The USDA estimates that the average family of four (with two young children) will spend between $725-$1112 for a month of food. Besides your rent or mortgage, food is probably one of the biggest expense categories in your budget.
Luckily, there’s many rebate and coupon apps to help reduce your grocery costs. Here’s the best grocery savings apps I’ve found.
Note: This post contains affiliate links
Table of Contents
Earn gift cards with Swagbucks
Now Swagbucks isn’t a coupon or rebate site, but you can still use it to save money. You earn Swagbucks for things like taking surveys, watching videos, and shopping online.
Then you can redeem them for gift cards to stores like Target, Walmart, and Sam’s Club to cut your grocery bill! If those aren’t your preferred grocery store, you can always redeem for a gift card to Amazon or your favorite restaurant.
Plus if you are a new user and use my link, Swagbucks is offering a special $5 bonus!
Save money on groceries with Checkout 51
Checkout 51 allows you to shop anywhere and get cash back on your grocery purchases.
After you’ve returned from your shopping trip, you look at the available offers and select which ones apply to your receipt. Then you snap a photo (or photos if your receipt is long) of your receipt. Then the cash back is added to your account.
There are offers for items that you don’t typically find coupons for, such as milk and produce. Some offers are store specific-usually Walmart or Sam’s Club. New offers come out on Thursday, so if you shop on the weekends, you may find the offers have run out.
Once you reach $20 in your account, you can request a check.
Use the Ibotta App for cash back rebates
With the Ibotta app, you can get cash rebates on grocery items and at online retailers.
Once you log in, you’ll choose a category (most of the offers are for groceries). Then you’ll get a list of stores near you to browse for the rebates available. Since some of the rebates are store-specific (like only Walmart), it’s nice that you can filter these out by store.
To unlock a rebate, you will have to complete a simple task. These range from answering a question, viewing a recipe, or reading a fun fact.
Once you’ve unlocked your rebates, it’s time to go grocery shopping!
When you are back at home, you’ll have to use the app to scan the product bar code and your store receipt to prove you purchased it. The rebate cash will be added to your Ibotta account within 48 hours.
Plus if you are a new user and use my link, Ibotta is offering a special $10 bonus once you redeem your first rebate.
Once you accumulate $20 in your account, you can cash out via Paypal or a variety of gift cards.
Walmart’s Savings Catcher App
The Savings Catcher app price matches your purchases with advertised prices from local stores.
To use Savings Catcher, you need to download the Walmart app (Savings Catcher is a part of the app). Scan the receipt’s barcode into the app within a week of your shopping date.
It usually takes 2-3 days for Walmart to process your receipt and then you’ll get an email letting you know how much you got back (or an email stating no lower prices were found).
I usually get at least a couple dollars back per grocery trip ($100-125). What’s nice is that you don’t have to scan through and pick a bunch of offers or rebates. Just scan the receipt and you’re done!
The dollars accumulate in your account and can be redeemed at any time for a Walmart egift card. I find it usually takes a couple of hours to get an email with your egift card, so keep that in mind if you are redeeming before heading to the store).
Sign up for Savings Catcher here
Target’s Cartwheel App
I’ll admit, I’m kind of a Target junkie. And Target offers several different ways to save money when you shop there which makes it even better!
Browse offers and when you find one you will use, just click ADD and it will be added to your barcode.
When you first sign up for Cartwheel, you get 10 offers to redeem at a time. You can unlock more offer spots by reaching milestones such as saving $25 through Cartwheel.
At checkout, you show the cashier your Cartwheel barcode to redeem all of your selected discounts. The one barcode applies all the coupons at once!
What’s even better-Cartwheel can be combined with manufacturer’s coupons, Target mobile coupons, and the Red Card discount for stacked savings!
There’s usually a wide selection of food items in Cartwheel (over 450 offers are available in the grocery category this week). Cartwheel isn’t just for groceries either! Be sure to check out Cartwheel every time you shop at Target to save even more.
Sign up for Target Cartwheel here
How To Save Money On Groceries
Keep in mind, it’s okay to “double dip”! Use several of the apps to get the greatest savings on your food bill!
For example, I might find some offers I like in Checkout 51, then some coupon discounts in Cartwheel, and some rebates in Ibotta. There’s no reason you can’t use all three and maximize your cash back!
RELATED: 12 EASY WAYS TO SAVE MONEY ON GROCERIES WITHOUT COUPONS