Download Cash: These iPhone Apps Can Help You Make and Save Extra Money

If you’re anything like me, you love your iPhone and can’t imagine life without it.

Fair warning: If you’re coming for my iPhone, you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Hey, nothing personal against the Samsung Galaxy or Sony Xperia or Google Pixel, or whatever. But for my money, you can’t beat an iPhone.

They’re easy to use, they’re faster, and they have the best cameras. Also, Siri is my spirit animal.

It’s true, though, that iPhones tend to be pricier than Android phones.

What’s a poor, conflicted Penny Hoarder to do?

Best iPhone Apps to Make and Save Money

Well, you can use your iPhone to make back some of the money you spent buying your iPhone.

To the App Store we go! These are the best iPhone apps for putting more money in your wallet.

1. Get Paid to Share Your Opinion

Swagbucks is definitely a reader favorite, probably because of the wide variety of ways to make money beyond taking surveys.

It’s also famous for handing out free rewards points (they’re called SBs) at random just for being a member.

Pro tip: Earn a 500 SB (or $5) bonus when you sign up and earn 2,500 SB within your first 60 days.

You’ll get SBs for each survey you qualify for and complete that you can redeem for cash via Paypal or gift cards to a number of popular retailers, including Amazon.

2. Save Your Digital Receipts to Score Cash Back

It turns out deleting your emails could be costing you serious money. Intrigued?

One of our secret weapons is called Capital One Shopping Price Protection — a tool that gets you money back for your online purchases. It’s free to sign up, and once you do, Capital One Shopping Price Protection will scan your email archives for any receipts.

If it discovers you’ve purchased something from one of the more than 25 major retailer in monitors, it will track the item’s price and issue you a refund anytime there’s a price drop. You don’t have to do anything!

Capital One Shopping Price Protection compensates us when you sign up using the links we provide.

3. Share What’s in Your Fridge

Remember the Nielsen company? The one that’s always tracked TV ratings? Well, now it wants to know what’s in your fridge.

Once you sign up to be on the Nielsen Consumer Panel, you can either use your smartphone, or the company will send you a free barcode scanner. Every time you go shopping, you simply scan the UPC codes on the back of each product and send your data to Nielsen.

Nielsen will reward you with gift points, which you can redeem for free electronics, jewelry, household items or even toys for the kids.

The longer you stay on the panel, the more opportunity you have to earn points toward prizes. You’ll also receive entries for the panel’s many sweepstakes. Prizes include vacations and brand new vehicles.

4. Hang out With Pups

If you’re looking for a flexible, independent way to earn money — and you love hanging out with dogs — Rover might be your perfect gig.

The online network connects dog walkers and sitters to local dog owners through its 4.9-star-rated app, so you don’t have to staple flyers on every utility pole across town.

Rover says top sitters earn an average $450 per month.

Rover dog-sitter requirements vary by location. In general, you must:

• Be 18 years or older.
• Pass a background check.
• Have access to the Rover app (iOS or Android).

Here’s how it works: You’ll create an online sitter profile where you’ll answer questions about your experience with puppers and your schedule availability.

You can choose to offer a variety of services, including dog walking, overnight boarding at your home or theirs, and daycare. Boarding is the app’s most popular service, so offering it can get you more gigs. You set your own rates. (Rover keeps a small percentage as a service fee.)

Dog owners will reach out to you. Accept which gigs you want, then start snugglin’ pups. As soon as you complete a service, you’ll be paid within two days.

5. Let It Go, Let It Gooooo …

Do you still have a prom outfit from, like, 10 years ago?

It’s never going to fit — or come into style — again, but something just keeps holding you back from sending it to Goodwill.

Maybe money could change your mind? Instead of storing clothes indefinitely, try selling them on an app like Letgo. Just take a picture of what you want to sell, and post it. You can sell just about anything, including wedding dresses, cribs, TVs, jewelry, movies and cars.

6. Join the ‘Investor Class’ — And Snag a $5 Bonus

Investing is a smart way to make money. Sometimes, though, it feels restricted to a few wealthy elites.

Stash is different. This app lets you start investing with as little as $5.

It curates investments from professional fund managers and lets you choose where to put your money. But it leaves the complicated investment terms out of it. You just choose from a set of simple investments reflecting your beliefs, interests and goals.

Bonus: Right now, The Penny Hoarder is teaming up with Stash to fund your first investment — so you’ll get a $5 bonus when you enter the code PENNYH

7. This App Pays You for Walking Into Stores

Sick of shopping online and headed to a real, live store? Download the Shopkick app first.

Once you sign up, the app pays you “kicks” for walking into certain stores (including Amazon, Walmart, T.J. Maxx, Starbucks, Sephora, Best Buy and more). These can be redeemed for gift cards to those stores.

It pays you even more “kicks” for scanning items in stores and purchasing them with a connected credit or debit card, as well as for scanning receipts and mobile shopping.

8. Get Paid to List Your Space

Have a spare room? Might as well try to earn some money by listing it on Airbnb.

If you’re a good host with a desirable space, you could add hundreds — even thousands — of dollars to your savings account with Airbnb.

A few simple steps can make the difference between a great experience and a less-than-satisfactory one. We talked to Terence Michael, an Airbnb superhost based in Los Angeles.

Here are some of his tips:

• Break out the labelmaker. “I have the entire house loaded with labels,” Michael says. “They look nice; they’re modern. This helps people feel less helpless.”

• Be a good host, and stock your place with the toiletries you’d expect at a hotel — toilet paper, soap and towels. Here’s a little hack from Michael: “I order on Amazon and have it delivered when people are there.”

• Be kind to your neighbors. “I say, ‘I’m not going to put anyone here who I think won’t be good for you,’” Michael explains. “And I turn a lot of big groups away, especially in Nashville. I don’t want anyone going to the cops or the city.”

(Hosting laws vary from city to city. Please understand the rules and regulations applicable to your city and listing.)

9. Negotiate Your Cable and/or Internet Bill

Hop on your phone and check out Trim, a Facebook messenger bot that will negotiate your cable or internet bills down for you. It works with Comcast, Time Warner, Charter and other major providers.

You sign up with Facebook, then upload a PDF of your most recent bill, and Trim’s AI-powered system gets to work. If at first it doesn’t succeed, it’ll keep negotiating until it can save you some money. (If it saves you any money, it keeps 25% of the savings tab.)

Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. Don’t touch his iPhone. DON’T TOUCH IT.