At Pregnant Pauses, we love to save money.  If you are like us and you’re a deal-seeker, you’ve probably spent many-a-Sunday clipping coupons from the paper, and weekdays perusing the grocery ads to see where the best deals on your favorite products are. Most of us have access to multiple grocery stores so the research was sometimes exhausting.  However, as technology has grown, there are even better ways to save money on your grocery bill and your gas bill.

Pros

Enter apps like iBotta and Checkout51 – just a couple of many grocery rebate apps. Often times instead of offering a printable coupon, brands will instead offer a rebate through one of these apps after your purchase is made.

You can’t miss with these apps. They’re super easy to use, and the savings can add up quickly if you check the apps each time you shop. All you have to do is create an account and select which store you’ll be shopping at. Then review and choose which rebates you’d like to take advantage of.  It is that easy.

After shopping, upload a picture of your receipt and get reimbursed for the rebate amount. You can redeem your rebates via PayPal or for gift cards to popular retailers like Amazon, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart.  On Checkout 51 you can request a check when your total reaches $20.00.  So there is really no reason not to get money back on the things you buy including gas because these apps are free to join.

Cons

Our only criticism is that it can be challenging to find the things that you can get deals on, however, don’t give up.  It takes some finesse and search strategy but in the end, you will be happy you did.

Both iBotta and Checkout51 have browser extensions so if you like to shop online and get groceries delivered, it’s not a problem.