How much could grub could I grab on a cash back app shopping challenge!?
Now to set the scene to you... I love me a cash back app! Yup those teeny tiny little apps, sat on my phone, in between my social media, music and banking apps, get more use than my jaws would, eating a big bag of Werther's Originals!
They are ace, I use them every single time I go to a supermarket, or food store - just open the app and see what products are available that day, and what sort of discount is being offered... Sometimes you can grab a haul, other days it's not so rewarding, but I always check, as you just never know what you might find!
So on a cold and rainy Thursday this week, with a day off work and the intention of not parking my bum in front of Netflix, I set myself a challenge - Use my 3 favourite cash back apps and see how much food I can grab, using the apps, and at how bigger discount!
I use Shopmium, CheckoutSmart and Green Jinn, as my go to apps, all offer different products, available from the main supermarket chains. I chose to go to Sainsbury's, as this store does seem to have a wider range of products available, than my normal supermarket, Morrisons, plus the store I went to is a big one and normally stocks everything the app shows on it's offers.
So off I went. I wrote down every single offer that was available in Sainsbury's, via the 3 apps, and went searching... It did take me a good 90 minutes to grab everything, I managed to find about 80% of everything I was looking for and the total came to £64.96, which was a bit scary, as I intentionally didn't add up what the savings would be, beforehand, otherwise I might have chickened out, being I'm a bit skint this month, however I did use my £17.50 Nectar Points balance, (That I got for free as part of a Nectar Card promo, at the end of last year), so that reduced the cost down to £47.46.
I went home and immediately set about claiming for all the products I purchased. The discounts varied from product to product, some were free, some were half price, some were just a few pence off, but all discounted none the less. My hope was, that at worst, I would get around 50% of the goods for free, best case scenario, around 70%. I did have some referral credit with Shopmium to add to the discount, which was reassuring..
The grand total of cash back received was £38.25 via the apps, plus I also found a special cash back offer from Higgidy Pies, on an Instagram advert, who were offering to pay back the cost of one of their pies by uploading a copy of my receipt, which I did, and which was accepted, and was worth an extra £5.75, meaning that my cash back total was now £44.00.
That was a pretty darn good amount of cash back. Taking the £17.50 Nectar Card redemption out of the transaction, I ended up paying £20.96 for everything I grabbed, which is 67.7% discount, and including the Nectar Card redemption, my total cost was £3.46, which is a 94.6% discount on my shop!
Both results are pretty pleasing, to say the least! I wouldn't have bought the majority of those products, had it not been for the offers, so it's a win for me to be able to grab what is more or less free food, being the majority of the cost of my shop was in one way or the other, at next to no cost from my bank account, plus I get to try new foods, and make sure the family are fed over the coming days.
With so many competing brands and products on the supermarket shelves, this type of cash back scheme is a really good way for the food producers to introduce their wares, as having had the opportunity to taste test new products, I may well buy again, (the BBQ sauces are superb by the way Sauce Shop, and I definitely will buy again, plus the Rana pasta and Higgidy pies are also ace), and am looking forward to trying some of the other items shortly!
So to sum up, it's been a productive couple of hours spent. I've enjoyed the fun of finding the products in the store, the family have tried new things that we were very unlikely to have tried had they not been on a cash back offer, and we are eating heavily subsidised grub for dinner tonight, happy days!
The apps I used were Shopmium CheckoutSmart & Green Jinn and all free to join, with Shopmium even giving you a free tub of Pringles for using the app, via my referral link.
I was not paid or incentivised for writing this article, the views are mine, and mine alone.