CVSing

I only paid 60 cents for all of those items at CVS, and increased my ECB's! Keep reading to find out more...

I started the "CVS Game" a few months ago to see if it really does work. I had never heard anything about this until recently. I have had a CVS card for quite a while (similar to a Kroger or Randall's card). I remember in the past those ECB (Extra Care Bucks) things printing out at the end of my receipt and I would think - oh great, I'll have to use that on my next purchase. But then those receipts would just get lost in the black hole of my purse of the abyss of my car, never to be seen again. Now I look back on those days and think....how could I have been so foolish? :) I am like the person who throws away the Bed Bath & Beyond coupons. Crazy!

Let me start out by saying CVS is expensive. It is quick. It is convenient. It is a drugstore. What do you expect? Of course it is going to be considerably more expensive than somewhere like HEB or Walmart. With that in mind, it only makes sense to shop there if you are doing the ECB system.

Here is my goal in shopping at CVS - to get most our hygiene products for free or almost free, and therefore reduce our grocery bill. This would include toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream, razors, body wash, face wash, etc.

There are tons of blogs dedicated to explaining the whole CVS game - such as MoneySavingMom, or IHeartCVS. The basic idea though, is that there are certain products each week at CVS that give you Extra Care Bucks (ECB's). So for example, the weekly ad may say - Buy Colgate toothpaste at $3.99 and get a $3.99 ECB. When you buy the toothpaste, the ECB will print out at the end of your receipt, and will expire in one month. You save that and use it like cash on your next purchase. There are some restrictions to how you use it - such as you can't buy gift cards, etc. This makes the toothpaste practically free, although you will have to pay out of pocket the $3.99 the first time. Other items may give ECB's for less that the total product, such as - buy body wash at $4.99, get $2 ECB's.

So the theory behind using ECB's is that you go to CVS the first week, and buy whatever items are free after ECB's (such as the Colgate toothpaste example). This first trip you will be paying out of pocket, and having to pay CVS high prices. But then the second week, you use the ECB's you got the first week, to pay for the products the second week that are free after ECB's. Then you just continue doing that week after week - rolling forward your ECB's.

Also, sometimes you can get products for even better than free. For example, in the Colgate toothpaste example, if you also had a manufacturer's coupon for $1.00 off, you could use that. Then you would only have to pay $2.99 for the toothpaste, but you would still get $3.99 in ECB's. Basically you would be making $1.00.

You don't have to figure out all the coupon match-ups yourself. I go to MakingCentsinTexas or MoneySavingMom each week to see what is free at CVS that week - and which coupons to combine.

This whole thing sounds great in theory, but there are a couple of things that could keep you from saving money.

ECB's have to be used exactly. So if you need to pay for an item that is $2.00, but you only havve a $3.00 ECB to use, they aren't going to give you a dollar back. They can manually mark down the price of the ECB to $2.00 (watch out, not all cashiers know how!) and you will effectively lose one dollar, or you can buy a filler item - such as candy. But then you are just sort of wasting money on something you don't need, and will have to pay a small amount out of pocket for the overage.

There are some weeks where there is nothing free at CVS. If there are no good deals, I just wait until the next week. Your ECB's expire one month from the date you get them, so you still have time to use them.

The new deals at CVS start each Sunday. I recommend shopping early in the week - on Sunday or Monday. The items that are free after ECB's for that week WILL sell out. You can get a rain check, but it is just better to start early to get the deals. When I am doing my shopping I am like a mad woman - swiftly walking all over the store snatching up the products, eyeing the other customers thinking - You better not be headed over to the refrigerator to buy the last free vitamin water, I will take you down! Ok, I wouldn't really :) The other customers are probably completely unaware the ECB program even exists, and do not present a threat at all.

Now you may be thinking - do you end up buying stuff you don't need?

Absolutely.

