.

Got a full day planned for getting those steps in alongside your kicks? Kyle Jackson from Ocoee, FL says don’t forget to “wear comfortable walking or running shoes!” 😉

6: Create a Date Night

We know of at least one husband and wife team that makes every Friday night a shopkicking date night.

Suzanne McLaughlin Reil from Titusville, FL and her husband even make a full day of it. “We first hit our local stores to grab everything we can, then head to East Orlando (about 30 minutes away) to do a movie, meal, and Shopkick some more,” she says. Suzanne and her husband often finish their date off with a treat at Starbucks using their kicks for a gift card.

7: Go for the Big Kicks

If you haven’t linked your card or aren’t doing your online shopping through Shopkick yet, you could be missing out on major kicks every time you make a purchase.

Michele Carrera Patterson from San Diego says, “make sure all your cards are linked. I get a lot of kicks by using my debit and credit cards!”

Susan Perryman from Los Angeles, CA (she even works at Shopkick) also scores major kicks when booking her travel on Hotels.com and Booking.com through Shopkick.

It’s no surprise—travel can often account for some of your biggest purchases, so why not get kicks every time you book?

8: Don’t Forget the Discover Tab

Pro Shopkickers know never to miss new kicks in the Discover tab.

“Check your app daily and use the Discover section to gain a few kicks,” says Surbhi Kasbaum from Orange County, CA.

As a bonus, Shopkicker Wendy Chan from California says that while scrolling through Shopkick for surprise kicks she often learns about latest trends. “I find some awesome products that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.”

9: Make Sure Your Alerts Are On

Don’t you hate it when you leave a store and realize you forgot to take your app out? Make sure your Shopkick notifications are on so you receive handy reminders to open the app when there are kicks nearby!

“I always have my notifications on so I can be notified that I’m able to get kicks while shopping,” says one Shopkicker.

10: Have Fun

Finally, a Shopkicker from Brooklyn, NY says: “The best tip I can give is to just HAVE FUN while Shopkicking!”

We couldn’t agree more!

Want to jumpstart your plan to earn a gift card a month? Login now, refer a friend, and start getting Shopkick points fast!

Image courtesy Ivanko80

I’ve had many systems for dealing with receipts over the years. When I was really young, I generally just threw them away the moment I walked out of the store. Then, as I got older—and experienced a few times when I badly wanted to return something but couldn’t—I began letting my receipts float freely in my purse. That eventually evolved into my stuffing them all in my car’s glove box until it too overflowed and I tossed every last one. Needless to say, none of these systems was effective.

I’m proud to say I’ve become quite a bit more organized lately. At home, I have a filing cabinet with many folders to divide my receipts by purchase size and the year in which I bought each item, so I can write off any relevant purchases on my taxes of course. This is what you might call hardcore adulting! Before I put those receipts in my folder system, however, I make sure that I scan my receipts using an app for money savings. The best way to do this, I’ve discovered, is by using a shopping rewards apps.

While there are many apps on the market, one thing almost all of them have in common is you can use them to scan your receipts whenever you leave the store and in exchange reap the benefits of rewards for certain products. Think of each as a scan receipts app for money hoarders, rather than something for receipt collectors. Today, I’m going to tell you why—and which—apps that let you scan receipts and get money back need to be part of your world!

How to Use a Scan Receipts App for Money Back

If you’re anything like me you spend a lot of time (and money…gulp!) shopping. So, why not set aside a few extra moments to scan your receipts and get some money back via a shopping rewards app? There is no good reason not to!

Because this may be a bit of an unfamiliar concept for some of you (I know it was for me up until just a few years ago), here’s how a good shopping rewards app works: You simply go shopping at the stores you normally would, gather the items on your list, make your purchases, and then scan your receipts. There are many great shopping rewards apps on the market today, and the ways they work vary, but almost every one gives you points for buying certain items, which you can then trade in for cash back or, even better in my humble opinion, for totally free gift cards to your favorite stores!

Shopping Rewards: The Perfect Scan Receipts Apps for Money Back

Obviously, it would be great if you could find an app that gave you money back for more than just scanning your receipts, right? The more money back, the better after all. Conveniently, my personal favorite app gives you points for a variety of things, and at a variety of places.

That app is called Shopkick, and, in my experience, it has more ways to earn points than any other shopping app on the market today. Let’s briefly go over some of the many ways there are to earn points with Shopkick:

• Walk into the store
• Scan the barcodes on certain items for more information
• Scan receipts with the app for money
• Go on a treasure hunt in the app (located under Instant Surprises in the Discover tab)
• Watch videos in the app to learn more about products
• Make purchases online

That’s a ton of points, and you can trade all of them in for gift cards. In fact, you can get so many gift cards that it eventually starts to feel like you’re actually getting paid to shop! One more thing: Shopkick has a super cool online community on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which is really fun to be part of. I don’t know how many times I’ve been browsing one of their social media channels at work and I’ve had to stifle a laugh. Too many to count, at this point!

You can get so many gift cards that it eventually starts to feel like you’re actually getting paid to shop!

So, yes, I know this is a weird thing to be bragging about, but I really have my receipt game on point these days. I’m adulting so hard by filing them all away in my spare room, but, even more importantly, I’m using my Shopkick app each and every time I go to the store to get money back. In fact, I’ve gotten so used to scanning all my receipts with Shopkick that I almost literally can’t envision what shopping would be like without it. Oh, and I definitely can’t envision what my own budget would be like without all the great money back!

Learn all that you can about why you should scan receipts with apps for money back before your next trip down the aisle. 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 shopping fun.

Image courtesy stokkete