Woo hoo! I’ve accumulated over $20 in my SavingStar account over the past few weeks!
I probably could have earned more, but over half of this was purely on accident. I’ve been so busy lately, that I haven’t really been paying attention to what offers are in my SavingStar account. I just activate all of them when they go live and forget about them really. I’m always pleasantly surprised when I get an email telling me that cash back has been deposited. Sometimes I think “I don’t remember buying that…” The ones I planned for, though, were the All laundry detergent and the Henkel personal care ones.
If you aren’t already familiar with SavingStar, it’s a cash back program that allows you to earn money toward grocery items that you would normally buy. Some of the offers are one-time deals, like the 20% back on Tic Tacs or the 50¢ back on Lucky Charms offers available right now.
There are also what’s called “One or Many” offers as well. These allow you to earn a higher cash back amount when you buy a certain amount worth of a particular product, like $5.00 back when you spend $20.00 on StarKist® Tuna or $4.00 back when you spend $12.00 on DOLE products.
One of my favorite SavingStar features, though, is the ability to save money on fresh fruits and vegetables. The Healthy Offer of the Week goes live every Tuesday morning and usually gives you 20% back on a single purchase of a particular fresh produce item. For instance, this week you can get 20% back on sweet potatoes. Oh, and you’ve gotta love the Friday Freebie every week!
I love that there’s no extra hassle with paper coupons when I use SavingStar. Don’t get me wrong, I love coupons! But there’re just some days that I don’t feel like dealing with them.
After you sign up with SavingStar, you just hook your store loyalty cards to your account, activate offers and go shopping like you normally would. After your loyalty card is scanned, it takes 2 to 20 days for the cash back to appear in your account. You can cash out with a bank deposit, PayPal transfer, or gift card once your cash back balance reaches $5.
I could have cashed out at $5, but I’m thinking that I might just let the savings accumulate for a while. Maybe I’ll let it accumulate until the holidays and have a little extra spending money for gifts. Or, it could be a little vacation fund.
What do you do with your cash back earnings from sites like SavingStar and Checkout 51? Do you cash out as soon as possible, or do you let them accumulate?
