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A while back, I wrote about how I had joined Ebates. At the time, I was so excited because I had just received my first Ebates check in the mail. It was only $10, but so what?! Free money is free money, right? Well, now that I’ve been using Ebates for a while, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to write a more in-depth, thorough review. Buckle up, you’re in for an Ebates review you’re sure to remember!

Ok, maybe there is no need to buckle up, but at any rate, get ready for my honest Ebates review!

What the Heck is Ebates?

In short, Ebates is a cash back shopping rewards partner that gives members a percentage of cash back when they shop with participating partners. For example, I bought my son a basketball hoop for his birthday present earlier this year. I did my research, figured out the hoop I planned to buy and found that the best deal for this hoop was on Walmart.com. I activated my Ebates cash back button in my Google Chrome browser and received 10% cash back on that purchase.

The other advantage to Ebates is that they provide a referral bonus to you for referring others to sign up for Ebates. Pretty cool, right?

So, if you refer someone to Ebates, you get a $25 bonus, and they also get a $10 bonus once they spend $25 or more. Please only spend on stuff you’re going to buy anyway!

Ebates Review

Well, let me start by letting you know where I’m currently at with my cash back.

I’ve made $43.40 to date using Ebates for cash back.

Now, you might be thinking that $43.40 isn’t quite a lot of money. You know what, you’re right, it’s not a ton of money.

But here’s the thing. I’m not one of those people that is just going to go out and buy stuff just for the sake of buying it so that I can get cash back.

Great, so you spent $100 on a purse that you didn’t need, but hey you got $10 back, so great! Not that there is anything wrong with buying a purse, it was just an example.

So I got $43.40 back on things I was buying anyway. This is basically free money. Would you take $43.40 if I handed it to you? I bet you would!

The point I am trying to make is that I am not going out of my way to buy things just to get cash back.

No matter what cashback service you’re using, you shouldn’t be using that as a practice. You should definitely only be using the cash back advantages for things that you ARE ALREADY PLANNING TO BUY!

Signing Up for Ebates

Lucky for you, signing up is easy.

Head on over to the Ebates website, and remember, if you use my link, I get a cash back bonus, you get a bonus, and we both get more money in our pockets.

Once you land there, you can sign up for FREE with Facebook or with an email address.

That’s all there is to it!

You’re now on your way to earning cash back.

Pretty easy and painless so far, right? I think so!

How to Shop and Earn Cash Back on Ebates

There are two ways that you can earn cash back through Ebates.

Online and in-store.

Most of the cash back offers are online, but there are some great in-store advantages too!

In-Store Cash Back

to get cash back in stores, you’ve got to link up your credit or debit card s that Ebates knows when you make purchases with their partners.

To do this is pretty simple, just head over to the In-Store Cash Back section.

Once you’re here, you can click “Add a New Card” and enter the card you want to link.

Then, you can view a map of your location or enter a specific zip code to see what cash-back offers Ebates has partnered with near you!

Find the stores you’ll plan to shop at and click link offer to link your card up and get the offer!

Now, once you shop, you’ll be earning cash back!

Pretty cool!

Online Shopping

Ebates makes online shopping fricking easy! there are a few ways to earn cash back when using Ebates online. I’ll save the best one for last.

First, you can search for what you are looking for and find various offers across all of Ebates’ partners.

For example, I looked up Pet Supplies, specifically Pet Food, since I have 3 dogs and they eat a lot. Like a serious amount of dog food.

Anyway, see some of the results below.

After that, just click the shop now button and start shopping to get your cash back.

Now, there is something really really handy that helps you skip this step!

The Ebates Cash Back Button

If you don’t use Google Chrome…. first of all, why not? The browser is great! But I digress. The Ebates Cash Back Button is available for Google Chrome. The first step is to download the Ebates Cash Back Button.

Once you’ve downloaded the Google Chrome extension, if you head over to a website that’s a partner where you can get cash back, the cash back button will start flashing red.

Click it and you’ll have the option to activate your cash back!

Just a few quick seconds out of your day to activate the cash back and you’ll be on your way to earning that cash back whenever you make the purchases that you were planning to make anyway!

