Nowadays, mobile apps can be a great way to save some extra cash. Technology has given us ways to budget, earn cashback, gift cards, and coupons—all from our smartphones. While these options aren’t new, they have been reinvented and made easier by technology in the past few years.
Best ways to save money with mobile apps
1. Get money back on your regular grocery shopping
Online grocery cashback apps are a new way to save money at the grocery store. Cashback apps like Fetch Rewards make saving money on all of your favourite brands a breeze. This app streamlines the grocery cashback process by automatically crediting savings to your account every time you buy an eligible product. To get started, download the Fetch Rewards app (Android/iOS), sign up for an account and scan your receipts.
You don’t need to buy specific items, but you can use the app to check which brands are giving the most points each week to get the maximum rewards. You can also build ‘smart’ grocery lists for these items. After earning enough reward points, you can exchange them for gift cards from a variety of categories.
2. Use coupons and discount codes
Smartphone apps like Coupons.com allow you to search through many of the available coupons for online retailers. Some stores will even allow you to take a photo of their physical coupons and scan it with your phone.
3. Earn restaurant gift cards when dining out
You can also take pictures of your restaurant receipts to earn gift cards to your favourite food spots with the Fetch Rewards App. Simply snap your receipt or receive an e-receipt when dining out to earn delicious points. After downloading the app and signing up, select rewards on the Fetch Rewards app to redeem your points for the most delicious restaurant gift cards. That way, you can enjoy your favourite meals and earn money.
4. Earn Bitcoin back on purchases
Crypto cashback is a reward system that allows users to earn smaller Bitcoin (BTC) incentives instead of having to purchase BTC. Anytime you make a purchase, a part of the amount you paid in Bitcoin will be returned to your account instantaneously. That’s all there is to it.
Lolli (lolli.com) is a Bitcoin reward program that lets you earn up to 30% on purchases from over 500+ leading companies all over the internet with almost no effort! Lolli has quickly risen to become the world’s leading crypto cashback platform since its inception in 2018. This makes it easy for anybody to hold and earn Bitcoin via everyday transactions like ridesharing, groceries, movie tickets, gas, food, travel, and more. This cashback option is available on both the mobile and desktop versions of Lolli.
5. Make a budget and stick to it
Budgeting applications assist you in keeping track of and categorising your expenditures. These apps allow you to connect your bank accounts, credit cards and investments; the tools then organise your expenses for you. To create your budget, you may need to specify spending limitations by category. Some of these apps even provide instructional resources on how to budget, while others offer a net worth tracker as well as a portfolio analysis.
Goodbudget (goodbudget.com) is a financial planning app based on an envelope budgeting method, which involves allocating a percentage of your monthly income to specified expenditure categories (called envelopes). Your financial accounts are not linked in this app. You enter account balances which you can get from your bank’s website, cash amounts, debts and income manually. The money is then allocated to envelopes.
6. Find extra money to add to your savings account
Automatic savings apps help you overcome forgetful habits of saving money for rainy days by putting money aside as you spend. Chip (getchip.uk) is an automated savings app that aims to make saving money as simple as it is to spend it. Chip uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine an affordable amount that can be saved automatically without disrupting your normal spending patterns. This app connects to your bank account with Open Banking.
Another creative way to save money with apps is by automatically rounding up your purchases and saving the spare change. There are a number of apps that provide this function, such as Plum (withplum.com).
7. Earn Amazon gift cards from your online purchases
You can also earn some extra cash by collecting free Amazon gift cards. Some apps like Fetch Rewards offer users free Amazon gift cards through rewards. Fetch even lets their users connect their Amazon account to their Fetch Rewards app, allowing the app to safely scan all Amazon receipts, for more points.
Connecting Fetch Rewards to your Amazon account is simple, and you can earn points on all of your Amazon purchases and then redeem them for free Amazon gift cards—allowing you to buy more of your favourite items for free. Select the ‘Me’ tab in the Fetch app, then hit on eReceipt. Then click ‘Connect’ next to Amazon from Accounts to start retrieving your Amazon receipts from all of your past online orders during the last 14 days.
8. Earn rewards by inviting friends
Inviting and referring friends is another way to earn extra cash from mobile applications. Some apps offer a rewards-based referral system that offers users gift cards, cashback or crypto for every new user they refer.
The Fetch Rewards app also has one of the simplest and most efficient methods to earn free gift cards and earn more points through referrals. Anyone who joins using your referral code, and snaps a receipt, will earn you at least 2,000 points. All you need to do is to share your referral code, which can be located on the app’s ‘Me’ page.
9. Track your spending habits
Some apps also help you save money by tracking your spending habits. These apps link all of your accounts on one platform to track your spending and expenses. This will assist you in identifying areas where you may cut costs and save money.
A great example is Emma (emma-app.com). This app helps users save money by categorising expenditures automatically to help them make budgets and cancel unnecessary subscriptions.
10. Meal planning
Having a solid meal plan helps simplify grocery shopping and saves you money in the long run. You’d be surprised by how much you’ve thrown away with those spontaneous late night orders. Luckily, there are now mobile apps dedicated to helping users create streamlined meal plans. These apps were mainly created to help users eat healthily, but many of them offer bulk deals on grocery shopping, which saves users a ton of money.
Start saving now
And there you have it. As you can see, you don’t need to go to great lengths to save money with apps; just take out your phone and download some of these recommendations. It only takes a few minor changes to your everyday routine to make a meaningful change in your spending habits—it all adds up!
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