I have a nasty habit of starting something good, and then just forgetting about it completely. This happened to me with Jingit. Jingit is a website where you can be paid to watch advertisements, and if you have a smart phone you can go to different stores and scan products to earn money. There are two large drawbacks to Jingit:
1) You need to provide them with a social security number if you want their debit card (which is where they load the money). This makes it legal, but also more intimidating. Most people don’t want to enter that kind of information online. I did because I was broke, but I probably wouldn’t do it again today without hearing from a reliable flesh and blood source.
2) They have gone waaaay downhill since I started. This is why I forgot about it for months. You used to be able to watch several ads a day and actually reach the $10 a week limit. It’s not much, but when you have $14 to last you two weeks every penny helps. And that’s an extra $40 a month! Now you are lucky if you can make $2 a week, which, now that I’m employed isn’t really worth my time.
The reason that I bring all this up is a new app called Ibotta. It seems quite similiar to Jingit. Although, from what I understand you get reimbursed for buying certain products after you watch an ad in the app. They reimburse you to your Paypal so you don’t have to offer up your social security number, and because they reimburse purchases, the companies don’t have to pay unless you actually try their product. This makes it seem like it will have a much easier time getting companies to stick with it, as opposed to Jingit. I did get on their mailing list so I will be informed when it is released for Android, I am excited to check it out for myself.
Another similar app is Shopkick. With Shopkick you are rewarded for visiting stores. You can get free items in the stores or even earn “kicks” (points).You can link your credit card to earn more “kicks,” but it’s completely voluntary. You don’t have to in order to use the app.
Happy Shopping!
Howling Orca 