From playing games to ‘receipt stacking’ – five free ways you didn’t know you could make cash from your phone

YOU could be spending your free time scrolling Instagram and TikTok endlessly – or you could be getting PAID for using your phone. Clever Brits are using these smart tricks to earn extra cash from their mobiles. From getting paid to play games to using receipt scanning apps, here’s all the ways you can earn without having to leave your sofa. Get paid to play mobile games You could get paid to play games on your mobile phone Credit: Alamy Whether you’re in front of the TV at home or lazing by the pool on holiday, you could be making a quick buck by playing games on your phone. Sign up for the Money newsletter Thank you! Apps including Mistplay, Nectar Arcade, JustPlay, Swagbucks and Cash’em All will pay you just for playing. Some of the apps will pay you in gift cards for popular brands like Amazon and Starbucks. For example, Mistplay rewards you with ‘units’ when you’ve played a game for a certain length of time. You can then redeem your units for £5 or £10 vouchers. The games include Viking Rise, Solitaire, Cooking Madness and The Walking Dead: Survivors. Other apps will let you withdraw cash to a PayPal account. Most read in Money Nectar Arcade pays you in Nectar points, which you can put towards your next Sainsbury’s food shop or days out. It has games including Township and Royal Match. Check your ‘boring’ apps for hidden freebies If you don’t check for hidden freebies on your phone then you could be missing out Credit: Getty Some of the apps on your phone could be hiding great freebies that would save you hundreds of pounds. Check out your apps for mobile and broadband companies, supermarkets, banks, breakdown cover and more. For example, our reporter Mel Hunter found fantastic freebies when she signed into her Lidl Plus app. They included a free one-day pass to The Gym Group which would usually cost £10, a free month of Super Duolingo which is worth £12.99, and £65 off Jet2 holidays bookings. Phone apps also tend to offer discounts. Virgin Media O2 is currently offering a free Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sandwich, 50% off Dragonpass airport lounges, and a free 60-day pass for Day Out With The Kids. Meanwhile, EE is giving new and upgrading customers six free months of Apple Music. If you’ve got breakdown cover, the AA offers dozens of deals for customes including 15% off at Greene King, Hungry Horse and Farmhouse Inns pubs, 20% off at ASK Italian and Zizzi and 30% off at Vue cinemas. Some banks give you freebies too – for example, Monzo gives customers cashback when they spend on brands like Burger King, Subway, Netflix and Superdrug. If you bank with Lloyds, you can sign up to Everyday Offers and get up to 15% cashback on your everyday spending with certain retailers when you use your debit card. Try ‘receipt stacking’ Receipt stacking is a great way to get cashback on purchases you’ve already made Credit: Getty You can download apps that will pay you just for sharing a picture of your shopping receipt. The idea behind it is that companies get valuable shopping data, and you get cashback on purchases you’ve already made. The app will either pay you per receipt or for buying specific, featured products. You’ll usually get between 5p to 20p for any receipt, or £1 to £5 if you buy a featured product. You can cash out once you reach the minimum threshold, which is usually £1 to £10 depending on the app. Even better, as individual apps are owned by different parent companies, you can post the same receipt to two or more apps and claim the rewards from each of them. This trick is known as ‘receipt stacking’ and can be handy way to bag more rewards. However, remember to be quick. Apps often require you to upload them within a certain time window after you’ve bought the items in order to claim the reward. One app to try is Shoppix, which also offers the chance to complete surveys to collect more tokens that can be exchanged for rewards. GreenJinn is a receipt cashback app that gives you money back for buying specific items at major supermarkets, so if you regularly buy a featured product this could be a great option. The app claims you can save up to £1,500 a year in cashback from its offers when shopping online and in-store. Claim cashback Apps including TopCashback can help you earn rewards on your spending Credit: Alamy Using cashback apps is a great way to fight against rising prices and put money back in your pocket. Cashback apps get a commission from brands when you shop through their platform – sort of like a finder’s fee – and then pass some of that on to you. To use them, you usually download the app and sign up for free, click through to a retailer via the cashback site or app, then shop as normal. The cashback is then paid into your account. However, be careful not to rely on it as it can take weeks or even months to arrive. But cashback is never guaranteed. It may be declined if you use a discount code that is not approved or if you return your purchase. Also, don’t assume that because you get cashback you are getting the best deal. Shop around to compare prices as an item may be cheaper overall elsewhere, even without cashback. Some cashback apps work via a gift card system where you buy a digital gift card for your chosen retailer to then use in store or online. In this case it’s buying the gift card that gets you the cashback and some apps like JamDoughnut put the cashback in your account shortly after. Other popular cashback apps include TopCashback, which Sun Money recently rated as the best all-rounder cashback app. It’s free to set up an account and you could earn hundreds of pounds a year. And Sprive that can help save you thousands of pounds by using the cashback you earn to make overpayments on your mortgage. Rewards for walking You could get hundreds of pounds just for getting your steps in Credit: Alamy If you always get your 10,000 steps in then don’t miss out on a range of free apps that pay you to walk. These apps work by monitoring your step count using your phone’s pedometer and GPS or by connecting to a fitness tracker, such as a smart watch. When you walk certain distances you earn points that can be converted into vouchers to spend on days out, free coffee or shopping vouchers. One of the best on offer is Winwalk, which rewards you with gift cards for tracking your daily steps. You earn one coin for every 100 steps you walk, up to a daily limit. You can then exchange your points for vouchers to spend at retailers including Amazon, Tesco and Google Play. You need around 21,000 steps for a £10 gift card, so walking regularly is key. Another option is Sweatcoin, where you can compete in challenges and earn rewards. The app lets you turn your steps into gift cards, partner offers and exclusive rewards. Once you’ve download the app it runs in the background, so you don’t need to think about it. Meanwhile, if you have a health or life insurance policy with Vitality then you can download its app, which allows you to track your steps and exercise. You can then earn points and weekly active rewards, such as free coffee and discounted cinema tickets. All the apps are available on Apple and Android. Comment now