College is expensive enough with tuition, housing fees, course materials—the list goes on and on. In a world where attending college is so costly, who doesn’t want to save money—especially on food? That is where money-saving food apps such as Snackpass, Good Life Coupons, and Ibotta come in.
Being a college student on a budget, I am always looking out for great deals to save on food purchases. These savings allow me to explore new restaurants around campus and uncover new favorite dishes and eateries.
Through various experiences and conversations, I was able to discover these three food apps which I fell in love with. Now, I want to share these three food apps with you to help you save money on food you love and on trying new restaurants.
Snackpass
Unlike the many different food ordering and delivery services out there, Snackpass allows you to order food for pick up, saving you both time and money. Through the Snackpass app, you can order at numerous locations around campus, with more eateries added each week. Unlike other delivery apps, Snackpass has the entire menu to select from and includes pictures for many of the items.
With Snackpass, you can order in advance so that your order is ready for pickup as soon as you walk into the restaurant. Certain locations may include a small additional cost to the price of the item for this service, but the most I have seen is $0.25. Don't fret though—this cost is quickly diminished by first time and student discounts.
One unique aspect of Snackpass is that you can accumulate tokens for each purchase to redeem for food items such as boba or a burrito. You also get gift points from friends whenever they order food. So, if your friends eat out a lot and send you gift tokens, you can claim free items and benefit at their expense.
Currently, Snackpass is only available at select college campuses: UC Berkeley, Yale, Brown, RISD, Harvard, Dartmouth, Boston College, and University of Michigan. In the near future, however, Snackpass has plans to expand to UCSB, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, USFCA, USC, Rutgers, UPenn, MIT, Cornell, Boston University, and many more—bringing savings to more college students around the nation.
Snackpass has eight different offers if you use the referral code "calspoon" when you download the Snackpass app. These offers include free Boba Tea at Purple Kow and a $0.99 slice at Abe's Pizza.
Good Life Coupons
Good Life Coupons is another essential food app which offers discounts for a variety of different restaurants in the East Bay. It offers multiple coupons and deals for each restaurant, which are easily redeemable at favorite local eateries. These deals are effortless to redeem as they only require you to select the offer and show it to the cashier.
Eateries that partner with Good Life include Berkeley favorites such as RareTea, Seniores Pizza, and Koja Kitchen. Since the coupons are redeemable at popular locations, you can make the most of your visit and continue to get the meals you love for a lower price or even for free when such deals are available.
The coupons offered by Good Life range in value from 20% off of your entire order to getting an entire pizza pie for five dollars. Goodlife also has coupons for other services such as haircuts, printing, and clothing, allowing you to save on those purchases too.
Good Life is currently only for use in Berkeley and other East Bay cities in California—however, this may change in the future. Regardless, Good Life Coupons offers amazing deals which every student and foodie should have on their phones.
Ibotta
Ibotta is another valuable discount food app. Unlike Good Life and Snackpass, which focus more on restaurants, Ibotta allows you to save on grocery purchases. For instance, I was able to earn back $5.50 on one grocery trip.
The app includes offers on a variety of items from bagel bites to taquitos and ice cream. Ibotta also has generic cashback offers for any brand of items such as pasta sauce, bananas, and bread. With Ibotta, you can combine cash back offers with other coupons. I was able to get a bottle of kombucha for free after using both a grocery store coupon and the money back offer from Ibotta.
Ibotta is simple to use—you only need to take a picture of your receipt and select which offers available were purchased. It is as simple as “snap, select, reward.”
Ibotta also offers a percentage cash back on certain purchases from online retailers made through the app such as Amazon, Best Buy, Sephora, and eBay. There is even a $20 welcome bonus once you begin redeeming offers, making Ibotta even more of a great deal when you sign up.
With Ibotta, you earn cash back for items you would have already purchased and are incentivized to try new products. For this reason alone, Ibotta is a necessary food app to save on grocery shopping.
In today's day and age where an avocado can cost as much as $3 and an average outside meal costs $12.75, it is a no brainer to save money whenever you can. With that being said, why spend more money when you could get the same food for a cheaper price after utilizing food apps?
Since the money saved could be used towards a rainy day fund, spring break fund, or simply another meal out, every college foodie should download these three food apps. By downloading Snackpass, Good Life Coupons, and Ibotta, you can save money on meals and groceries while simultaneously earning rewards and cash back.