Take photos of your receipts and get up to £50 off your water, gas or electric utility bills or council tax each month with the Zipzero app.
Each time you go shopping – whether it’s to grab a top-up of milk and bread, you’re buying essential stuff for the kids, or treating yourself to a new something – you can earn cash with your receipt.
The next time the cashier in the store asks if you want the receipt emailed, just say no.
You need to hang onto the receipt to allow you to make money.
Here’s how this simple little app works.
Earn up to £50 a month with Zipzero
Zipzero is a straightforward app to use. There aren’t a lot of options, which makes it fast and smooth to use.
After you’ve been shopping, open the app, snap a photo of the receipt and that’s it. You’re able to use receipts from purchases you, or members of your household, have made.
When scanning your receipt, make sure everything is visible – from the store name at the top to the date and time at the bottom.
A few days later (they need the time to check the receipt details) the money shows in the app.
You will earn at least 1% of each transaction you make. When you’ve saved up just £1, you can cash out.
You’re not able to take out money straight to your bank or PayPal, but you use the money earned to pay off your bills.
Pay your bills
So, instead of cashing out into your bank, you’re able to have the money you earn get deducted from your household bills.
Pick from the following types of household bills:
- Mobile
- Broadband
- Landline
- TV
- Gas
- Electric
- Water
- Council Tax
You can also choose to have multiple accounts set up, so if you want to switch between paying your phone one week and your water bill the next, then that’s fine.
How Zipzero works
You need to add the bank account details for whoever you want to pay.
If you can’t find the account details on your latest bill, head to the FAQ section of the app and there are hundreds of companies and councils listed out to make things easier.
But, just so you know, you’re not able to pay bills for Tesco Mobile, Giff Gaff, Pay As You Go SIMS, PlusNet, or your TV License.
You also can’t use any money you earn to pay your credit card bill, rent, mortgage, loan, debt collectors or for subscriptions like Netflix or Spotify.
When it comes to any direct debits for bills, you don’t need to worry.
On the bill due date, the direct debit will automatically reduce the amount you pay, as long as you click to redeem from Zipzero seven working days before the direct debit date.
Good to know…
- Unlike other money making receipt apps, you need to scan your receipt within seven days of shopping.
- The maximum amount you can withdraw each month is £50.
- You’re only able to scan receipts from a bricks and mortar shop – no online shopping or invoices, sorry. (I’ve heard a rumour that online shopping may be coming soon…watch this space.)
- When it comes to cashing out, money in your Zipzero account expires after 90 days (three months), so be sure to cash out regularly.
How much can you *really* earn?
While I love making a few quid from using receipt scanning apps, it will just be a few quid.
Zipzero is probably not going to cut your bills totally or even in half.
You earn around 1% of each transaction you make, so you can kinda work out how much you can make each month.
If you’re a bit of a shopaholic on the high street, you can make more back than someone who only shops online, or is tighter with their spending.
Say you spend £50 in Aldi each week, pay £4 in the newsagent for treats for the kids on a Friday after school, maybe £6 on top-ups food shops and £30 on petrol.
That’s £90 of receipts, which will earn you a whopping…drum roll…90p that week.
See, I told you the app wouldn’t set your household bills on fire!
There is a £50 cashout limit each month. That means you’d need to be spending £5,000 on stuff in shops. Yep, you read that right – FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS.
One thing to point out though is it’s worth cashing out as soon as you hit the £1 limit. You may think it’ll make more of an impact to save it up and reduce your bill by a bigger amount, but the money you earn is not protected in the same way as your cash in a bank.
If Zipzero were to close your account, or they stopped trading, you would lose any money you’ve saved up.
Zipzero review
Overall, I think something is better than nothing, and if I can reduce my bills a bit more each month, it saves money for something else.
Considering it takes seconds to take a photo on the app, it’s well worth using it.
I’ve been using the app since October 2019 and wanted to give it a full test run before sharing more details.
In that time, to be fair, I’ve not taken photos of all my receipts – whoops! Ah, come on, I forget *blushes and smacks hand*
But, I have been able to cash out £3.15 to one of my bills.
Sure, it’s not a lot, but it’s free money – although it does make me think that’s I’ve sent £315 on the high street!!
Zipzero is available for iOS and Android.
Save even more
Zipzero is basically a form of cashback on your shopping.
What’s great is that you can look to double up on other offers and apps to make even more money back, and reduce your costs significantly.
Have a mobile – use Airtime Rewards can earn cashback on your high street shopping
Shop online – get cashback and make money for your online shopping, or when you buy insurance or other services – take a look at the best UK cashback sites
Earn more – take a look at all these apps which will save money on your food shop
Keep scanning – if you’re taking a photo with one app, you may as well use these ones too
:: Come and join thousands of other savvy shoppers in the Reduce Your Supermarket Spend Facebook community to find out tips and tricks to save money on your food shop.
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