Ebates.com, Cash back for shopping!

Ebates.com pays you cash back every time you shop online as well as provide you with coupons and deals online.

How Does it Work for the Stores:

My understanding is that Ebates.com partners up with business and they agree to give you a certain % cash back. What does the business get in return? Well, if you are looking to buy a product and it is sold at 10 different online stores but 1 store offers cash back, you will most likely buy it from them. The businesses get more traffic, and you are more likely to shop them again. Free advertising, take advantage!

How Does it Work for You:

Go to the website, I have the link all over my page but here it is again, Ebates.com, sign up for a free account, pick a gift card you would like to receive, and you're done! Well, you are just beginning.

Go to the top right search box and start typing in some of your favorite retail stores to see how much cash back they offer. A lot of times I will look at a list of all the stores and order them by cash back % to see what stores offer the highest % cash back. Most of the time I find new stores that offer a lot more cash back. I spend some time checking them out, and there are a lot of neat stores that I may have never known about.

Once you click on a store it will show you a page that says “creating a tracking ticket” and then you will land on the homepage of whatever site you wanted. That's it, just start browsing the site like you normally would, do your check out, and Ebates will do the rest. Most of the time I see the money go into my Ebates account that day or the next. It depends on the store and how fast they process the orders.

Getting Your Check:

They send out checks quarterly, only if your account balance is higher than $5. According to the sites FAQ the $5 cannot include any refer-a-friend bonus. My first check was for $5.20, I earned $5.00 on a refer-a-friend bonus and $.20 from buying diapers. So I am not sure if it was just because it was my first check and they were being nice, or if it doesn't matter.

Ebates will send you the gift card that you picked when you signed up after you have made your first $25 purchase. I did notice that it took a while to get my gift card, so be patient. A good idea for your free gift card, is to use it as a present for someone!

Refer-A-Friend:

Through Ebates you can refer a friend. If a friend of yours clicks on your referral link, signs up, and makes a purchase of $25.00 or more you get a cash bonus. The bonus depends on how many people you refer, the more you refer the more money you earn per referral. They also run specials for a limited time. When I first signed up they had a special that if you referred (something like) 50 people you would get an iPad. Currently they are running a special where you will earn $25.00 for the first friend you refer now through 12/31/12.

Ebates Tool Bar:

Initially I paid no attention to the Ebates tool bar for your browser. I hate having tool bars, it makes the browser look cluttered and it bothers me. However, I started reading about it and decided to give it a try and I love it! It makes getting cash back a lot easier.

When I first signed up for Ebates I found that I would forget about going through Ebates before making a purchase. With the tool bar anytime you are on a site that offers cash back it will tell you. Sometimes it activates the cash back automatically other times it will make you go through the site to create the tracking ticket. Another neat feature it has is when you are doing a search for something it will show a little Ebates logo next to a store link that offers cash back.

My Favorite Stores:

I start my Christmas shopping early and try to shop year round, this year I am shopping with Ebates. You can make Ebates work in a couple of different ways. I have heard a lot of people say that they don't like the idea of shopping online because they have to pay shipping. (1) Most of the time sites will offer a special on shipping and/or during the holidays a lot of sites will offer free shipping all together. So keep an eye out for that. (2) Another way to get around the shipping is to find stores that offer “Site to store” or “Free store pick-up”.

So far I have earned $16.83. That amount of money (plus whatever more I earn) will knock down my Christmas bill, even if just by $16.83, that is $16.83 that you didn't have before. Also a nice perk, the next check will be coming right before or after Christmas so that will be a nice bonus!

• Groupon.com- 3% CB (Cash back), most goods they sell offer free shipping!
• Livingsocial.com- 2% CB
• Buy.com- 6% CB, Very much like a Walmart or Amazon but offers more CB
  Walmart.com- 1% CB, Offer pick up in store.
• Toys R' Us/ Babies R' Us- 1% CB, Also offer pick up in the store
• Snapfish.com- 20% CB
• Target- 2% CB
• JCPenny- 8% CB

I hope that you find as much happiness with Ebates as I have!

Leave a comment with any questions. Happy couponing! : )