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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Shopping at CVS starting guide

One of my favorite stores to get awesome deals at is CVS. I love them for many reasons: they have an awesome rewards program, they except coupons, they are EVERYWHERE, and I have found most of the staff extremely nice. Here are the ways to make your dollar really stretch at CVS. (I cringe when I have to pay full price for any household item: toothpaste, paper towels, detergent, toilet paper, etc.)


First off, if you don't have a CVS card... you need to get one. You can go into your local store and get one or sign up online. Their card allows you to receive special in-store coupons (they print at a kiosk at the store), it rewards you for buying featured items in their weekly ad, and it gives you special gifts. (last week I got for free a hand sanitizer pen!) So go get a card.


Now that you have a card here is how you maximize your savings:


CVS has a rewards program that is called Extra Care Bucks. Literally, for buying certain things featured in the weekly ad at the store, you will get money back to spend at CVS at a later time. (they print out on the bottom of your receipt when you check out)


You then can use this "cash" to buy other things that will reward even more extra care bucks.


Now here is where you can really maximize is by using manufacturer coupons on products to stretch out your extra care bucks even further.


Let's do an example:

Last week I bought some Celsius Green Tea at CVS. It was on sale for $7.99 but if you bought it and had a CVS card (which I do) you were to get $7.99 extra care bucks printed at the end of your receipt. Meaning next time you went to the store you had a free $7.99 to get whatever you wanted.

Now here is where the deal gets even better-- I had two different coupons for the Celsius Green Tea. Both where manufacturer coupons. One was a $2 off coupon from the internet and the other was a $3 off coupon from the newspaper.

CVS lets you stack coupons...which means combining an internet coupon with a printed one!

Therefore I only paid $2.99 for the Celsius Green Tea but was still given $7.99 in extra care bucks to spend at a later time! I basically made money off of the product!


Now it can get even better because CVS sometimes will send out "special" coupons that take money off of your total order. They are coupons that look like this: $3/$15 or $5/$20.... meaning spend $20 dollars and take $5 off (making your total to $15) or spend $15 and take $3 off (making your total $12). I basically look at this money as free money. And it's a great way to maximize savings,


Think about it: on your next shop, if you used the $3/$15 coupon plus your extra care bucks $7.99 (continuing with the example above) You are only going to spend $5 out of pocket for $15 worth of stuff. Again if you were to use manufacturer coupons as well, you could make your costs even lower!

I have shopped at CVS before and paid .26( that's right 26 cents) for $30 worth of stuff! You really can make it work.


Now if you are starting out.. I recommend starting small. Buy just one or two items that offer you back ECB's (extra care bucks). Almost every week CVS has a deal that "is like getting the item for free" where they offer the money back in ECB's. (example: last week the Celsius Green Tea) I would start with something like that, just to get you going!


I am going to try and post later on today some deals that are coming for the new week at CVS (CVS ad week runs from Sun.- Sat.) Meaning this Sunday there are new deals.


I know it's a lot to take in. So if I missed anything or if you have any other questions please leave a comment or email me so I can make sure to clear it up! Thanks!

3 comments:

  1. Why are you up so early in the morning??? 5:30am? Also, here is a suggestion. When I go to other blogs, and I click a link on that blog then it takes me to a completely different page. But when I click on your links (like swagbucks or the restaurant one) it changes your page to the link...so then when I X out of the link you posted, I also X out of your page. But if you did it so the link pulled up a completely different page- then when I X out of that page, I can go back to yours. Does that make sense?

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  2. PS- I am so not up at 7:18 on a Saturday...

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  3. lol. yes, the time on my blog is off ( I have tried to change it a couple of times) and so I was not up at 5:38 this morning ( wish I was that dedicated). Also, I have noticed the "link" problem too. I am going to try and work on that over the next few days. Thanks for the feedback!

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