Shopkicking My Face Off

As the people around me can attest, I am an avid lover of apps that pay me. I will be documenting my favorites over the next few weeks with my experiences and reviews as there are many that can waste your time. More importantly, there is a delightful handful that can give you more than pocket change (cough- Ibotta, Receiptpal, Checkout51, Checkpoints, Savingstar, and more!).

One of the most gratifying of those apps? Shopkick.

I tried this puppy about two years ago and gave up before the magic could be made. Now, I've made almost 100 buckaroos in the past couple of months, mostly by merely walking into stores and walking right out. Plus, the little musical celebration and confetti graphics that ignite when I've scored kicks make me smile. Call it psychological coaxing. I don't care. I'm kicking to the high heavens and making money doing it.

There are a lot of very detailed reviews out there, but I'm here to give you the general sum and substance. The basic-est of basics.

How To Earn Kicks:
(The Three Main Ways)
1. Walk-ins: Shopkick gives you a list of participating stores based on your location and lets you know which ones give you walk-in kicks. You walk into the store and can call it a day from there.

2. Scans: Scan the barcodes of items on Shopkick's scan list once you've entered the store and earn more kicks.

3. Kickbates: Like Ibotta and the other rebate apps, you can also get kicks on certain items for scanning in receipts.

Other Ways:
- Linked Cards: Some stores qualify for kicks if you link your card. Be sure to remember that if you use a debit card to run it as credit to get your kicks.
- Check the header image at the top of the Shopkick homepage on the app each day. Sometime there are special kicks for visiting their Facebook, watching videos and more.

My Sneaky Tips: 
These tips are case by case. You will start to understand the behavior of Shopkick in your area the more you use it.
- "Drive-by" Kicks: More often than not, you do have to physically walk into the store for your kicks to register. However, if you develop a morning Shopkick routine (like me), you can often find stores in shopping centers and malls that you can merely walk past. Just make sure you have the app open and ready.

- Same Item Scans: Typically, there will be several different flavors/ varieties of the same item you can scan. Sometimes, you can simply scan one item multiple times and it will work for each variety. For instance, this month at Walgreens, Shopkick said I could scan any Hallmark ornament. I couldn't find any ornaments but scanned a Hallmark greeting card instead and still got my kicks. This also works for the Checkpoints app (another scanning app that takes much longer to earn points with).

- Weekends and Holidays Are Magical! I have found that my largest kick days are on weekends and holidays. This year for Black Friday, Shopkick featured "200 Kick Walk-ins" at a multitude of stars and I scored big!

- Set A Goal For Yourself and Be Patient: I knew from the beginning that I wanted to at least hit the $50 Gift Card mark. Generally, if you can just get about 100-200 kicks a day, you can easily score 1,000 a week. That's not too bad for climbing your way to certain tiers of kicks. Once I hit $50, I got greedy and decided on $100 instead. I'm almost there!

Now, you try! Sign up for Shopkick today! Happy Kicking! :)

Note: I am in no way affiliated with Shopkick nor have I been asked or paid to share this review. Share your Shopkicking questions, suggestions and experiences with me right here! :)

Be sure to check out my other favorite money-saving and money-earning apps!
Checkpoints- Get free points with my bonus code: cannedace
Ibotta- Earn up to $10 with my referral code: yscwmq