3 Money Saving Apps Even Vegans Can Use

It’s a myth that eating vegan has to be expensive. It’s also not true that you have to eat packaged, processed food as a vegan. While you may never be an extreme couponer if you don’t eat animals, you can save money! In the past few months, I’ve been shopping with a few money saving apps and I’ve been able to save on a variety of things: produce, snacks, and oh, yeah, Beyond Meat.

Ibotta

I’ve had the most success with this app. You unlock rebates on various items and at various stores – your local grocery chain, dollar store, drugstore, or convenience store could be on the list. Not sure if the item you’re looking at qualifies? Scan the barcode and Ibotta will tell you. It takes a $10 minimum before you can cash out to your PayPal account, but you also have the option to put your rebates towards a gift card.

I love Ibotta! I’ve gotten money back on Earth Balance, Beyond Meat, Tom’s of Maine, Just Mayo, Good Belly, So Delicious, and other vegan items, and it never takes longer than a few hours for them to verify my submissions. Plus, there are bonuses where you can increase your earnings, and you can build “teams” where you earn more if you redeem more during the month.

Shopmium

Shopmium has a list of items that changes each week or so. I’ve been able to redeem on peanut butter, Naked Juice, and more. The app will even locate stores that carry the item you’re interested in. Like Ibotta, you need to scan your barcode and your receipt. Unlike Ibotta, there’s no minimum amount before you can redeem; Shopmium automatically transfers your rebates to your PayPal account! It takes a day or two for them to verify, but the quick transfer to PayPal more than makes up for it. 

Checkout 51

There are some pros and cons to this app. Their weekly list of available rebates updates every Thursday morning, and you can shop wherever you’d like… even online. The app doesn’t require you to verify your product’s barcode; simply upload a photo of your receipt or packing slip.

Here’s where I find the most rebates on produce – a quarter on bananas or tomatoes is pretty decent – but you can’t cash out without a minimum of $20, at which point you’ll get a check in the mail. I’m still working on my first twenty, but I’m hoping to get there soon!

A word of caution – the money saving apps listed here are not free of animal products. A nice feature Ibotta has is the ability to remove items you aren’t interested in from the list. No interest in saving on dairy milk? View the offer information and remove it. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a similar feature on the other apps.

Have you used the apps outlined here? Let us know what you’ve saved on!