Savvy online shoppers avoid paying full retail price, and cash back shopping websites are a great way to get the latest discount coupons – plus cash back for completed purchases. You can get the most out of cash back programs by focusing on a few good sites; here are some tips to help you find them:

• Make sure the cash back sites you select offer discounts from a wide selection of merchants. Look for sites with at least 2,000 retail partners, including well-known brands.

• Compare the cash back percentages offered by various sites to get an idea of the typical range and choose sites that offer percentages on the higher end of the scale.

• Look for a company with great customer service – check for testimonials, reviews and same-day communication guarantees or live chat capabilities.

• Make sure you deal with a solid company to avoid the possibility of unfulfilled cash back payments – look for sites that have been around for at least three years.

• Evaluate the Terms of Use Agreement and Privacy Policy to ensure that you won’t run into any issues with unauthorized use of your information.

• Do business only with cash back sites that offer up-to-date coupons, and make sure the navigation and site layout is easy to use.

• Look for sites that provide a control panel or dashboard where you can view your balance and history.

• Make sure the cash back sites allow you to file a claim if you don’t receive a payment, and look for sites that make payments at least once per quarter.

Cash back sites are a great way to save money, but like any other service, it pays to compare your options. By following these tips, you can stop paying full retail price for items you buy online – and start getting cash back for your purchases.

By Scott Fitterman, CouponCactus.com

Andy’s Notes: I would like to add a couple more things to consider when signing up for a cash back shopping site. Many of the sites have a signup bonus. For instance, Mr. Rebates offers a $5 signup bonus and Ebates offers a $5 signup bonus as well.

If you are going to be referring people to the cash back shopping site then you want to research how the cash back shopping site rewards you for referrals.  This is why I love Mr. Rebates – they offer some of the best cash back percentages and they also pay you 20% of your referrals’ rebates without affecting your referrals’ rebates in any way.  I make over $25 a month from these referrals and at Christmas time this went up to almost $100.  Since you make 20% referral rebates for as long as your referral remains a member these rebates have the possibility of adding up to serious residual income.

My monthly expenses should go down considerably while I’m hiking. My goal for my monthly budget while hiking will be $500 compared to my usual monthly goal of $1000 of expenses. Since I won’t have expenses such as rent, utilities, and gas while hiking the $500 goal is an achievable goal. It won’t be an easy goal but it is doable.

My budget while hiking will break down as follows. My monthly fixed expenses that continue while I’m hiking are $26.81 for my phone and $120.97 for my health insurance and fitness club membership. I’m going to round the fixed expenses up to $150 to keep the numbers simple. That leaves me with $350 to spend on everything else for the month. I plan to spend about $25 a week on food, $25 on hostels/lodging, and $25 on miscellaneous expenses such as laundry and replacement gear. Those expenses add up to $300 a month. That will leave me with another $50 for any other expenses that pop up or to use if I spend to much on food or lodging. This budget should work fine if I can keep my lodging expenses down. Staying too often in motels and/or in too expensive of lodging has caused my previous hikes to be more expensive than they needed to be. I’ll be making a conscious effort to avoid doing that on this hike. There are some $25 or less lodging options available in the first part of my hike which should help.

If I am able to keep my monthly expenses at $500 I should come close to being able to pay my hiking expenses with my online income and passive income sources like Mr. Rebates. I want to avoid dipping into money that has already been earmarked as savings. I’ll be starting with a few hundred dollars that I have set aside specifically for the hike. Since the hike will take between three weeks to three months I feel pretty confident that I shouldn’t have to dip into my savings. When the hike is finished I’ll let you know how I did.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how to stretch your 5% cash back. Those strategies work well to stretch your cash back but there is still room for improvement. To maximize your cash back it would be great if you could get cash back on all of your bills. Unfortunately, bills such as your rent or mortgage cannot usually be paid by credit card. Or if they can be paid by credit card there is a surcharge that is larger than the cash back you would get for paying the bill.

There is a way to get cash back for paying your rent even if your leasing company doesn’t offer credit card payments as an option. I found out about this method from reading some frequent flyer blogs that share methods to increase your miles earned from credit cards. I tried using one of their methods myself and it worked without any problems.

In order to get cash back for paying rent the first thing you need to do for this particular method is to get a Bluebird(not an affiliate link) card from American Express. It is easy to sign up for the card but if you need some additional info on applying for the card you can read this post at Million Mile Secrets. Once you have the card you need to buy a Vanilla Reload card at CVS or elsewhere with your cash back credit card. There are several different prepaid cards with the word “Vanilla” on them so make sure you get the right one. There is a $3.95 fee on a $500 Vanilla Reload card. You can use the Vanilla Reload card to fund your Bluebird card and there should be no additional fee. Once the $500 from the reload card is added to your Bluebird account you can use that money to pay bills via the bill pay feature of the Bluebird card. Since you earned cash back for the purchase of the Vanilla Reload card your are effectively getting cash back for paying your bills.

I have tried this myself and didn’t have any problems. I bought the Vanilla Reload card at the CVS next to my apartment and then went home and added the card to my account. The whole process only took about 15 minutes, including the walk to the drugstore and back. The $500 was immediately credited to my account. I entered the information for my rent payment and used the bill pay to pay my rent. My travel credit card pays 2.2% in rewards so I made $11 from the purchase of the $500 gift card. Once you subtract the $3.95 for buying the card the net amount made is $7.05. That amount may not be worth the bother for many people but it is worth it to me. If your credit card pays a higher percentage of cash back then this method would be more worthwhile.

While this method worked fine for me, I have seen lots of people complain about problems with their Bluebird card. If you decide to use this method there is some risk. Also, you don’t want to abuse this method or American Express might shut you down. Some of you may see how this method could be used to basically create a perpetual cash back machine. I would advise you not to try that. There are limits on how much funds you can add to the card each month and limits on how much you can pay from the card each month to limit such use. Even if you stay under the limits you could have your account shut down if American Express feels you are abusing the card. In addition to using the bill pay feature I also use the card for regular purchases to keep me from being an unprofitable customer for the company.

Has anyone else tried a method similar to this to stretch their cash back? If so, I’d love to hear how you do it.