I am really not kidding. At the bottom of my last CVS receipt, it says:
Year To Date Savings - $1056.11
Spring 2007 Spending $14.46
Yes, I spent $14 out of my pocket, yet saved over $1000. That's not even including the stuff that I sent in for manufacturer rebates! So, pretty much, CVS is my second job. (and WAG is my third job, and secret shopping is my fourth job...on and on.)
Oh yeah, and I actually have 2 CVS cards. One is my husband's, and that one states $1110.53 yearly savings. I have mine as a little keychain on my ring of store cards, and his is the actual card, in my wallet. I only use his at one store and mine at another store. Is this naughty? I'm not sure, but technically it's one card per person, and I only use his card at the store next to our grocery store, so he is almost always with me when I use it. So technically it's his card. (And he does use the stuff I buy with it!)
How to do this....well, you've got to watch the sale papers. Get familiar with the store and the way Extrabucks work, and then visit slickdeals.net's forums, and search for CVS in titles only. You will find huge discussions on each week's sales paper, often weeks in advance of the actual sale. (For instance, it's May 31, yet the sale paper for 6/10-6/16 is up.)
There are also discussions about monthly deals, which are like some national secret. Some stores have displays with the sale items that say they're a monthly deal, but most don't put them out. They may or may not be mentioned in the sale paper. But the thing is, they might be mentioned in the first sale paper of the month, and never again. (Because if it's a limit one for the whole month thing, they don't want people pissed when they don't get their EB for it two weeks in a row, because they don't understand it doesn't refresh every week.)
Confused yet? Sorry about that, I can ramble when it comes to CVS. Well anyway...
Yes, CVS gives stuff away for free. For FREE! Items are often "free after Extrabucks." These may be monthly, weekly; limit one, limit five, or even unlimited (sweet sweet October, I miss that month....) What that means is that if you buy the item, you'll get a coupon at the end of your receipt that you can use like cash.
You can keep a chain of these going. You've only got to put up the money once, and if you keep buying stuff that is FAEB, and using your EB, if you plan it well, you'll pay less than a dollar of real money each visit for a bag of stuff.
See, if you use a manufacturer coupon on the item that was FAEB, you'll still get the full EB. So you might buy a $5 item, use a $1 coupon, but still get back $5. So you paid $4, but have $5 now. Then, buy another offer that's $7, use a coupon for $2 and your EB, pay nothing except the tax and then get $7 back.
Alos, other coupons print out with your EB. These are called CRT, which stands for cash register tape. They are things like "$4 off a purchase of $20 or more." "$2 off any Maybelline product." "FREE travel size Cristophe product up to $3.99." Combine these with your manu coupons and EB, and you can really hit some hot deals.
Sometimes things aren't FAEB, but you still earn EB. The deal might be "Buy $15 of Dove products and earn $5 EB." With the proper coupons, you can make this work out for you. for example, buy 10 $1.50 handwashes with 10 $1 off coupons, and you'll hit the $15 mark (it's the amount BEFORE coupons), but only pay $5 and get $5 back.
Sometimes the "non-free" stuff actually turns out better than free. I remember a few months ago, they had a promotion. "Buy any three Loreal products and earn $10 EB." Of course they have the $12 makeup pictured underneath that in the ad. But... the Loreal shampoos and conditioners also qualified. They were $3.99 each, and I had 3 $2 off coupons. Paid $6, and got $10! Look out for those kinds of deals.
You can still get the stuff you really need too, not just the FAEB stuff. Wait until it's on a decent sale (regular CVS prices are scary - $9.49 for an 8 pack of Bounty??) For example, the Bounty will be $4.99 pretty soon. I'll use a $1 off coupon, and buy some other stuff that'll earn EB to get my pre coupon total to over $20, use the $4/20 coupon, and other EB from previous purchases, and my out of pocket total might be a couple of dollars.
What do I pay my out of pocket total with? Well, CVS is constantly having promotions where you get a free $25 CVS gift card for transferring your Rx there. So I bounce my Rx's between CVS, Walgreens, Eckerds, and Winn Dixie, depending on who's having an offer that month. You have to move your Rx from a non CVS pharmacy to get the GC, so never fill an Rx at a CVS two months in a row! Move it somewhere else the next month, to prepare yourself for the next CVS GC promotion. (Hopefully you can move it to a place that also is offering a gift card, but even if not, you need to move it.) I know it's bad pharmacy karma (and I used to be a CPhT so I should know better than to be this evil, because transfers can be a pain in the ass!), but you can make it easy on them. The best thing to do is photocopy your Rx card (if you have one) and write all your info on the paper. Bring that and your bottle from another pharmacy in, and drop it off, telling them you want to transfer it. Do your shopping and wait for it, or come back another day to give the RPh time to be free to call the other pharmacy. It may take a while, so the best thing to do is come back another day. DON'T ever call a pharmacy you've never been to before and say "I want to transfer my Rx from blah blah blah", because they do not have you in their system, and it will be a headache for them AND you when you come back and it's not ready. Also, NEVER give your other store bottle to the clerk and then stand there like a dumbass, like it's going to happen instantly. They will not like you if you do that. They will probably drop your pills on the ground on purpose, and put them back in the bottle (not that I EVER did that in my days of retail... heh heh. No.)
