Topcashback is temporarily boosting their referral bonus to $20.16

What is it?

Topcashback (Referral / non-referral) is a very simple site that earns you a percentage cash back when you shop at popular online retailers through their site. Yes you do need to make purchases to earn, but if you do what I do and only buy things that you would have anyway, it's free money. They're partnered with thousands of retailers including popular ones like Amazon, Best Buy, Old Navy and Target as well as many others. In addition to cash back, you can also find coupon codes which will give you instant savings. I buy my dog's food from petco.com. When I visit Petco via Topcashback I get 8% cash back. 8% of my mastiff's food bill is a nice chunk of change! If you don't like Topcashback there's EBates.com, Swagbucks and even Perk as well as many others. Deals vary from day-to-day and site-to-site so you may want to check http://ift.tt/NeatU8 to compare different sites. Just make sure you're using SOME cashback site if you shop online.

How does it work?

Before you buy anything online, first visit topcashback.com. Search for the particular retailer to see if there any current deals. Then just click through to the retailer's site and shop like normal. After you make your purchase, the retailer will report the sale to Topcashback. The transaction should show as pending in your Topcashback account (may take up to a week). It may stay pending for quite some time after that as some retailers take longer than others to pay the commission. That's really the biggest issue with cashback sites, the wait can sometimes be excruciating!

Payment

Once your earnings have reached payable status you can request a payout via Paypal, Amazon, American Express prepaid card or ACH. All my payouts have been via Paypal and they pay within a couple days and even the same day on a few occasions. If you request an Amazon giftcard they'll give you an extra 2.5%. Payment Proof

What's this about referrals?

Normally topcashback gives you $10 per referral. But they're running a promotion right now that increases the bonus to $20.16 until February 10th. The catch is that your referral will need to earn at least $10 cash back to qualify. So like in my example above, if you referred me, I would need to spend at least $125 at Petco (8% of 125 is 10) for you to get the $20.16. To be honest, most of your referrals won't make it, but just getting a few is totally worth it. They do have a "nudge" feature that let's you send a reminder to everyone that you've referred. You can use it once a week, but it's up to you to decide how annoying you want to be! The other downside is that you don't get credit until they do. As I mentioned above, the process can take a while.

Tips for using cashback websites:

• Don't fall into the trap of buying things you don't need. If you just buy what you would have anyway, it's all beermoney.
• Make sure you're actually making a net savings. If you can find an item for 15% cheaper, but without any cashback, don't buy it from the other site just because it gives 6% cashback.
• Many of you probably have Amazon gift cards from other beermoney ventures. You can still get cashback when you use your gift card balance. However, there are usually limited categories available for Amazon.
• Sometimes using a promo code that you got somewhere else can invalidate your cashback. I've had mixed results with this. Sometimes I can sneak it in, other times not. It's up to you to risk it.
• Before you visit a cashback site: clear your cookies, make sure you're allowing new cookies and disable any ad blockers.
• After you've clicked through to a retailer from the cashback website, don't open that retailer in another browser tab or window. It may overwrite the original cookie and hurt your chances of getting credit. If you have to leave and come back later, make sure you clear your cookies and start over.
• Save any email receipts. Take a screenshot of the order confirmation page. If there's ever a problem with tracking your purchase, it helps to have as much proof as possible.