(This article
discusses a shopping app and includes referral links to it. You can read my policy on referral links here. As you’ll learn in the article
when you use this referral link we
both get paid. If you think the app is a good fit for you but you want to use a
non-referral app try this link instead. Do
what works for you; the important thing is that you come out further ahead
financially each month!)
I once bought over 30 boxes of pasta from my local grocer
whose jaw dropped when the entire lot rang up on the cash register for a
whopping $0.00. At the very end of the “super couponing” heyday I had been
working on a piece as a freelance writer about the phenomenon and part of the
research involved learning how it was done and doing it myself to prove it was
real. While it was a rush to clear out an entire shelf of spaghetti for nothing
what I found was that the effort that went into super couponing was akin to a
part-time job for a less-than-minimum-wage rate, produce was difficult to find
ANY discounts on, and Big Data was putting an end to the consumer’s ability to
pool information in an advantageous way to get their groceries for next to
nothing. Recently I field tested a new
method for gaining some of your grocery money back, an app that is a lot more
convenient than the work that went into super couponing, gets literally every
shopper some amount of money back from their groceries, and even offers
discounts on produce. I’m talking about iBotta.
Big Data and You
Right about the time the TV show about super couponing
reached its peak grocery stores began putting into place restrictions and “savings
clubs” that impeded customers’ abilities to get really insane deals by stacking
discounts together. If you want to shop at Safeway and get the best deals you need
to read the weekly circular, load up their app, scan additional coupons from
that app on top of the “club special” price you received, and add any
manufacturer’s coupons on top of that. What Safeway and other large stores
realized is that Data is king: learn as much as you can about a consumer and
you can maximize the amount of money you convince them to spend with you. Large
retailers have gotten so good, in fact, that Target once predicted a teenager was pregnant before she knew.
If you shop at Safeway, or Albertsons, or any of the dozen
major grocery retailers in the United States (big box stores too!) they’re
collecting as much data as they can about you to figure out how to influence
your shopping habits. Fortunately for our pocketbooks, those retailers aren’t
the only ones interested in knowing more about us and they’re willing to pay us
cash to find out. Enter iBotta.
What is iBotta?
iBotta is an app
that offers coupons and rebates to consumers for their purchase habits. You download
the app, which is available for iPhones and Android devices, load the rebates
you want, buy your groceries, scan your receipt, and when necessary scan the
relevant items. iBotta sends you
cash through Paypal or Venmo for the things you’ve purchased.
Why would a third party pay you for the shopping you do
regularly? The primary business model of iBotta
is partnering with the companies they’re paying rebates for to influence your
behavior and getting a kickback for doing so. There are approximately 1,000
types of peanut butter available for purchase in the United States. A container
of Jif brand peanut butter might cost $3 but be profitable to the manufacturer
if it’s sold for $2. Working to reach iBotta’s
customer base Jif offers a $.75 rebate through the app and pays iBotta $.25 for doing so. You buy the
product for $2.25 after rebate, iBotta
makes $.25, Jif makes $2, and you save over the price of the cheapest option of
peanut butter which was on sale for $2.50.
Additionally iBotta
makes money through advertising; sometimes to unlock a rebate iBotta displays an ad for a product or
plays a small video. I would also assume they’re building a data-based picture
of who you are as a consumer to better target you with deals that you’re likely
to be interested in. Depending on how you feel about your privacy this may or
may not be a dealbreaker for you. Just remember: your grocer is already
building this information about you whether you like it or not. With iBotta you get a bigger cut of the
profits by getting paid by an additional party for your data.
My experience with iBotta
Having found the world of super couponing too tedious even
before it was put out to pasture by Big Data I was interested in giving iBotta a try to see what it offered. My
experience so far has been pretty smooth. To date as we exit June I’ve earned
about $100 for the year, a savings of about $17/month and a target savings of
about $200/year if that trend continues. With the missus and me spending about
$150/week on groceries we’re looking at a free week of groceries plus some
spending money for Christmas come December thanks to spending we were doing
already. Because the effort I put into iBotta
is so minimal it’s a pretty “super” form of “couponing” for me.
So what are the pros and cons of using iBotta?
The Pros of iBotta
My favorite parts of the experience with iBotta so far, in no particular order:
·
Payment
is pretty painless. Once you earn $20 you can have them deposit the money
directly into your Paypal or Venmo account. The turnaround is pretty quick.
·
Bonuses!
In addition to rebates on the products you buy every week iBotta also offers bonuses. You can
work with family or friends who are using the app to combine your savings tally
in an effort to unlock extra bonuses. They even offer bonuses for the spending
you do in a normal month, allowing you to level up into more and more savings.
For example in June I redeemed eight rebates on products I planned on
purchasing anyway which unlocked the Level 1 bonus and earned me an extra
$1.00. In March I unlocked a $10.00 bonus by redeeming fifteen rebates. The
bonuses stack up quickly alongside your regular spending.
