I love Ebates

So on my quest to get my Disney vacation paid for, I was following along with my blogger friend Carly (disneyweddingblog.com) who happened to do a whole blog about how to get a free Disney vacation from doing some online work!

I love Carly's blogs. They are witty and fun and truthful.  If you have any love for Disney at all, I highly suggest checking them out!

Anyway, she posted a link to Ebates as a way to earn cash back from shopping online.  Truthfully, I do not shop online that often anymore (wish I would have known about this during wedding planning!) But occasionally, there are things I need to order.

Well, all you do is sign up for this site (its free!) at http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=N5lCR5H7Jmbs%2B5n92bfFPg%3D%3D

After that, you just start shopping and you get cash back when you place orders!  Each store has a different amount you get back... but really what could be better than being paid for shopping?

When I was planning my wedding, I used Sunshine Rewards to do basically the same thing, and was able to pay for some of our hotel with my savings.  Well, they dropped a lot of their important vendors, and Ebates has EVERYTHING so it was an easy switch!  Not to mention, they have coupon codes available.  And with many stores doing free shipping, there is no reason NOT to shop online!

If that's not enough, when you sign up, you get to choose a $10 gift card that they automatically send you after your first purchase of $25 or more using their site!  Umm... hello, that's free money right there!

So for my first Ebates experience, I went with Express.  Express is not a store I shop in often.  Not only do the clothes not fit me (hello...preggo!) but I think their clothes are extremely expensive!  We have a store called Gabriel Brothers that sells their "damaged" stuff and my only Express clothing comes from there... at $3 a shirt!  Anyway, for whatever reason, I had $35 in gift cards there.  On top of that I got a $10 off birthday card in the mail for having a credit card (from back in my skinny days!).

Since I had the $10 off, I figured it would be a great time to go in and get some accessories.  I got a pair of sunglasses, a canary wristlet and a blue bangle bracelet for $35 after my coupon... the exact amount of my gift card.  Now I did pay for shipping, which ended up being $8 since I used my entire gift card.

However, I got $1 back from Ebates and qualified for my $10 gift card from Target (that's where I chose since I shop there the most!).  All in all, I came out $3 ahead and got some great stuff!

This site is definitely worth checking out!! I am officially addicted!!  To save more money, if your grocery store does gas points like ours does here in PA, go buy gift cards for the store you are going to shop in, get the gas points at the grocery store and the cash back online!  It's like double the savings, plus you are less likely to spend more than you wanted if you already pre-purchased a gift card!