I think I sound like a broken record to my family and friends when I say…I’m a HUGE Rakuten fan! If you’re not familiar with it, it used to be called Ebates. Rakuten is a rebate site that I use for the majority of my online purchases, whether it be for clothing/makeup at Macy’s, home improvement items at Lowe’s, appliances at Best Buy, crafts at Hobby Lobby, VRBO, Marriott and Hertz for vacations, or just everyday purchases at Walmart, Target and Walgreens. So I wanted to share with you why I use Rakuten, and how it works.
This post has affiliate links. Please see our disclosure here.
Why I use it? It costs you NOTHING! But you get rebates that really add up…for things you would buy anyway!
I remodeled a 1969 duplex recently and as much as I could, I bought the items online using Rakuten. Of course I shopped around first to make sure I was getting the best deal. Now, what I’m showing you is definitely not a typical quarterly payout, but because I bought everything from ceiling fans and plumbing supplies to appliances using Rakuten for my home remodel, my last quarterly payout was $793.74! You can see below my results for the last year.
How it works:
Rakuten is mostly for online purchases, but not exclusively. If you’re an online shopper like me, you don’t even have to think about it. I installed a Chrome extension on my laptop, so every time I enter a website that has an affiliation with Rakuten, a little pop up automatically displays.
To install your extension using Chrome, go to the right 3 dots on your computer and you should find an extensions section.
When you hover over it, it will show you this:
Click on Visit Chrome Web Store and it will take you to a screen where you can type in Rakuten in the search field. Click on “Add to Chrome” and the extension is created. Now every time I go to one of my favorite websites, the extension automatically pops up and Rakuten is tracking that purchase.
I know every web browser is different. This is Chrome specific…but every browser has a simple way to add an extension so a quick search should get you on your way if you don’t use Chrome.
Convinced yet? Click on the heart and it will take you to Rakuten to sign up. ♥
Once you become a customer, you can go into the Rakuten site on any given day and they will tell you how much of a rebate each store has on that day. I’ve gotten up to 20% on rare occasions, 10% fairly often, and less than 10% mostly. They’ll even display the places you shop most often right up front and tell you how much of a rebate they have today. Looks like this:
How do you get paid?
You get paid quarterly. You can choose a “Big Fat Check”, as they call it, Paypal, or even exchange the money for American Express points. I personally choose the Big Fat Check. They just mail it every 3 months. And you can check to see how much you have pending in your account at any time. There is still some remodel items in my next check, so my current pending balance is pretty nice!
Why I use Rakuten?
Because why not! Some quarters I only get $20-30. But that’s still $20-30 I didn’t have before.
I hope you’ll consider signing up. Just click on this link here and have fun watching your account balance grow!
Happy tinkering,
Susan
