Since I’ve mentioned some of the
CVS deals for the week here, there have been a lot of readers who have
emailed in with questions on how CVS works. I spent a good few hours
researching how to “do” CVS when I first began and sometimes forget how
complex it can seem when you first start out!
For
those of you who are still trying to figure things out, what follows is
a CVS 101 Primer:
First off, in order to take advantage of any of the deals at CVS, you need to have a CVS store nearby. Check here to see if that's the case.
If so, you will need to apply for a CVS card. You
can do this online or in-store. If you do it in-store, you can begin
using your card right away, so this is the best option.
Always have them scan your card before they start ringing up your transaction.
All of the deals are tied to your card account number, so if they don’t
scan your card, you won’t be able to get any of the deals.
Once you have signed up and received your CVS card, you are ready to do your first CVS transaction. I recommend you start off with only one or two items. Keep it very simple so that you can learn the ropes and gradually branch out into doing more complicated deals.
Almost
every week, there are one or two items which are advertised as
completely free after ECBs. What this means is that you will buy the
item--paying out of pocket for it--and then you will receive a
“coupon” at the end of your receipt which will be for the amount of the
item purchased. This coupon is called an “Extra Care Buck” (or ECB as
we refer to them online). You can use this coupon on your next purchase just like cash,
with only a few exceptions (i.e. you can’t buy stamps or gift cards
with them--the fine print on the ECB explains a little more in detail).
So to start out, you would check
your local ad and find out what product you needed to buy that week
which would generate an ECB that was the purchase price you paid.
Once you bought the item, you would receive an ECB at the bottom of
your receipt which you could use like cash on your next transaction,
thus making that item in essence, “free.”
It is not entirely free in that you paid for it out of pocket, however, once
you have paid for the item out of pocket and earned an ECB, you can
then use that ECB you earned to pay for the next transaction.
You want to keep rolling your ECBs over and over and over, so your goal
should always be to use the ECBs you earned from your last transaction,
to buy something in the next transaction which will earn you the same
amount or more ECBs than you spent.
My
goal is to spend as little money out of pocket as possible and to roll
over my ECBs to be the same amount or more as the ECBs I spent. By
doing this, I usually will get $15-$50 worth of groceries and household
items normally paying less than $1 out of pocket and earning enough ECBs to go
back and do it again the next week.
In some instance, the item you are buying is actually less expensive than the ECB it will generate and thus you will “make money” by
buying it. For instance, one week recently, the Addidas deodrant was on sale for
$2.49 and generated a $3 ECB. So, even after tax, you
"made money" buying it since you got more back in ECBs than you spent out of pocket in the first place. And if you have any coupons (there were $1/1
coupons for this particular deodorant out recently), you will "make even more money."
In this case, you could go in and buy 1 Addidas deodorant that was part of this promotion for $2.49, use a $1/1 coupon, pay only $1.49 out of pocket, and you'd get $3 ECBs back to use on your next purchase! This is what we refer to in coupon-world as a "money-maker".
(Please
note: You will not be actually "making money" in that the store will be
paying you cash for shopping there, but you will be "making money" in that you will be spending less out of pocket than you get back in ECBs.)
Most
of the time, there is a limit on how many of an item you can buy per
card which will generate ECBs. Usually it is somewhere between 1-5 and
will be stated in small lettering underneath the deal in your ad.
There are weekly deals and monthly deals.
The weekly deals are advertised in the weekly fliers and the monthly
deals (which are good for the entire month) are advertised in the
monthly ECB booklet, which should be available at all stores all month
long.
Sometimes, they will advertise a monthly deal in the weekly
flier. This is usually just to draw more attention to the deal.
However, this does not normally mean the deal can be done both weekly
and monthly (doing it twice that month), you can only do it two times,
or five times, or whatever number of times the limit is for the month.
Once
you have started figuring out the weekly and monthly free-after-ECB
deals, you can start moving up to more complicated deals and this is
when the fun really begins! Your goal should be to not only roll your
ECBs over and over week after week after week, but to "grow" them so you have "overage" to use towards other groceries you need.
How do
you "grow" your ECBs? Well, the easiest way is by stacking a manufacturer’s coupon with the free-after-ECB deals.
For
instance, if the Addidas deodorant deal mentioned above were going on this week, you could do the deal a total of five times, since that is the limit. You could go in and spend $1.49 out of pocket to get $3 ECBs.
