I love free stuff!

We use an app called Shopkick quite frequently.  You get points (called Kicks) for going into participating stores.  You get extra points for scanning the barcode of ever changing lists of products in these partner stores.  When you get enough points, you can pick rewards.  We like to save them up for $25 or $50 gift cards.

Shopkick has the ability now at Walmart to scan your receipt and get points.  You get 1 point per dollar spent up to $100.  So, I found a receipt today blowing across the parking lot at Walmart and picked it up.  I scanned it into my Shopkick and will get 100 points for that.

Also, we use the Savings Catcher in the Walmart app that will refund any money you spent on items where Walmart finds a lower price with competitors.  Guess what?  I scanned that same receipt into the app.  If there is a lower price found, I will get the refunded amount inserted into my Savings Catcher to be spent again at Walmart.  I love free stuff!

To top this off, we use the reward card at Speedway.  We save up points to get free gift cards and stuff.  Right now, they are doing a promotion where they just give people at random a coupon for a $25 gift card of your choice if you have a Speedy Rewards card.  So, I have been picked two days in a row.  So, Speedway is giving me $50 of free gift cards.  Man, I SERIOUSLY LOVE FREE STUFF!!!

Sounds like a good idea, but I would be horrible about remembering to upload my receipts, or scan stuff.

Some free stuff is good.  Some free stuff not so good.

Free gift cards are good as long as they have money on them.  Free gift cards with no money on them would be bad.  Well, unless you make your own guitar picks from them like I do and then it could still be a good thing.  LOL

I really don't use any apps shopping and probably should. This seems like a cool idea and I wouldn't mind scanning either. We spend at least 300 a week on gorceries at Walmart and Winn Dixie.

(On a related note I saw this thread on CMR... Didn't have a time to write a response before it was deleted but I replied "Yep, I agree alldat" and it was in reference to you removing the post due to a dumb reply. I would've done the same thing).

Will check out the app, free stuff is always good!

Not really "free" but I was in Winn Dixie parking lot and found 3 scratch off lottery tickets. They were scratched off and loser tickets someone threw down. Monopoly 5 dollar tickets. I looked at them, saw consecutive numbers like 13, 14, 15. Then it said "odds of winning 1 in 4". So I went into Winn Dixie and looked at the scratch offs and the next one was 16... I thought "hmm... 1 in 4 then 16 must be a winner". So I bought it and won 20 bucks.

With the Walmart receipt I found in the parking lot, I was awarded $2.19 in my Savings Catcher app.  It wasn't much, but that is just money I can spend that didn't come out of my pocket.

We used the free gift card from Speedway last night.  I used the coupon they gave me to purchase a Chili's card.

I used the other to buy a $25 Amazon card.  I used my points today from the rewards program to get another $25 Amazon card.  Now I have $50.  I will soon have enough points in my Shopkick app to get another $50 of Amazon cards totaling $100 in free money to spend.  Why Amazon?  I am shopping for a new phone and will probably buy it through them.  I can take $100 off the purchase price.

I now have enough Shopkick points for a $50 Amazon card.  It has taken months to build them up, but I am there.

Ah I see you want to buy an unlocked phone thru Amazon (and not Walmart as I suggested in the other thread). Have you looked into "BLU"? I honestly don't know much about them but I see them all the time and from what I can tell they look decent.

Here's one of many and they all seemed to be priced well.

https://www.amazon.com/BLU-R1-Cell-Phone-16GB/dp/B01H2E0KVA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515432624&sr=8-4&keywords=unlocked+blu+cell+phones

MikeInFla wrote:

Ah I see you want to buy an unlocked phone thru Amazon (and not Walmart as I suggested in the other thread). Have you looked into "BLU"? I honestly don't know much about them but I see them all the time and from what I can tell they look decent.

Here's one of many and they all seemed to be priced well.

https://www.amazon.com/BLU-R1-Cell-Phone-16GB/dp/B01H2E0KVA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515432624&sr=8-4&keywords=unlocked+blu+cell+phones

My roommate had a BLU phone as a spare while he fixed his other phone. It was atrociously slow. Tough as nails, though, with a good battery. But dreadfully abysmally slow.

Driven wrote:

MikeInFla wrote:

Ah I see you want to buy an unlocked phone thru Amazon (and not Walmart as I suggested in the other thread). Have you looked into "BLU"? I honestly don't know much about them but I see them all the time and from what I can tell they look decent.

Here's one of many and they all seemed to be priced well.

https://www.amazon.com/BLU-R1-Cell-Phone-16GB/dp/B01H2E0KVA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515432624&sr=8-4&keywords=unlocked+blu+cell+phones

My roommate had a BLU phone as a spare while he fixed his other phone. It was atrociously slow. Tough as nails, though, with a good battery. But dreadfully abysmally slow.

I have a co-worker who has a Blu phone and his is actually nice.  Of course, he got the one with the faster processor as it was made more for phone gamers.  I thought about it, but you cannot get an Otterbox for the Blu phones yet.  I need the added protection that the Otterbox gives.

