When you’re on the go and you want to find coupons, what do you do? Find mobile coupons with your cell phone!

If you have a smartphone, there are lots of free apps to help save you money on groceries, restaurants, shopping, health care services, and more.

Here is my review of 7 mobile coupon apps.

Choose one or two that you like the most so you don’t get overwhelmed.

1. Foursquare

Foursquare is a mobile  app that lets you check in to places, earn points, and unlock badges for discovering new things. If you check into a place more than anyone else, you become the “mayor” of that place. At some places like Starbucks, mayors earn certain privileges, like a discount or free item.

But for many places, you don’t have to become the mayor to get discounts. Some places offer coupons for free food or discount off merchandise just for checking in. I have checked into Sports Authority and to my surprise, found a $10 off coupon. I just showed the code from my phone at the register. Another time, I checked into WingStop and got free wings. My husband had already paid for our food before I found this coupon. But they still let us redeem the mobile coupon! So it’s worth it to check in because you never know what coupon is waiting there for you to unlock.

2. Groupon Now!

The popular daily deal site, Groupon, has expanded to instant deals called Groupon Now! Based on your location, you can use the mobile app to find deals on something to eat, get pampered, see a show, etc. These are deals that you must purchase beforehand to use at the business.

The caveat is that the deals expire the same day you buy it. For instance, if you bought a Round Table $10 for $18 instant deal, it expires at 8:00pm. However, the cool thing is that if you don’t redeem it in time, Groupon will give you an automatic refund so you won’t have buyer’s remorse.

3. GeoQpons

Shows nearby deals for a wide variety of businesses – clothing stores, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. A lot of the coupons are scanned images. You’re supposed to show it to the cashier so they can scan the barcode. There’s no guarantee that the business will accept your coupon because there’s a disclaimer right on the coupon that says the “business reserves the right to refuse offer.” Comforting, isn’t it? Maybe it’s just a blanket disclaimer to protect them if a business refuses a coupon.

I do like that it lists the latest coupons for an extensive list of nearby businesses that you can’t find through any other mobile coupon app. These coupons are not exclusive to GeoQpons but are the latest coupons you can find for that particular business. They even list the latest Costco coupons! It’s great for reference purposes. And I’m sure I’ll keep referring to this app for the latest mobile coupons.

4. Coupons.com

Quite a few mobile coupon apps use Coupons.com as their coupon database. Why not go straight to the source? I find their app easy to navigate. You can see all of the coupons without clicking onto another page, just scroll down. Then you can add them directly to your store card or have your coupons sent to your email to print later.

5. Grocery IQ

This is a grocery list builder and coupon database together. It has great reviews in the iTunes store and I downloaded this months ago. But I find it hard to use even though I read through the long set of instructions.

If you can get past this, then you can scan barcodes to find coupons and build a grocery list. When you go grocery shopping, you can check off what you buy and the item disappears from your list. You can also sort by aisle and share your grocery list. They use Coupons.com as their coupon database. I’d rather use the Coupons.com app since it’s simpler.

6. Cellfire

Cellfire works with a limited selection of grocery stores like Kroger, Cala, Ralphs, etc. to offer coupons that you load directly to your savings card. See the full list of grocery stores here. None of these stores are in my area. So check to see if they are in yours.

7. Yowza

Seems promising except it has only 2 star reviews in the iTunes store. They only had a few coupons near me. But they did have a coupon for GuitarCenter and REI which I’ve never seen anywhere else.

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