I Tried It – Ibotta

***This post contains affiliate links.  I may receive a referral reward if you choose to utilize the ibotta app!  The good news is you can get referral bonuses, too!***  Have you seen the promoted pins on Pinterest for Ibotta?

Install the free Ibotta app and get an extra $10 when you register with referral code, "Pinterest2":

I’m usually very savvy and don’t click on the promoted pins.  (That’s not true.  I’m not savvy at all.  I’m a sucker for any type of promotion.  Like when I was in my twenties and ACTUALLY responded to one of those faxes that you get at work about a trip to the Bahamas for $99.  Who does that?  Me.  And I even went on the trip).  I’m so glad that I did in fact click through to ibotta, though, because it is awesome!

With Ibotta, you earn rebates on all types of products from over 500,000 locations.  Products include groceries, cleaning products, over the counter medicines, personal care products, clothing and even alcohol.

To get started, you download their app.  It is very user friendly.  First you’ll choose a category, like groceries:

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Then, choose your favorite store:

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Then start browsing through the available rebates:

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When you see one you like, you click on it to unlock the rebate.  Occasionally there is a one question poll to answer or a very quick video to watch (like seconds, people).  I’ve also seen recipes offered with some of the offers, which I think is pretty cool.  Here’s an example of what comes up if you wanted to unlock Turtle’s Caramel Clusters:

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One quick poll question and you have unlocked the $1.00 rebate.  Totally worth that .1 seconds it takes to unlock.

As I was scanning through the available rebates, I was so excited to see products that I already use and rebates for “any brand” of certain items, like bread.  There are also rebates on produce and meat.  Here’s a peak at some of the rebates I have unlocked at the moment:

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 :  : One thing to note, if you see a rebate like the one for the pork shoulder and beer above, don’t assume that you have to buy the beer as well as the pork. You don’t.  You only have to buy the pork shoulder to get the rebate!

The rebates are updated very often and almost every time I have logged in there have been offers for fresh tomatoes, onions, eggs and bananas.  Those are staples in our house and you can choose any type of tomato/onion/egg/banana you like.  There also seem to be a lot of healthy brands and gluten free options.  Those are usually fairly expensive, so the rebates help!

So, now that you’ve unlocked all of your rebates, it’s time to go shopping!  While you are shopping, it is best if you have your ibotta app open so that you can scan the bar codes of the items you plan to purchase as you are putting them into the cart.  At first I was scanning the bar codes at home, but I goofed a couple of times and bought the wrong item that wasn’t eligible for the rebate.  If you scan while you are in the store, you won’t have to worry about that.  Scanning is a breeze.  In the app, you will go to your unlocked rebates, select the item you have picked out and click verify purchases, then scan product bar codes.  Your phone magically transforms into a  bar code scanner and all you have to do is point it at the bar code.  It reads the bar codes very easily.

Once you are done shopping, the very last step in the process is to take a picture of your receipt.  You do this with the app again and it does take about 30 seconds to figure out what ibotta wants you to take a picture of exactly, but once you have the hang of it, it’s simple.

So far, I’ve used ibotta on two shopping trips.  In rebates, I have earned over $9.00 and I also earned a $10.00 reward just for successfully verifying my first purchases!

The second best part of ibotta, coming in a close second to the free money, is that it actually makes food shopping kind of fun!  I mostly try to stick to products I always use so that I don’t feel like I’m buying something just to get a rebate, but I have tried a couple of new products and have added them to my list of staples.  If I have convinced you to give ibotta a try, then I’d love it if you signed up through my referral link!  

I Tried Ibotta

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