·
Any Item
Rebates. Remember earlier when I mentioned one of the things I hated about
couponing is that you can basically never find coupons for produce? Sure highly
processed foods offer discounts on their corn and sugar gloop, but fresh food
is an area Mrs. Stark and I like to splurge on high quality goods. Well iBotta has you covered there with “Any
Item Rebates” that reward you for buying food from a category, regardless of
brand. That means at various times over the year I’ve been paid for purchasing
bananas, green peppers, salad, and even the “Any Receipt” rebate which pays you
just because you went grocery shopping.
This is what makes iBotta so much
different from a store discount program: just the act of shopping makes me
money back. And who isn’t going grocery shopping at some point this year?
·
You can
get paid for referring your friends. If you think your friends or family
would benefit by making money with iBotta,
you can refer them directly through a special link provided by iBotta and when they sign up using that
link they get a bonus too. In fact, here’s my link again right here so we canboth get paid.
·
It takes
way less time than couponing. Every Wednesday when iBotta uploads its latest deals I take
a quick scan through my preferred store brand, add the rebates that are
relevant to me on the app, and then do my shopping. When I get home I scan the
receipt, scan any barcodes from the products I bought required to get the
rebate, and move on with my life. The app even has a scanner you can use in-store
to make sure you’re buying the product that qualifies for the rebate.
·
Their
customer service has been top notch. Twice I’ve reached out to the customer
service department with issues on my purchases (rebates that were missing) and
both times I got a response within 1 business day and the rebates were added to
my account. Customer service is a bit of a lost art and I’ve been pretty
satisfied with how seriously iBotta
takes it.
The Cons of iBotta
·
Rebates
can run out. Occasionally from the time I’ve loaded a rebate to the time I get
the product home and my receipt uploaded a rebate program has run out of
rebates available to consumers. This means I’m out of luck for that deal, but I
mitigate this by making sure I only buy products I would buy anyway so I’m not
actually out anything compared to not using the app.
·
Falling
for the marketing. The goal of the companies offering discounts through iBotta is to influence your shopping
habits to switch to their products. Your goal is to save as much money using
the app as possible. That means price comparing a product with a rebate offer
to the lowest cost product in that category that you’re comfortable purchasing.
We shop for a lot of generic goods in my household because they’re typically of
similar quality as name brand for much less (they’re often even manufactured by
the exact same manufacturers!). I make sure I only load rebates for products we
need whether there’s a rebate or not, and price compare for anything that might
be close. Two examples from this week’s shopping trip: a $1.00 rebate on up to
two pints of ice cream wound up being cheaper than the kind we normally get so
I bought them while a $.25 rebate on cream cheese was still more expensive than
the store brand so I stuck with my usual generic fav.
·
Any Item
Rebates don’t count towards bonuses typically. The Any Item Rebates are
awesome, rewarding you for spending you’re doing anyway and are one of the
strongest reasons you should be using iBotta
(not doing so is leaving money on the table!). However they typically are
excluded from the bonuses meaning it can be harder to qualify for extra payouts
because a lot of your spending will be on Any Item Rebates instead of brand
names in a given month. I’ve never made it to a second level bonus in a month
because I just don’t spend enough on rebates to make it happen and haven’t
bothered joining a team of earners.
·
Minimum
$20 withdrawal. While I’ve never had a problem getting paid by iBotta you do have to have at least $20
in your account before you can get anything back. That means if you earn $19.99
and decide to give up the app you get nothing for your efforts.
·
Depending
on your work threshold it can be tedious. If anyone can be credited for
teaching me frugality growing up it would be my mother. She was the queen of
clipping coupons, double stacking with deals, and making sure she could stretch
her budget to keep two little boys well fed and happy growing up in sometimes
tough circumstances. When I mentioned I was trying iBotta she said she found the process
of photographing her receipt and sometimes the UPCs of products too tedious and
had given up the app to focus on her coupons. I’d rather use the technology on
my phone than the old school method I find takes me more effort but your
mileage may vary.
·
Buying
the wrong product. A few times I’ve purchased the wrong product or not
enough of a product and failed to qualify for a rebate. This is pretty annoying
but because I only buy things we’re buying anyway I mitigate the harm a bit.
Also I’ll confess after learning the app better this is mostly user error. The app
has a handy scanner in it that will confirm the product you’re purchasing does
qualify for the rebate you want right there in the store. Just press the
button, hold your camera up to the bar code, and voila! You’ll know instantly
if you’ve got the right product. Also make sure to read the rebate icons or the
rebate itself closely so you know if you need to buy multiple products to
qualify for the rebate. I’ve been tricked by that once but have since learned
to pay better attention.
Final Verdict
I’ve been super happy with iBotta so far, though I recognize it’s
not for everyone. I’m looking forward to doing our Christmas shopping with the
money we’ve saved up from the grocery shopping we were going to do anyway (Ido love paying for Christmas in unconventional fashion!). The app itself is
pretty slick and easy to use, rewards me for buying the things I’m buying
anyway, and lets me get a bigger slice of the Big Data profits being made from
analyzing my spending habits.
If you prefer this is anon-referral link.
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