Search Results

Here is something really cool that I don’t see a lot of people talk about. When you search Google for something and you’ve got the Ebates cash back button installed, it will show you the cash back right in your search results!

So, I searched for dog food, again, 3 dogs…

Look what I found out:

What? 10% cash back?!

Nice!!! It’s features like these that make me really like to use Ebates!

The really nice thing is that you can now easily compare multiple cashback deals across multiple sites when searching for a certain item.

This really allows you to capitalize on the cash back and get the absolute most cash back possible, while also paying the lowest price possible.

All in all, I spent around $55 for the basketball hoop I mentioned earlier because I did my due diligence and used Ebates effectively!

Coupons, Promo Codes & Daily Deals

One other way that you can save money with Ebates is by utilizing their coupons, promo codes, and daily deals section.

I’ll fully admit that I don’t use this section a lot, but there is good potential here, and I’m probably missing out on some savings by not using it as much.

However, I’ve been in the market for a new laptop and I’ve been shopping around. It pleases me to see that they’ve got some really great coupon codes on Ebates and you can get your bottom dollar that I’ll be all over it to get the best deal possible when I pull the trigger on that laptop.

As you can see, not only does it notify you of the coupon code that you can utilize, but you also can see the cash back available as well. 20% off on a Thinkpad and 3% cash back sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

How Do I Get Paid????

Here is where we get to the important part!

You did the work, you signed up for Ebates, you found some deals, and you earned cash back on stuff you were going to buy anyway!

Awesome! That’s something to be proud of! But now, you wonder where in the heck the money is coming from?

You’ve got a couple options!

Big Fat Check Via Mail

As my earlier post indicates, they’ll send you a big fat check in the mail with your cash back earnings.

Big fat Payment Via PayPal

If you don’t want the hassle of dealing with snail mail and would rather have a digital transaction, you can have them send you a payment via PayPal.

When do I Get Paid???

So, we’ve covered how you get paid, but what about when you get paid?

Is Ebates seriously going to send a “big” fat check out every single time you get cash back? What if your cashback is 2% on a $5.00 purchase? Are they seriously going to send a check in the mail for $.10???

That’s less than postage!

No, they will not do that.

What they will do, is to send you a check every 3 months, as long as you’ve earned at least $5.00 in cash back!

Just like this:

Bonus: Make Extra Money with Referrals

I mentioned earlier about how you get a bonus when you sign up through my referral link.

Well, guess what?

Once you join Ebates, you can do the same exact thing!!!

This referral bonus is for friends and family, and readers of my blog, who share Ebates with others! They give this out as a thank you for sending them new members!

If you ask me, that’s pretty awesome and you can make some pretty good money if you refer enough people.

Now, I’m sure you’re probably thinking about right now how I’m only going to tell you all of the good things in this Ebates review and not focus on the negative at all. After all, why would I? If you don’t sign up, I don’t get my bonus!

But that’s not how I roll!

Downsides to Ebates

Ebates partners are inconsistent. for example, you may log in one day to see 10% cash back on Amazon! Freakin sweet! But maybe you’re not ready to make a purchase, so you remember this and come back later.

You log back in 3 weeks later to make a purchase on Amazon and all of a sudden you’re only getting 2% cash back.

Well shit, there goes all that extra cash back!

You can mitigate this by waiting and keeping an eye out for deals as they will move up and down. You may even be able to save even more money if you can wait out a purchase!

You might end up spending more money since you know you’re getting cash back. This is why I have stressed so much in this post that this is only effective if you use Ebates only for items you would purchase anyway!!!

Final Thoughts

There are a ton of apps and sites out there like Ebates that you can use to earn cash back and I’ve used a few of them. so far, Ebates has been hands down my favorite site to use to get cash back!

If you still aren’t sure if Ebates is right for you, drop a comment below and I’ll let you know what I think.

Otherwise, head on over to Ebates by clicking this link (Ebates) or by clicking the button below to get signed up and start earning cash back today!







Cheers,

Real Money Robert