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Cash back rebates are one of my most favorite ways to earn money, mostly because they are super easy and require little effort.  If you know me, you know I like simple!  There are several ways to earn cash back for your normal, everyday shopping. These types of opportunities are wonderful!!  There is not much more happiness in my money world than to see my cash back rebates adding up and going into my bank account!

Cha-ching!  

One area that I want to touch on, but won’t spend too much time discussing, is credit card rewards.  Let me be clear:  I am not a fan of them due to how easy they can become a huge burden in your life.  However, if you are one of those rare people who ALWAYS, not sometimes, but ALWAYS pays the card balance off every month, plus you are not an impulse buyer without a real monthly budget, then I do recommend you find a card through your bank or one suggested on bankrate.com with great cash back or reward benefits.  These are great to use for all of your normal bills, gas and grocery shopping expenses—not just for online shopping.  To reiterate, I am absolutely adamant about paying my Bank of America credit card balance off monthly, and I have done so since 2008. It has taken discipline, but I DESPISE interest charges and fees.  If you cannot do this, then I do not recommend having a credit card.  STEER CLEAR!  Credit cards can easily open too many doors for trouble, and the expenses in interest charges and late fees will cost you more than you receive back in rebates.  OK, enough about credit cards, let’s move on…

Moving into my favorite area:  cash back sites!  I want to cover my most beloved one at this time: Ebates!  Ebates is hallelujah wonderful!  I began using Ebates in December 2014, and YTD for 2015, I have earned $253 cash back!  In the five months I have been using it, I will have earned a total of $289–see my mobile screenshot? Oh, yeah!!  

When you first sign up and make a qualifying online purchase of $25 or more, you will automatically receive a $10 gift card in the mail right off the bat!  Then, as you do your normal shopping through Ebates, the cash back adds up and you are paid every three months for the quarter. For example, January, February and March will be paid in May, and April, May and June will be paid in August; payment can be through Paypal or via check. 

The cash back racks up big time, especially around the holidays (Christmas, birthdays, etc).  I, and several people I know, buy a lot of our non-perishable items (toilet paper, Atkins snacks, paper towels, etc) online and either ship them to the house or use the store’s free pickup option. We have to purchase this stuff anyhow, so we might as well get cash back while doing it!  Plus, coupons can be applied to many online shopping carts. Save, save, save!

After you have signed up as an Ebates member, search for your desired online store or product, click thru the Ebates website to the store that
you want to browse and then shop like normal.  Easy peasy!  To help make sure it’s easy peasy for you too, here’s how to use it in a little more detail:

~The obvious: log into Ebates.

~Use the search option, type in the store or product you are looking for, and then click the store.

~Below cash back percentage, click “Shop Now.”

~From there, you will see a screen pop up that gives a shopping trip number (not that important to remember, it is listed on your Ebates account page for reference).

~Once you are on the store’s site, like walmart.com for example, you just shop online like normal.  You have to make your entire purchase through the Ebates link to the store site. If you leave the linked site before completing your purchase, it will nix the Ebates qualification.  You can check your shopping trip on the Ebates website to verify it did go through and it was a qualifying purchase (some stores take a few days to confirm).

Another thing I really, really love about Ebates is that it offers a Cash Back Button that is added to your toolbar as an extension (I use Chrome).  After adding it to web browser, the Ebates icon appears.  So, the reason I love this little button is because if I am on a website and it qualifies for Ebates cash back, the icon has a red box around it letting me know that I need to activate my cash back rewards.  I do this by clicking on the icon and the “Activate Cash Back” link in the drop down menu.  Then voila!, the icon turns green and that site is now going to give me money back based on my purchase.  I also love this feature because I don’t always have to remember to go to the Ebates main site before shopping, it makes what was already easy peasy, now super easy squeasy peasy!  Plus, there are sometimes extra coupons and codes to use for that site.  Score!! 

Also, I want to clarify that you don’t have to use the Cash Back Button extension on your toolbar, it just makes it easier if you have it.  Sometimes it isn’t compatible with your computer, you can’t download it on your work computer or you just are not comfortable with the idea of downloading things, so just know it’s not required.   However, if it is downloaded and enabled, when you do a search (I use Google and Bing primarily), it will show you search results that have cash back opportunities.  Can I get another cha-ching?!?!

If you have your own business, this could save you so much money! Please make sure you check your company’s policy before using this at work, I don’t want you to get in trouble. For example if you work for the government, I don’t even recommend trying to do this unless you’ve talked to the governor! LOL!  No, but really, this could save you money, and if you have to book a lot of flights or hotels, make sure you check Ebates first.  Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia, and other travel sites offer great deals, some specifically for Ebates members!

I want to share a recent experience I had with Ebates just to show how awesome it can be.  I’m a big fan of deal sites like Groupon and Living Social, and my husband and I had been discussing what we wanted to do for our first anniversary trip.  Ebates was showing an extra 20% discount on Living Social, so I took a peek.  I found a trip that included a two-night stay in a cabin in Tennessee, one day of white water rafting and one day of an activity of our choice, and all of this was only $199, plus the 20% off discount for being an Ebates member, so the total came out to be $179!!  We bought two deals for a total of $358, then I also got my Ebates cash back of 6% (an additional $23.88).  That means I got this whole deal for $84/night!  Yessir!  It is awesome! That makes a vacation much more enjoyable knowing I saved money!

As you can see, I am a huge advocate of this cash back site, but that is because it works!  I will share more cash back sites and other reward programs in future blogs, but I wanted to share the one that has worked the best for me so far so you can get started saving money, too!