Yup. You read that right. You can legally turn your food stamps (SNAP) into cold, hard cash. I am going to show you how.

Forty three million Americans are receiving food assistance. The average food assistance benefit per person is about $126 per month. That equals to $1.40/meal (Taken from cbpp.org). While this is a huge help for many, there are still families struggling to put food in their mouths at every meal. My goal with this post is to help people stretch those SNAP benefits. Hopefully over time, people rely less and less on government assistance.

Okay so let’s get going. The things you need before getting started:

Smartphone (Safelink offers a free smartphone with limited calling and internet for people on government assistance)

Checking or savings account (my suggestion for a great bank is Chime Bank. No fees plus they round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and put into savings. At the end of the month they pay you 10% on top of those savings, plus there is a $50 bonus for signing up when you have direct deposit).

This isn’t completely necessary if you prefer gift cards to cash or if you don’t mind paying with PayPal.

Now that you have these things we are ready to start making money. You will need to download and register with these apps:

We will just start with these for now. I will add more apps at the end of this post that you can download but these that I have listed above are the most important and have the bigger payouts at this time.

Now that you have downloaded and registered with these apps, you are ready to make a shopping list. Open the app and look through all the rebates to find items that appeal to you (make sure to read fine print so you know that you are getting the correct items). Ibotta tends to add new rebates on Wednesday mornings while Checkout 51 is on Thursday mornings. I personally like to use Facebook pages and groups to help me find the best deals. Here is a list of pages I like:

No Drama Ibotta Deals

Don’t forget my page, Small Savings Add Up

These groups help answer questions and post the best deals. Many are free and money making items.

Now that you have made your grocery list, go ahead and do your shopping. Make sure to buy those items that are rebates on Ibotta and Checkout 51 and go ahead and pay with your EBT card as you normally would.

Once you get home, you will need to upload your receipt and scan the UPC codes (not all items require UPC code scanning) into these apps. They walk you right through it. It is super simple. It will take 48 hours or less to receive your rebates. Once you receive your Ibotta credit, you will have to transfer your funds to PayPal ($20 min to cash out). This is instant. Once your funds are in your PayPal account, you can use them from there or you can transfer them to your checking/savings account. This typically takes 1-2 business days.

Once you receive your Checkout 51 credit, you can cash out ($20 min) to have a check mailed to you. Some people have the option to cash out with PayPal (I do not) but apparently it takes longer than having them mail you a check so I don’t recommend that.

So there you have it. This is how you can use your SNAP benefits and still turn them to cash. It can be a little overwhelming at first but if you stick to it, you will be turning 50-75% of those SNAP benefits into cash to help you get ahead.

Here is a list of other apps that are similar or that I use to make money:

Now of course this can also be done by people that aren’t on food assistance. Once you have started, you will ask yourself why you weren’t doing this sooner.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone that could benefit, please share it.