Shopping at CVS

My favorite store to shop at is CVS. I can’t get all my shopping done there, but I seem to find the best deals there.




The very first thing you need to do to go shopping at CVS is sign up for an Extra Care Card. Very important!!! This is what enables you to get the greatest deals. https://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/user/extracare/extracare.jsp;jsessionid=z8pGMN1ZnG1SQGR6mB5dJL5d7Zvp3TQ1YfVKLvMhVCCpvy46G8FL!-2081313833



You will get in the mail a credit card sized card and two small cards for your key chains. I forget how long this takes to show up, but sign up for it right away so that you can start saving as soon as possible. If you don’t have a card, the cashier might scan a “generic” card (or her own card? Who knows?) to enable you to get the sale prices, but you are still missing some of the things that make the Extra Care program so great.



When you get your card, make sure you can log in to the CVS website and that your card is attached to your account. This enables you to receive coupons in your email every so often, and sometimes those coupons are pretty spectacular! My biggest savings often come from using those emailed coupons. Often these coupons give you a certain amount off of a total transaction amount. These coupons can be applied BEFORE your coupons and ECB, which means your total OOP can drop dramatically.



Some CVS stores now have a price scanner somewhere near the front of the store. It is also a coupon printer. YAY! Scan your Extra Care card and it will print out some coupons for you. I’ve gotten as many as five or six in one shot. They usually have very short expiration dates, so you’ll want to decide right at the moment if it’s something that you want to use. Look them over well so you don’t miss something good! I very seldom actually use the price scanner option since I very seldom pay full price, but it is helpful sometimes if you’re trying to make sure you’ve picked up the right item for a sale.



Make sure to scan your card with the cashier every time you make a purchase. CVS uses your Extra Care card to track your quarterly spending, and at the end of the quarter, you are awarded with a certain percentage (1% or 2%) of your spending back in Extra Care Bucks (ECB). You can either log into your account and print them from the website, or they will print on your receipt on your next transaction at the beginning of the next quarter. These ECB spend like money at CVS. They are nontransferable, and you have to have your card scanned when you use them.



ECB are also awarded for buying certain items, the same as Register Rewards at Walgreens. You buy such and such item for X amount, and X amount of ECB prints on your receipt. They print on THE END of your receipt rather than on a separate piece of paper like at Walgreens. Make sure to check the expiration date on these so you don’t lose out on your deal. And of course, keep track of them! If you lose them before you spend them, it’s like throwing money away.



If you read the Walgreens directions, you’ll remember that you can’t “roll” RR. Meaning, you can’t pay for an item with RR earned from an identical item and still earn the RR again? At CVS, you can. You can buy an item for $5.00, earn $5.00 ECB and go back and buy the same item again with those ECB and get ECB again. Make sense? It’s alright if it doesn’t. It’s a little tedious to shop that way, but some people do.



Just like Walgreens and HEB, you can stack coupons. If CVS has a coupon for an item, you can use it with a manufacturer’s coupon for the same item. You can also use manufacturer’s coupons on sales.



Before you go in the store, have an idea of what you are going to buy and how your coupons are going to serve you. It’s a lot easier to sort out at home than in the store. But be flexible. Sometimes things are sold out!



Again, just like at Walgreens, you might want to do several transactions in order to use ECB from one transaction to pay for the next transaction. Just be nice to the people paying full price and let them go ahead if you have several transactions to do.



When you’re at the register, hand your coupons to the cashier in this order: $ off transaction coupons (VERY IMPORTANT that this goes first!), CVS store coupons and manufacturer’s coupons, then ECB, and very last, money to make up whatever balance you might have left.



Now that you (hopefully) understand CVS and ECB better, go take a look at your CVS ad and see what kind of deals you can work out. Let us know what you find! If you have any questions, please ask and we’ll get it figured out.