CVS deals
CVS is a wonderful wonderful place to shop! Their ExtraCare Bucks program has allowed me to get tons of free stuff. I get tubes of toothpaste, deodorants, soap, soda, snacks, medicines..... FREE all the time. To maximize your savings at CVS you must learn the art of rolling your ECBs from product to product in combination with CVS store and manufacture's coupons. The easiest place to download CVS coupons is at http://www.afullcup.com/. You must get a CVS red card and they will allow one card per family member. That means that your husband can have a separate card too which allows you to save twice as much or get twice as much for free.
If you are just starting out, you will need to make an upfront out of pocket purchase to start generating your ECBs and then from there you will be able to purchase more products that will continue generating more ECBs.
For example:
The hypothetical sale/deal would be "Buy 1 tube of Crest toothpaste and earn $2.00 ECB, limit 5 per card". What this means is that you will buy a tube for 2.99, use a mfg coupon for a hypothetical 1.00 off and pay 1.99 plus tax. That will be your oop=out of pocket cost. You will now have 2.00 to roll over to a new transaction. You can now turn around and buy another tube for 2.99-1.00 mfg-2.00 ECB and pay tax. This is a simple explanation but this is the idea of "rolling" that will help you figure out deals and ways to maximize ECBs and earn more in the same move.
CVS will also allow you to stack a CVS coupon with a mfg coupon.
For example; you have a CVS coupon for 2.00 off Johnson & Johnson's baby product and have a mfg coupon for .35 off J&J baby powder. That means on a 2.99 bottle of powder you can take off the 2.00 CVS coupon and .35 mfg coupon and pay .65! This can sometimes be tricky though. Generally, the computer system does not have a problem with stacking but it does have a problem if you have more coupons that items. I can usually count on being able to use one more coupon than items, meaning if I have 5 items I will be able to use 6 coupons (I am including ECBs that I use for oop in this number). In my experience, it has always benefitted me to figure out my transactions at home and get my coupons clipped together before going to the store. That way I know in advance whether or not I will have more coupons than products and will know if I need to buy a "filler" item like a candy bar to make sure the system will accept all my coupons.
My plan is to let you see each week my CVS transactions to see what I got for free, the scenario on how I got it for free or for little oop, and to see how I have rolled those ExtraCare Bucks into larger amounts so that I can get additional items for free. CVS is a learning process, I am not an expert and I have and will make tons and tons of mistakes but hopefully we can figure this out together and loosen up our budgets.
Genna
