CVS 101:
First off, 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 number, so if they don’t scan your card, you don’t 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 gradually and branch out into doing more complicated deals with experience.
Almost every week, there are one or two items advertised as 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). You can use this coupon on your next purchase just like cash, with only a few exceptions (stamps, gift cards, alcohol, or tobacco products).
So to start, check your local ad and find out what products to buy that week which generate an ECB that is the purchase price you paid. Once you buy the item, you will receive an ECB at the bottom of your receipt which you can 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 ECB’s over and over and over, so your goal should always be to use the ECB’s you earned from your last transaction to buy something in your next transaction which will earn you the same amount or more in ECB’s 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 very little out of pocket and earning enough ECB’s to go back and do it again the next week.
In some instances, items you are buying are actually less expensive than the ECB they will generate and thus you will “make money” by buying them. For example, Addidas deodrant is on sale for $2.49 and generates a $3 ECB. So, after tax, you "made money" buying it since you got more back in ECBs than you spent out of pocket. If you have any coupons (say $1/1 coupons for this deodorant), you will "make even more money." So, you could go in and buy (1) Addidas deodorant for $2.49, use a $1/1 coupon, pay only $1.49 out of pocket, and get $3 ECBs back to use on your next purchase! This is what we refer to in coupon-world as a "money-maker" or “overage”.
(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 items you can buy per card which will generate ECBs. Usually it is between 1-5 stated in small lettering underneath the deal in your weekly ad.
There are weekly deals and monthly deals.
Sometimes, CVS 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. I can only be done the number of times the limit is for that 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 really have fun! 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. Take the Addidas deodorant deal mentioned above, you could do the deal a total of five times, since the limit for that deal is 5. You could go in, spend $1.49 out of pocket, get $3 ECBs. Then, take that $3 ECBs and buy (2) more deodorants (using (2) more $1/1 coupons) and your total would be $3. Use the $3 ECB you just earned on your first transaction to pay for your second transaction, then you pay only tax and still have $6 ECBs. Take the $6 ECBs you just earned, buy (3) more deodorants (using (3) more $1/1 coupons), add another $1.50 item from CVS (say you need toilet paper), 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” (combine them with), a manufacturer’s coupon.
Take the Addidas deodorant deal again: 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 OOP (Out Of Pocket)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 all the other deals you are doing. The $3/$15 or $4/20 are coupons which often print at the bottom of your receipt. 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", If I stack a $3/$15 coupon along with the deals I am already doing, 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 generate more ECB’s, or I'll use it to pay for something we need that week (like toilet paper or milk) This way, I lower normal grocery bill, without costing me any more.
As long as 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. You want to make sure to use these coupons first, before you give any other coupons to the cashier. By the way, if haven’t done so already, you can also go sign up for email offers and instantly get a $4/$20 coupon. Plus, when you sign up for email offers, they email coupons quite often!
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
- $3/$15 coupons
- CVS coupons
- manufacturer’s coupons
- EcB’s
If you have an ECB that is for more than what your total is, they can either manually reduce it down or you can add on another small item to make up the difference
There is a fabulous link here that explains the full CVS 101 tutorial by Money Saving Mom.
Sometimes I use the chart below to help me when planning my scenarios:
Walgreens 101:
Walgreens has two different types of deals to take advantage of:
1) Coupon Stacking - The Monthly Store Coupon catalog and the weekly store fliers that include a number of store coupons which are good all month or all week. Since these are store coupons, they can be stacked with manufacturer's coupons. For this reason I grab two or more than one of the Monthly booklets. You'll want to have extras of these when you plan your shopping trips. That way, you can plan out your transactions and put all of the coupons you'll need in an envelope along with your shopping list.
2) Register Rewards - The Register Rewards program is a brand-new program that Walgreens has recently started. Similar to the CVS Extra Care Bucks, when you buy a certain item, you will get a printed coupon after you checkout called a "Register Reward or RR" which you can use like cash on your next purchase. They usually only have a few of these per week, and many times it is not completely free. However, by adding on a store coupon and/or a manufacturer's coupon, you are often able to get the item for free or almost free after the Register Rewards.
Unlike CVS, the Register Rewards (RR) are not tied to a store card. Instead, they just print out for everyone who buys that particular item or items that week. Because of this, there is no limit on how many of one deal you can do. That said, they have recently tightened their system so that you usually cannot roll the same RR over and over again on the same deal.
For instance, a few weeks back, they were running a Proctor and Gamble Buy $25, Get $10 in RR promotion and they were also running a Unilever Buy $20, Get $10. With store coupons, manufacturer's coupons, and the Register Rewards, I was getting most of these items for almost free. However, I couldn't do the P&G deal over and over using the $10 RR to pay for my next transaction after coupons, since the computer is programmed not print out another $10 RR for the same manufacturer. So, you can just do the deals once, or you can do the deals multiple times and do what I did: Do multiple transactions and alternate between the P&G deal and the Unilever deal(these are different manufacturers). This way, you keep rolling the RR's over and over, paying very little out of pocket.
Very Important:
Walgreen's cash register system is set totally different than CVS. So if you are used to shopping at CVS and always paying less than a $1 for a few bags of groceries, you might find yourself frustrated at first. I've spent some time figuring out what works best and here are my tips.
1) You must have as many items as you have coupons. The computer is programmed not to accept any more coupons than you have items. So, make sure and tally up your items and coupons before you check out. The Register Rewards (RR) count as a coupon just like the store coupons, so count those, too. If you have more items than coupons, add on a few cheap items so that you have the same number of items as coupons.
2) In order to get your total down to the lowest amount possible and for the register to accept all of your coupons, the order you give your coupons in is very important. So far, I've never met a Walgreen's cashier who knew how to manually push a coupon through. So if you're coupon won't go through, it won't go through. That's why it's important that you have as many items as coupons and that you hand your coupons over in the correct order.
Here's the best coupon order so far as I know:
-Register Rewards first
-Then manufacturer's coupons
-Then store coupons
3) If for some reason they cannot get a coupon to go through, request that they void the item off of your order. It's much easier to just void it off right then and not pay for it, then to try and mess with it later.
There is a fabulous link here that explains the full Walgreens 101 tutorial by Money Saving Mom.
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