Renton, WA

Today’s Friday Freebie is another free website: ebates.com.

It is a lot more frugal to focus simply not spending, rather than trying to find ways to spend money cleverly. However, if and when you order online, you can get rebates from this website, ranging from a few cents to a few dollars. Different websites offer a different percentage, some quite high. Ebates is one of many shopping portals that gives you a percentage of the purchase, in exchange for using them as the referral. It does not interfere with the use of coupons. And it does not matter what payment method you use (for example, a cash-back credit card).

You receive this rebate either by your choice of check or PayPal. The only catch is that there is a significant delay, and your money is sent quarterly if the amount is at least $5. I have earned over $190 since I joined, an undetermined amount of time ago. So it’s not a lot of money, but better than nothing.

Ebates has some software called Moe Money Maker, which you can download to “help” you save money by “remembering” to go through their portal, but it’s pretty bad. I tried to use it, I really did, but it would hijack my browsing in the most annoying way, and many people online think it is spyware. Fortunately, you don’t need to use it.

Generally I feel it is unethical to use referral links in a forum such as this, but I will provide a clearly identified referral link here, because you can get a $5 bonus (as do I) if you sign up this way.

If you have experience with Ebates you would like to share, or would like to suggest a future Friday Freebie, leave me a comment and let me know.