CVS

CVS 101

CVS is a great place to find great deals, but first you need to know the CVS rules.

With CVS you need to have and CVS Care Card, they are just like any other store card, and CVS will gladly give them to you for free.

Extra Care Bucks

The big thing about CVS is the Extra Care Bucks or ECB’s. ECB’s are earned by buying certain items that are on sale that week. ECB’s are like store credit, you can buy anything in the store excluding, lottery tickets, alcohol, gift cards, and stamps. Often you will find products that will be a “money maker’ one example is

Colgate is on sale for $3.99 and you will earn 3.99 ECB’s, however CVS will let you use a coupon if you have one, so say you have a coupon for $1 off and you use it. You will spend $2.99 however you will still earn 3.99 ECB’s.

A few things to know about the ECB’s: they are card specific so you can only use them on the card you bought the product with. Say you and your husband have a card, and you with your card bought the Colgate, only you with your card can use the ECB’s.

Also, if you have an ECB for 3.99 you must spend at least $3.99 to use the ECB at most stores.

CVS Receipts

CVS receipts are full of good things. The most important thing is that the ECB’s print at the bottom of your receipts. The receipts also tell you if you have reached your limit on a particular item, if an item generates ECB’s there will be a limit on how many times you can purchase that item with the same card. Also there is a running total of how much you have saved and spent for the year. It really is fun to see how much money you save vs. spent through out the year.

I look at CVS as kind of a sport, how much product I can get for little money out of my pocket.

So the object is to spend as little money out of pocket as possible. You do this buy “rolling” your ECB’s. This means, spend your ECB’s on items that will generate more ECB’s, and using coupons to help generate even more ECB’s. I do take time to plan my trips using my coupons on hand and store coupons. If I have between 15-20 ECB’s I feel that I can play the game very well. I also believe that if I have more then 20-25 ECB to spend them on items like milk, or high end facial products or even the Sunday paper for more coupons.

CVS Ads

CVS always has two ads running at the same time. First there are the monthly ads; these prices will run for the whole month. If you find an item you want in the monthly ad buy in early in the month, CVS often sells out of items that are in the monthly ads.

Next is the weekly ad, the week goes from Sunday to Saturday. The weekly ads are only good for one week, and sometimes if it really is a good buy they will sell out of these items early in the week.

CVS’s coupon policy is as follows:

You may use a Store coupon and a Manufacture coupon on the same item. So if you have a CVS coupon for a razor and a manufactures coupon for the same razor you can use both coupons on the one razor. That being said, you must buy as many or more items that you have coupons for. If you are using 10 coupons, be sure to buy at least 10 items.

You may use internet coupons.

If CVS is having a sale that you buy one item and get a second free, and you have a coupon that says if you buy one item and get a second one free. You may use your coupon and both items will be free.

If CVS is having a sale that you buy one item and get the second item free, you may use two coupon one for each item, yes you will be able to use a coupon on the free item.

Most CVS’s will not credit you more that the item cost, so if you are buying an item for .99 and the coupon in for $1, CVS will lower the value of your coupon to .99.

Every week CVS runs some kind of special that if you buy $15 worth of a certain product you will earn 5 ECB’s. The $15 is before coupons, you might be spending less than $15 buy using coupons.

All of these rules vary on the Manager at the Store, however most stores honor these rules.

Extra Care Card

After you have had your card for a few weeks, you will begin to earn CRT (Cash Register Tapes) you will get these one of two ways. The best way is when you walk into the store you will see a devise that looks like a price check scanner (most of the time they are blue) scan your card and the CRT’s will pop out the side of the machine. The second way is when you check out; they will print on your receipt after your ECB’s. Like the ECB’s they are card specific. CRT’s are considered store coupons, and can be used with manufactures coupons.

You will also want to register your card on the CVS website; CVS will email you a coupon for $4/20 and send you coupons to your email often. So if you spend $20 before coupons you will receive $4 off.

2% Back

Four times a year you will receive an ECB for 2% of the money you have spent for the quarter. They are called winter, spring, summer and Fall spending.

Prescriptions

Often the Sunday paper will have a coupon, saying that if you switch your prescriptions to CVS you will get a $25 gift card to CVS. This will work on new prescriptions even if it is covered by your insurance. So before you go to the doctor, Google “CVS prescription coupons” it’s a great way to make CVS money.

Stacking

Now and again you will get a CRT for $3 off 10 worth of CVS brand and a $4/20 if you use both it is called stacking and some stores and people do not think it is right to do this. Now if you buy $20 worth of product and $10 worth of CVS brand for a total of $30 go ahead and use both. Some stores will let you use both even if your total is not $30 but is over $20, it really is up to you if you want to do it. I will not be posting about stacking my blog, because it the subject is touchy around the CVS community.

Final Word

I will be posting all the CVS finds on the Greenstew, I must admit I do spend time figuring out how I will shop at CVS each week however it is so worth it. I am writing this in April of 2008, year to date I have spent $198 and saved $1589.98. My family is fully stocked on all health and beauty items, and I am able to donate a lot of good stuff to people who are in need.