Then, take that $3 ECBs and buy two more deodorants (using 2 $1/1 coupons) so after the coupons, your total would be $3. Use the $3 ECB you just earned on your first transaction to pay for your second transaction, and you'd pay only tax and then have $6 ECBs.
Take the $6 ECBs you just earned and buy 3 more deodorants (using 3 more $1/1 coupons, if you have them), add on another $1.50 item from CVS you can use (toilet paper, etc.), and then pay for your items with the $6 ECB, again only paying tax out of pocket.
You'll leave the store with 5 deodorants, another $1.50 item, and $9 in ECBs to use on your next trip. All for less then $2 out of pocket!
The
next step into more complicated transactions is to start stacking CVS
coupons and manufacturer’s coupons along with the ECB deals. Once you have shopped at CVS using your card for 4-8 weeks, your receipt will automatically begin printing other CVS coupons. You’ll
want to save all of these until they expire and check them against the
deals for each week. Since these are store coupons, not manufacturer’s
coupons, you can “stack them” (i.e. use them in conjunction with), a
manufacturer’s coupon.
To
take the example of the Addidas deodorant above: Let’s say my receipt
had printed off a coupon for $1 off any Addidas deodorant last week. I
could use that on one Addidas deodorant along with a $1/1
manufacturer’s coupon. This would mean that I’m only paying $0.49 for
the deodorant (using ECBs I’ve rolled over, of course!) and getting $3
ECB back.
Another way to make your ECBs grow more, is to use $3/$15 or $4/$20 coupons in conjunction with the other deals you are doing.
The $3/$15 or $4/20 are coupons which often print at the bottom of your
receipt. They are also sometimes available in your newspaper--especially if you live in an area where there is a lot of drug store
competition.
For those not familiar with these coupons, a $3/$15 is a
coupon which is just that--you get $3 off of a $15 or more purchase. I
look at these as "free money", meaning, if I'm going to already be
spending $15.50 and after coupons and ECBs be paying basically $0.00
out of pocket in order to generate the same amount of ECBs that I
spent, if I stack on a $3/$15 coupon, I can get $3 more worth of
groceries without paying anything extra. So, I'll use this extra
"money" to buy something that is around $3 and generates more ECB, or
I'll use it to pay for something we need that week--say toilet paper
or milk, etc. That way, it is lowering my normal grocery bill, without
costing me any more.
Provided you have over $15 or $20 worth of products (before coupons, not after
coupons), you can stack these coupons on top of any of the previously
mentioned deals, too. You will want to make sure and use these coupons
first, though, before you give your other coupons to the cashier.
Otherwise, the register could have trouble inputting them.
By the way,
if you've not done so already, you can also go here
and sign up for email offers and you’ll instantly get a $4/$20 coupon.
Plus, when you sign up for email offers, they often email you coupons,
too!
Oftentimes, there are weekly and monthly
deals which generate ECBs, but which are not free after ECBs. These can
still be good, so don't overlook them. Paired with a manufacturer's
coupon, or CVS coupon, or a $3/$15 coupon, or a mixture of all three,
you can often get the item for free or close to free. I don't do this
as often as I do the free-after-ECB items, but now that I have a stash
of ECBs accumulated, I will often look at these deals and see if I can
work one into my weekly shopping trip.
When
you are checking out and doing a more complicated transaction, you will
want to make sure and have your coupons in good order so that your
transaction goes smoothly. The best way I have found to do this,
is to always give $3/$15 (etc.) coupons first. Then give any other CVS
coupons, then your manufacturer’s coupons. And lastly, give your ECBs.
If you have an ECB that is for more than what your total is, they can
either manually reduce it down and just take off the amount for your
total (and thus you lose the rest of your ECB), or you can add on
another small item to make up the difference.
I always bring my
calculator and tally up the total after coupons to try and make sure I
throw in an extra item or two if I need to. It’s best to go up to the
register with a very good idea of how much you are going to be spending
anyway, so calculating it up ahead of time is highly recommended.
Now I just have to figure out how to get it up on the door--that's one of the projects on the to-do list for Saturday!
I also received a few fun freebies in the mail this week including a Schick razor, a book from PaperBackSwap that I've been wanting for ages, magazines, and some tea from Celestial Seasonings. I loves me some freebies!