The items that are free after ECB's may or may not be things we need. Toothpaste is a common one. We can always use that. It is good to stock up on it when you can get it free so that you don't have to pay for it later. We are also flexible on brands. I will use any brand of face wash, body wash, toothpaste, etc. if it is free. But some people might not like that. But then there are random things that are free that I end up buying like - Therma Wraps for neck or shoulders, or Soy Joy bars (imagine eating a slightly crunchy and grosser-than-normal fig newton...i think we have 5 left, any takers??), or glasses lens cloths. I would never buy those things normally. But if I can pay for them exactly in ECB's, and they return the same amount in ECB's - might as well get them, if only to extend the life of your ECB's so they don't expire.

Another reason I buy things that I don't need is because sometimes I need to reach a certain amount to get a better discount. About once a month CVS emails me a coupon for $4 off my purchase of $20, or $5 off my purchase of $25. So if I can buy enough things that are free after ECB's that add up to $20 or $25, then I can get an additional $4 or $5, so I actually make money (by increasing my ECB's).

Again, I only buy the stuff that give back ECB's. I could use my ECB's to buy stuff we actually need, but then I would be back to paying the CVS high prices. If I only use ECB's to buy things that produced ECB's, then I am just continually rolling my ECB's and getting stuff for free. And some weeks the ECB producing items are really good products!

The other week there was an amazing deal. If you bought 2 pairs of sunglasses you got $10 in ECB's. Well I wasn't about to buy any sunglasses, but I read on a blog that if you bought 2 glasses lens cloths at 99 cents each, it would give you $10 ECB. I tried it, and it worked! I didn't have a $2 ECB on hand, but I had a $3 one. So I bought a pack of gum, paid for my transaction with a $3 ECB, and got a $10 ECB back. I just made $7. CVS didn't even know what hit them. I called Greg and told him he could quit his job because we have a new source of income.

My shopping trip today was also a money-maker. The picture above is what I bought. Really random, I know. But those were all things that produced ECB's (except the gum and candy - those were filler items to get to $25, since I had a "$5 off $25 coupon"). I used manufacturers coupons for several items. I paid $14 in ECB's that I already had from prior weeks. Then I paid 60 cents out of pocket. Then I got back a little over $16 in ECB's. So I basically made money on that trip. So fun!

We will definitely eat the cereal, use the dish washing soap, toothpaste, tape, and gum/candy. The other stuff we won't need/use, but I had to get them to make the deal work. Pencils can definitely be donated for back-to-school stuff. Maybe even the other stuff.

This system is pretty complicated and overwhelming at first. It takes a while, but I think I am getting the hang of it.

If you are going to start shopping at CVS and trying it out, I would suggest trying to get a $25 gift card from filling a prescription so that you can learn with that money. That way when you have to pay out of pocket, you can put it on the gift card and it can sort of be your play money. So if you have a prescription that needs to be filled try to find one of those coupons that is "$25 with new or transferred prescription". CVS also takes competitor versions of these, so if you can find one online for another pharmacy (Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc), those will work. I have gotten $100 in CVS gift cards using those coupons. I have printed out competitor's coupons, used ones that CVS sent me in the mail, and used ones that printed out at the end of my receipt randomly.

Oh, and one more thing - CVS gives you 2% back on all your purchases, which is paid out quarterly. On my shopping trip today I got a $2 ECB for my Q2 purchases. I am not sure how this is calculated, since I definitely have not spent anywhere near $200 out of pocket at CVS. I guess they count every time I use ECB's, or maybe the price before coupons? Either way, I am happy with getting a couple extra ECB's each quarter.

Confusing enough?

If there are any CVS shoppers out there, please share any tips! And also, if you have done this in the past, do you think it is worth it? Or am I getting sucked in to thinking I am getting a deal when CVS is really the one making money off me?

ps - I have a coupon for "$25 gift card with new or transferred prescription" if anyone wants it. It expires July 18th and I don't have any new prescriptions to fill. Lauren, do you need it? I could mail it if you do.