theFIREstarter

I’ve spoken briefly about Top CashBack before in my post on Moneydashboard (because they were offering £8 cashback just for using the free service! Read the article for more details), but it’s such a good website I think it deserves a post all of it’s own. I noticed yesterday that they are doing a special January Health Kick offer of a free 1KG bag of MyProtein Whey powder for free, so it kicked me into action to write about TopCashback and spread the word about the offer, which is perfectly timed for anyone hitting the gym hard this January!

If you just want the Protein offer then skip to how to sign up and read the T&Cs here.

How does Top CashBack work?

It’s as simple as that strange guy Simon, who likes telling people what to do:

• Sign up for a free account

• The next time you want to make an online purchase, load up Top CashBack first, then use the search box:

• They cover a large range of goods and services providers so you should find what you need easily.
• Then just click on “Get Cashback Now” button on the vendor section you require, which clicks through to their website, purchase your item, and wait for the money to hit your account
• Input your bank details and withdraw your cash! (The minimum threshold is 1p – i.e. effectively there is no minimum limit, how refreshing is that!)

So as you can see it’s easy enough, the key is to remember actually going on there before buying something but you soon get into the habit. There are also a few little tips and tricks I’ve gathered over the last few months of using it so I’ll let you in on all of them, being the rather nice chap I am and all that!

My Simple Strategy for using Top CashBack

Here are a few tips for getting the most out of the site:

1. Search online for the best price (using comparison websites etc…) for what you are after before going onto Top CashBack (TC), then search for the exact company you are looking for on TC. If you don’t find the company on there then it’s probably not worth buying it through TC using another more expensive company. (See power user tips for the caveat on that though)

2. Great things to purchase through TC with decent percentages of cashback are: car insurance, house (buildings and contents) insurance, electronic gadgets, white goods, clothes, furniture, and pretty much anything from any high street retailer. Obviously you should just search for anything you are going to or could possibly buy online though!

3. StashBack – turn your CashBack account into a StashBack one by letting all the small amounts build up! I’ve got about £75 in mine from around 6 months of usage. It obviously comes in handy over Christmas ¹ or any other times where you are spending out a lot of money (moving house, refurbishing a room in your house, having a baby, etc…). Anyway, the more you leave it to build up, the better it will feel when you withdraw the money, to use on something nice like a holiday buying some Vanguard shares. Oh yea baby!

Power User Tips for Top CashBack

1. Do the math! – In relation to tip one above, obviously if you are purchasing a big ticket item it still may be worth going through TC with a slightly more expensive company, compared to just using the company with the overall lowest price. Some simple maths will help you decide! For example:

You find a nice Jelly NailGun on a price comparison website at Jelly NailGuns R Us for the bargain price of £400, however you cannot find this company on Top CashBack. The second best price is at Jelly NailGuns Ltd at £420. The cashback on offer is 10%, so:

£420 – 10% (£42) = £378, which is obviously cheaper and you should still purchase this item through Top CashBack and Jelly NailGuns Ltd.

2. Cashback Notifier – Use the Top CashBack Browser extension and it will alert you when you are on a vendor website that offers CashBack! So you will never forget to buy something without claiming your cashback

3. Dealing with Issues – Some sites are slow to pay or actually come back with a refused transaction. There are two solutions to this, one is to be patient (for slow payers. TC do tell you if a company is a “faster payer” which is pretty handy to know as well). The second, if they are taking forever or have refused to pay, is to raise a request with TC, who will look into it for you. I’ve had one claim refused, raised a request, and TC sorted it out for me within a reasonable amount of time, so happy days.

4. Recommend a friend – They run a scheme where you get £7.50 for every friend you recommend, who then goes on to earn £10 cashback (very easily doable with minimal purchases! In fact you could do this without spending a penny as there are many cashback items that are available when you sign up to free services, see below!)

5. Combine your purchases on a cash back credit card to eek another percentage point out of your transactions. (Note: If you sign up to an Amex Platinum CashBack card through Top CashBack right now you will get £26.25 cashback! This card has 1.25% across nearly all purchases and is the best cashback card I can find out there at the moment)

6. Free Cashback – As well as MoneyDashboard, which will get you around 8 quid cashback, there are a fair amount of other “No purchase necessary” offers. For example you can get £2.10 just for getting a car insurance quote from Go Compare. Just click on the “Free Cashback” tab on the right hand side of the menu bar.

Free CashBack!? Yes pleaaaase!

7. Alternative Cash out methods – You can take your cashback in other forms such as Tesco vouchers (there are loads in fact), where you normally get a 10% bonus. Great if you know you are going to spend them but I’m sticking with the £££’s 🙂

Finally, I would say that please remember to only use this excellent website for items you would have purchased anyway. Don’t sit there browsing through the vendor list thinking of things you can buy to “earn” cashback on… you know that would just be plain stupid, right!? Good! 🙂

I know there are other cashback websites out there (QuidCo for example) but I haven’t used them yet, and have been very happy with TC so far so that’s why I’ve written this post about them and not any of the others. I’d like to hear other’s experiences in using any cashback websites out there, let us know what is good and what is not!

Finally, here is how to get the free Protein powder for new users…. enjoy!

How to get the free MyProtein Whey Powder

• Sign up to TopCashback.co.uk* here (it’s free!)
• Find the ‘Free MyProtein Instant Whey!’ blog post, then using the voucher code displayed on the page
• Click through to the MyProtein website and make a purchase at the value of £10 or more
• £10 cashback will then track in your Top CashBack account within seven working days
• Wait around 14 days for the cashback to become ‘Payable’, then you can transfer into your bank

Terms and Conditions

As always please read the T&Cs carefully to make sure you qualify for the offer before making the purchase (unless you want some of that lovely Whey Protein powder in your life anyway of course! 🙂 )

• The “MyProtein – Top CashBack New Member Deal” is only available for new members with no previous purchases or cashback through TopCashback
• For clarification, MyProtein Instant Impact Whey Protein 1kg becomes free after £10 cashback is awarded. For cashback to cover the whole cost of the product, a voucher code displayed on the page must be used (please see voucher code terms and conditions for more details)
• The offer is available to new members from 10:00 05/01/2015
• The offer is limited to 5,000 redemptions on a first come first serve basis and is subject to stock availability
• For the “MyProtein – Top CashBack New Member Deal” transaction to be awarded at the promotional rate of £10 cashback the purchase must be made through the Top CashBack link on the “My Protein – TopCashback New Member Deal” offer page
• The offer can only be redeemed once per household
• The £10 cashback will only be available for pay-out via BACS payment

*Affiliate Links, I may receive a small fee if you sign up through these links which help pay for costs of running the site etc… If you do so then a massive thank you to you!

All images on this post are screen shots from the Top CashBack website and therefore I assume are copyrighted to them. If you (Top CashBack dudes) read this and want me to remove any of them please let me know and I will do so immediately!