How to Shop CVS

CVS is a lot of fun!  You can score a lot of free products and spend very little out of pocket.  I'm going to share what you need to know for scoring deals at CVS!

1. If you haven't already, sign up for their Extra Care Bucks Program.  This is their loyalty program.  They'll give you a loyalty card that you scan before every purchase to earn Extra Care Bucks.  Extra Care Bucks, also known as ECBs, print at the bottom of your receipt.  They work like cash for your next visit to CVS.  Here's what one looks like:

2. Buy a Green Bag Tag for 99 cents.  Attach it to a reusable shopping bag of your choice.  For every fourth use, you earn a $1 ECB (Extra Care Buck).  I've more than made that 99 cents back AND helped the environment by using a reusable bag.

3.  Every time you shop at CVS, scan your Extra Care Card at the coupon center.  Every CVS has one.  It is usually at the front of the store.  It will print out CVS store coupons which can be stacked with manufacturer coupons (example at bottom).  Keep scanning your card until it says "no more coupons available today."

4. Sign up for their ExtraCare Beauty Club.  For every $50 beauty purchase, you'll earn a $5 ECB.   It's easier than you think to get to that $50.  I joined a few months ago and already have $41.01 towards the $50, but trust me, I haven't SPENT anywhere near that.  It's all been free to near-free beauty products that I've picked up.

Now you're ready to do some major shopping!  I won't be posting all of the coupon match ups each week for stores.  There are a lot of people who already do, so I recommend checking their sites.  I will post match ups for the shopping trips I blog about.  Here are my favorite sites to find coupon match ups for CVS.

Hip2Save
MashupMom
iheartcvs

OK, ready for an example?  Here's a picture of today's purchase:

I actually came out AHEAD 7 cents.

Here's how:

As you can see from today's ad, "Blink Tears" are $7.99 with $7.99 ECB back.  I had a $1 off coupon from 4/3SS (meaning April 3rd Smart Source newspaper insert...if you haven't yet, subscribe to a paper and date your coupon inserts.  Then just cut out the coupons as needed when you read coupon match ups.)  That's like they're PAYING ME $1 to buy this.

Also in today's ad was Buy 2, get 1 free Mars Singles.  They were 99 cents each.  I had a a Buy 2, get 1 free coupon from the 3/13RP (March 13 Red Plum newspaper insert).  Now I'm paying for 1 and getting two for free, but it gets better!  Remember that coupon center I told you about?  It gave me this coupon for $.25 off 2 Mars Singles.

Because its a CVS store coupon, it can be stacked with manufacturer coupons.  That brought my price down to 74 cents for all 3 candy bars (or about 25 cents each).

So my total was $6.99 for the Blink Tears and 74 cents for the 3 candy bars for a total of 7.73 +tax, and getting back a $7.99 ECB to use on my next CVS visit.

Because I already had $4.99 in ECBS from previous visits, I "rolled" them (used these ECBs to earn new ECBs).  I paid with $4.99 ECBs and $2.93 in cash.  I got back a $7.99 ECB, making my net cost NEGATIVE 7 cents.  Don't forget I also got 1 of my 4 credits towards a $1 ECB for using my Green Bag Tag.

Your CVS Receipt has a lot of useful information on it.  It will show you your Beauty Club Spending, Your Green Bag Tag uses (amount toward the reward and quantity needed), list any limits you have on ECB deals (for example, there is a limit of 1 on the Blink Tears ECB), and most importantly, will have your ECBS at the bottom.

Happy CVS shopping!  Please leave any questions, comments, or CVS shopping experiences below!