Welcome to Day 22 of the monthly series: Learn How To Coupon!!
If you’re just now joining us, this is a beginner couponer series, and great for any coupon newbies out there! If you have missed any of the previous posts that we have done, feel free to click below and catch up!
Day 1: Anatomy of a Coupon
Day 2: Anatomy of a Barcode
Day 3: Types of Coupons
Day 4: Where to Find Coupons
Day 5: Stacking Coupons
Day 6: Coupon Abbreviations
Day 7: Electronic Coupons
Day 8: Doubling Coupons
Day 9: Catalina Coupons
Day 10: Buy One Get One Free Coupons
Day 11: Organizing Your Coupons {Part 1}
Day 12: Organizing Your Coupons {Part 2}
Day 13: Sale Cycles
Day 14: Stockpiling
Day 15: Coupon Sites and Deal Matchups
Day 16: Coupon Policies
Day 17: CVS
Day 18: Walgreens
Day 19: Rite-Aid
Day 20: Target
Day 21: Walmart
Today’s Topic: Shopping Online {Earning Cash Back Rewards}
{This post was previously written by me in January, but I wanted to re-format it to fit our series, so I added a few things and more info!}
Today I wanted to talk a little more about shopping online, or purchasing products online. For me, I still to this day do not shop online that much at all. I am the kind of person that usually likes to just go to the store and get the items immediately.
But here lately, there have been a lot of appealing reasons to shop online, and I wanted to share with you some of the many benefits of shopping online for things that you may need.
First of all, who doesn’t like shopping in their pajamas right? 
I love the thought of having something delivered straight to me, and that is a great perk that comes with ordering online.
Secondly, did you know that there are many companies that actually offer you what’s called “Cash Back” when you shop through them?
It might seem to good to be true, but it is true, and here’s how it works:
Now a days, most of the websites you see online earn commission or money for referring someone to their site.
Some of the websites that earn these commissions also give you a reward for shopping through them, or going through them to buy your needed items.
For instance, let’s say that Ebates (which I will talk about in a second), earns a 4% commission on referring people to Walmart’s website to buy things (like a finder’s fee).
Well what Ebates does is also give the customer a kickback of the commission (let’s just say 2%) that they earn so that you yourself are earning money as well. Just for going through them.
The reason for doing this is beneficial to both sides. One, so that you can earn money back (kind of like a rebate), and secondly, so that they get their referrals.
So what websites or companies do this?
Well, there are lots of companies that offer Cash Back, but the ones that I will recommend to you are Ebates and ShopAtHome.
Again, they give you a percentage back on your shopping trip online to certain stores when you use their site to make the purchases.
Let’s talk about how it actually works:
Usually when you are shopping online, you go directly to the store’s website, and make your purchases. While this is fine to do, you are missing out on getting money back. You can almost always earn cash back just by doing a little research beforehand.
So instead of going to the company’s website, you can choose to go through Ebates or ShopAtHome. These are cash back/referral sites which will give you a percentage of the sale for shopping through them.
So when you are on their site, you can search for your store. Each store offers a different percentage of your sale back to you, meaning not all stores will give you the same amount back. But you can research to see what it is.
But the way I think about it is, even if it’s only 1% of my sale back to me, then that’s 1% that I wouldn’t have received by just going to the regular store’s site, so it’s a major benefit.
Once you have chosen your store, Ebates or ShopAtHome will simply connect you to your store’s regular site to do your shopping. The only difference is that they are now tracking you to see what purchases you are making at that time.
You will check out like normal on your store’s website. You will not see the percentage come off right away, or see your cash back come off of your total. Instead, this is credited to your Ebates or ShopAtHome account anywhere from that day to 30+ days. It depends on the company and how long their processing takes.
It’s kind of like a little savings account with Ebates or ShopAtHome, and you can get paid once you meet the requirements for each site.
So, that being said, let’s talk about the differences in Ebates and ShopAtHome.
Ebates:
At Ebates, once you have completed the sale, you can earn your cash back to your Ebates account in a matter of days. Ebates sends checks out, or gives payouts 4 times a year. Each time that they do a payout, it is based on the previous shopping period, and what purchases you made in that time.
What’s great with Ebates, is that they only require you to earn $5.00 before they will give you a payout. Given that there are only 4 times a year that they do this, that should give you plenty of time to accrue the $5 or more amount, especially if you shop online a lot.
You can choose to get a Check, Paypal Deposit, or Charity. To read more about the payout options, go HERE.
Right now they also have an extra bonus, where new members can choose from one the following: $10 Gift Card to one of the following: Target, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot, Magazines.com, or a $5 gift-card to Ebates! The choosen gift card is earned after first $25 purchase.
Go HERE to sign up!
ShopAtHome
With ShopAtHome, you can earn anywhere from 1-30% back depending on the website.
ShopAtHome is different from Ebates, in that they give payouts 12 times in the year (once monthly) versus only 4 times a year. So you can get your cash back more often with ShopAtHome.
One of the catches though, is that you have to earn $20 or higher to be given a payout.
You can read ShopAtHome’s FAQ HERE.
So which Cash Back site is the best to use?
That is going to be up to you, because it depends on where you are shopping and how often you do so.
Ebates tends to have lower cash back rates for things, BUT they also only require $5 for a payout.
ShopAtHome tends to have higher cash back rates, and pays 12 times in a year, BUT they require a $20 minimum before payout.
Other Advice:
One piece of advice, is to try and stick with one company if possible. This way, when you are earning money, you can accrue it faster because it’s not being spread over multiple cash back sites.
One great thing about using these sites is that you can still often use other coupon codes on top of earning cash back! This means that if you have also found a code for Free Shipping, you can apply that to your purchase as well!
Sometimes these sites will often do “Wild” or “Crazy” cash back amounts, where you can earn all of the purchase price back into your account!!
They will often do specials as well, where they will increase they cash back amount for a certain time.
So I hope this has helped you in figuring out how to earn cash back for your online purchases.
See ya for Day 23!
