Receipts - can I really save money from them?

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I had a wonderful chat this morning with Esther from the Mirror Online after having my details on this very subject passed on from Dominic at Topcashback. I thought it was a great subject for a blog post. You can read the full article over at the Mirror.co.uk here:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/never-bin-another-receipt--12906292

Last year I became aware that you could actually save money on your receipts. We have so many receipts daily with a large family, so it seemed like a great way to save a little more money.

A few top tips first:

• Check your receipts, as they often contain information on special offers, discount deals and sale dates. If you have the time and there’s a competition (for vouchers or cash for customer satisfaction survey feedback) it’s always a great idea to fill them in as you never know when you might be a winner! I won £250 once just by filling in a customer satisfaction survey.
  
  Mysupermarket
  
  A great app to use if you want to be really frugal and clever with your monthly shopping budgets is mysupermarket. This app compares current prices on products in each of the main supermarkets and allows you to create a shopping list for the current discounted products allowing you to shop around and really make your money stretch further!

• Since we have moved our local main supermarket is now Asda. Previously it was Tesco and I enjoyed Tesco clubcard and points until they discontinued doubling up. With Asda I discovered that they have a fabulous ‘price gaurantee’ were Asda uses your receipt barcode number to check the local main supermarkets against their own prices and if there is a difference they will give you a voucher to cover the amount (in Northern Ireland they check against two stores but in mainland UK they check around four so I’m sure you could save even more money on the  mainland). As I explained previously we have a large family (four children five and under) so we shop often and this really helps. You have to have over five separate items per receipt to do a price comparison. Open an account with Asda, complete your shop and keep your receipts to check later. You’ll certainly save a few pounds in doing so! 

• Some people do practice ‘wombling’ collecting discarded receipts (in trolleys, in the carpark etc) however I have no experience of this and therefore cannot really advise on this as such. I merely use our own receipts.  
  
  
  
  Receipt apps

There are various phone apps which can help you cash in on your receipts in exchange for vouchers, payments to paypal or even directly as a bank transfer. These are some of the apps I personally use for receipts.

Three brilliant apps for getting money off your shop, or perhaps trying out new products discounted or for free are Checkoutsmart, Clicksnap and Shopmium. Simply choose the offers that you like, read the T&Cs to make sure you get the correct product and scan your receipt at home and upload to be reimbursed. If you are SUPER savvy, sometimes these apps have similar offers on similar products so you can work out how to bulk buy for less and get more for your money – remember to do so on separate transactions though to keep things straightforward and make it easier for your receipts to be accepted. With Checkoutsmart and Clicksnap you need to gather up a certain amount (around £5) to ‘cash out’ which if used often doesn’t take long at all. With Shopmium it’s a direct transfer into Paypal for every receipt that’s accepted, you can also earn referral rewards of £4 per referral who uses your link to buy and upload their first product and receipt.



 
Green Jinn is an app I discovered quite recently, and states you can save ‘£100 plus monthly on groceries.’ You can personalise your preferences with Green Jinn so that you are only shown offers suited to your individual needs.  Then you simply choose what you will buy and where you will buy it (either Tesco, Sainsburys or Waitrose) upload your receipt and claim your cash back. It pays into either Paypal or directly into your bank via bank transfer.


Receipt hog is another great receipt app, however it can be a little slow. With this one you upload receipts in exchange for tokens that you can exchange for Paypal credits or amazon vouchers with a minimum of £5 cash out. The tokens can also be used in a slot machine type game to win more points or cash prizes. Not too bad for receipts that you would just throw away generally! Their top cash amount win is £66. The is also a 'Hog Household Bonus' in that you can be rewarded for household participation, linking the accounts means that you can get a one off bonus of 40 coins. Check the app when you have downloaded it to see how.

  
If you would like to download Shoppix and use my referral - click the link and enter code INVL9EP3 when requested. This is yet another great app for receipts. You can exchange tokens for receipts for money or vouchers from some great retailers. There are bonuses such as scratch cards which can win you extra tokens or gain entry into weekly prize draws, you are awarded these for completing available surveys and uploading receipts for consecutive weeks. There is also a 'move up the shelves' bonus which happens when your first receipt is approved each week and a bag on the shelf lights up and you get a bonus when you move up to the next shelf. You can also refer friends and you will both get bonus tokens for approved and snapped receipts and profile survey completion.


 
Snapmyeats is a great app for all foodie fans. With this app you can only upload receipts for food so either from restaurants or meal deals from a store (food and drink purchases). The T&Cs state 'this includes things like breakfast, a snack or coffee on the go, fast good, restaurant meals or even an impulse confectionery purchase.' A total of three approved receipts totals a £1 amazon voucher with up to 15 that you are able to upload a month (£5 amazon voucher per month). There are also bonus features such as using points to enter sweepstakes for chances to win prizes.




Shopprize is for android online and not one which I personally use as I am on IOS but I have heard great things from other users.Points can be cashed out to Paypal and bonus features are using points to enter sweepstakes fo chances to win prizes.

 
BigDL is yet another receipt app. You even get 1 point per day with this one just for logging in. You earn 5 points per uploaded receipt and can cash out points for gift cards or items. Bonus features include deals from specific shops and a daily spin offer for either points or double points on your next receipt upload. You can also win extra spins or entries into prize draws for various prizes such as a tablet, £50 voucher for a shop or even a small mini break for up to 2 people!


If you have any other ways that I haven't listed that you have been able to save or earn money using your receipts then please do get in contact as I would love to hear from you. I hope this is useful to some of you. Happy receipt collecting!

*Please be aware that some links in this article will contain my own referral links.