I'm going to download this app. I wonder if CVS is on the list of approved stores? I hope so, I've laid down a ton of money the past month there.

The reason I am thinking about this is because I have a ZTE cell phone. I read today that the US government is telling people not to use these phones for national security purposes. The US just banned American companies from selling technology to ZTE for 7 years. Yikes! It's a decent unlocked phone, I've really had no issues with it, but might be looking to get the deal you had on that phone from Amazon.

So off to download Shopkick!

Did you ever find an otterbox for your phone?

There are no OtterBox cases for my phone.  I bought something similar.

I've started using the app and have scanned several items in store and I am already earning some points. Not sure how it all works and haven't figured out receipts. I wonder if you have to buy actual (useless) items that are displayed on the app. Haven't figured out yet how to scan just a general receipt.

You talking about Shopkick?  They WANT you to buy useless items.  I only purchase something if the item is on our list.  So, we don't get a lot of extra points from receipts.  We get most of ours through walk-ins of stores and scanning stuff if we are at Walmart/Kroger/Target.

I had saved back up enough Kicks after buying my phone to have enough for another $25 card.  I used a Walmart one to purchase the newest Thor movie on Bluray.  So, it is a little work, but I do like getting free stuff!

I was in Walmart early this morning scanning liquor bottles and someone from work saw me and said "Hey you can't take that stuff to work!". LOL.

Racked up 165 points in CVS yesterday scanning random garbage lol. How many points until I earn a card? I picked amazon.

So this is pretty cool after all. I ended up with 1250 points and a $25 Amazon card (which I can change to something else if I want, I may change it to Walmart and use it for Straight Talk minutes). The coolest thing about it is that is was really free! I didn't spend a dime on the useless junk they have you scan but every time I went into the store I scanned everything on the list. Plus you get bonus points for just walking into the store. Might stock up on them and try to get 3 or 4 before redeeming them but so far I like this app. Thanks for turning me on to it.

MikeInFla wrote:

Racked up 165 points in CVS yesterday scanning random garbage lol. How many points until I earn a card? I picked amazon.

I am a youth pastor and have run into church members while scanning wine.  It is always fun!

I have around 1200 points right now.  I used my points I had built back up to buy Thor: Ragnarok when it came out on Bluray.

Be sure to use the Walmart Savings Catcher app, too.  You just scan your receipts and they look for lower prices.  They refund the difference into the app so you can spend that money again at Walmart.  My wife's mom gives me her receipts.  It's free money, right?  I even pick up discarded receipts in the Walmart parking lot!!!

Oh wow, didn't know about the Walmart app. Will look into it. With a family of 4 we spend at least $300 a week there in groceries so scanning those receipts won't be a problem.

If you have a mortgage and two or more direct debits at my bank, and you pay them £3 a month, you get £12 a month.

Sounds crazy, but it's real.  So I get £9 a month from them for free for doing nothing!  Ha!

Ok so a few weeks ago I got a notification from Shop Kick that I had enough points for a gift card. I didn't look at it as I wanted even more points. I had 1,250. Now I am up to 3,000 I thought for sure it would be good for two... It is... two $5 Amazon cards, I was disappointed. Going to take forever to get to $25, I have been eyeing some headphones on Amazon and $50 would cover them so I thought i had enough for two $25 cards. Nope. Gonna take a year to get enough lol!

You do have to get out and collect those Kicks to get free stuff.  If I go into Walmart without my wife, I scan everything that they have just to jack up my points.  I am just under 2,000 points away from the 6,250 needed for a $25 card.  I don't have any plans for that, so I will just keep accruing until I feel like I want to spend them.

I wish you could use those gift cards at Boone's Overstock and Roxx.  Man, that would be sweet!

Had some extra time, so I scanned over 700 points at Walmart today.  I am 1400 points away from a $25 gift card.

I also discovered, while scanning today's receipt into my Walmart app, that I have $10.84 in my Savings Catcher!

I need the start doing that savings catcher. I have it but have never used it.

This morning I decided what the heck, I will order the headphones I want and use the 10 bucks I have from shop kick. Nope.... Those headphones were there LAST NIGHT. Today "Out of stock and we don't know when we will have more of this item". Bummer!!

I really need something corded because of my turntable but I have been looking at these as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetooth-Headphones-Wireless-Memory-Protein/dp/B01NAJGGA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531331544&sr=8-1&keywords=mpow+headphones&dpID=51Dx9aXS7qL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

And you can attach a cord to these so I might just do it. But in one of the video reviews when the guy is testing them out you can hear his music when he wears them meaning that others around me would hear what I hear. Kind of don't like that.

I also recently bought a Bluetooth receiver made by the same company for $14 for my truck. It's pretty cool so now I don't have to worry with all those cords in my truck anymore but it only acts as a receiver, not a transmitter. They do have a few (Mpow) that are transmitter/receivers for 29.99 that might be an option. That way I could hook them to the turntable then pair the headphones. When I tried the one from my truck with my bluetooth earpods it didn't work because both of them are receivers I guess.