6 of the Most Popular Money-Saving Apps of 2021

With economic uncertainty created by Covid-19 gradually easing in countries around the world, life is slowly getting back to normal. Although traffic on Black Friday 2021 was down by just over 28% compared with 2019 levels, it was up by almost 48% compared to Black Friday 2020, with retailers ringing up $8.9 billion in online sales alone. Nevertheless, with many shoppers hit hard by the pandemic, little wonder why money-saving apps are proving popular with many consumers today.

These apps confer considerable advantages, providing users with cashback offers, exclusive discounts, and other incentives via their mobile phones. Location-based capabilities return personalized deals at the precise moment that users need them, enabling them to achieve significant discounts while shopping at their favorite stores.

From the ShopKick app, which enables users to earn points to redeem at their favorite stores, to CamelCamelCamel, which compares historical prices of products sold on Amazon to ensure that members get a good deal, we explore a selection of money-saving platforms that proved popular in 2021.

1. ShopKick

ShopKick is a shopping coupon app that rewards members with points that they can claim for free gift cards, earning “kicks” for shopping at their favorite stores or for simply showing up, which can be redeemed against digital gift cards delivered to the user’s phone.

With a variety of gift cards available today, from Amazon and PayPal to Starbucks and Target, ShopKick provides members with some very attractive deals. With kicks adding up fast, most ShopKickers earn enough for their first free gift card within a week of signing up.

2. Entertainment

The easy and convenient-to-use app has grown to become one of the most popular coupon apps in America today, providing savings of up to 50% on users’ day-to-day activities. With new local and national offers added daily across a variety of different categories, Entertainment enables members to redeem discounts and coupons directly from their phone or mobile device.

Boasting a plethora of handy features such as a discount map, savings reminders, and a coupon wallet — which enables users to save their favorite coupons for later — whether you are looking for savings at theatres, hotels, restaurants, stores, or airlines, Entertainment enables you to save considerable sums via your smartphone.

3. Trim

Like so many apps on the market today, Trim started life as one thing, gradually evolving over the years. The platform allows users to track their expenses, helping them to “trim” their spending. Encompassing a variety of different spending categories, Trim requires users to enter their details, then sit back while the app handles everything for them, dealing with issues such as:

• Tracking spending
• Monitoring unexpectedly high utility bills
• Negotiating cable rates
• Automating savings transfers to high-yield accounts
• Cancelling unwanted subscriptions.

Most of us are caught off-guard by an unexpectedly high bill at some point, be it exorbitant finance charges, sky-high credit card interest rates, or overinflated bills. Over the last month alone, Trim shaved off more than a $1 million from its users’ bills, acting as an intermediary, and doing all the negotiating for them. In return, with the “free” version, users pay Trim a fee of 33% of their annual savings.

4. Honey

Honey is a browser plugin for Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome browsers that helps users to achieve substantial savings by automatically applying coupon codes at the checkout phase when shopping online.

With the app installed, users are presented with a pop-up in the checkout stage at eligible online stores. They simply click the pop-up, and Honey does the rest for them, trying out all known coupon codes and automatically applying the most beneficial.

Honey also operates a rewards program, partnering with more than 30,000 online stores, providing members with “Honey Gold” points that are redeemable against gift cards.

5. CamelCamelCamel

CamelCamelCamel is an app that saves users money by tracking prices on Amazon. Operating via a website or browser extension, the app provides consumers with details of the price history for practically every item listed for sale on the Amazon website.

Unlike most big-box retail stores, Amazon prices are in constant flux. Comparing current prices with past trends helps consumers to see whether they really are getting a good deal, or whether they should hold off until later and wait for the price to come back down. For those who shop at Amazon regularly, CamelCamelCamel can pave the way for some impressive savings.

6. Rakuten

Presenting up to 40% cashback on purchases at over 2,500 partner stores, Rakuten is one of the Internet’s most popular shopping portals. With no complicated points systems to worry about, this easy-to-navigate platform presents users with a simple cashback percentage program, operating a browser extension version to ensure that users do not miss out.

It is important to remember that stores only allow one reward or cashback program per purchase, however, so users do have to choose between programs like Rakuten, Honey, and ShopKick.