I've gotten a few hundred dollars in store gift cards over the past year shuttling them around town. We're getting a Target in July, and they have transfer promotions, so YAY!
So, to sum up...
1. Read the sale papers and pick out the deals yourself OR go to Slickdeals forums and have the experts do it for you.
2. Figure out what you want, and match up your coupons. (You are clipping coupons, RIGHT? If not, go to thecouponclippers.com and buy the coupons you need.)
3. Make sure you're getting some items that you'll earn EB on, so you'll have some "money" to spend next time.
4. Buy your crap. Be nice, patient, and friendly to the cashiers, even the bitchy ones, because you are going to get addicted to this, and you'll want them to like you. Otherwise they will overscrutize every coupon you try to use, and call the manager at every opportunity so that you feel like a criminal.
5. Rinse and repeat until your guest room is filled with toilet paper and shampoo.
CVS - The Store that Gives it Away for Free
May 31st, 2007 at 01:50 pm
May 31st, 2007 at 03:52 pm
May 31st, 2007 at 07:10 pm
so 35.98
- $6 Alavert coupon (from Alavert.com)
- 7x $1 Planters coupons (from blinky machine at Publix)
- $3 Physicians formula CVS coupon
- $4/$20 CVS coupon
- $1 off any allergy purchase CVS coupon
= $14.98
-$10 EB, $3 EB
I paid $3 (you have to pay tax on manu coupons but not CVS coupons) out of pocket with a gift card.
Then a $10 EB and a $3 EB (for Alavert) came out, as well as some $4/$20 and a coupon for a free Cristophe hair product!
I can send in the mascara for a full rebate too! That is all stuff I buy and use. I don't ever buy stuff like adult diapers or aftershave, even if free, because I don't use those things. I WILL buy things that I don't use if I can make money on them (free after EB, used a coupon and/or get rebate on item.) I donate those things. I also will buy brands I would not buy normally, but it's still usable stuff (diff brand of toothpaste, shampoo, etc.)
May 31st, 2007 at 08:02 pm
May 31st, 2007 at 08:20 pm
June 1st, 2007 at 05:41 am
yunakitty - The Alavert is the only one of those that we would have bought personally. Great deals for you, though. If you can use the stuff they are selling that way, that's terrific. Unfortunately, just not that practical for us.
June 1st, 2007 at 07:17 am
CVS runs a deal about every 2-3 months "Buy $10 of the following stomach remedies and get $10 EB" which includes Maalox, GasX, Exlax, Benefiber and a couple of other things. There's almost always coupons out there for those products. The last time I did it I bought two $5.29 bottles of Maalox, with $1 coupons, so I paid $8.29 + tax and got back $10. (of course I didn't actually PAY $8.29, I used EB from the last time and gift card balance.
Also, whenever pain reliever brands come out with a new addition to their line (like the recent Advil PM liquigels and Aleve liquigels) CVS will run promotions "3.99 for a 24 count box, $3.99 EB back" as well as there being $2 off coupons floating around, AND there are current manu rebates for the new products. So basically, you pay $2 (plus 41 cents for a stamp) and get a box of pain reliever, a $3.99 coupon for next time, and a $3.99 check on it's way to you. It seems like petty cash, but once you get it rolling, it comes easy to you.
I encourage you to keep looking at the sales paper, and you will find some deals. I actually didn't start doing CVS until a few months of doing Eckerds and Walgreens, because when I worked at CVS 3 years ago, I'd read the sale paper every week (to keep up with what was going on so when customers would ask, I would know - wish other employees did that!) and the deals always seemed complicated or not good. (Like buy some $40 electric shaver and get $2 EB.) One day there just happened to be a really good deal on the front page, so I started really looking at it every week, and I've saved over $5000 in there since last year.
June 1st, 2007 at 09:07 am
Not trying to be difficult and I think its great if it works for people. So far, it just doesn't seem to be beneficial for us. I'll keep checking the ads every week, though.
June 12th, 2007 at 01:20 am
Dalia
June 18th, 2007 at 01:07 pm
your saving power is amazing but at what price did you actually save so much? You say you've saved over $5000 in a year's time. I assume you've spent a negligible amount of money to achieve this but a considerable amount of time. As others has shown very few are able to reproduce your results. Don't you think a rare talent like this could be put to better use than just saving $5000 on household items? For all the care and math it takes to organize your savings scheme I think you would be better off quiting your day job and becoming an accountant, stock broker, or the like. You obviously like "playing the game" and are good at it too. Why not make $5000 a week instead?
P.S. My wife is a pharmacist at CVS; this gets me an employee discount and yet I still don't shop there very often because everything is overpriced. You go girl!
October 26th, 2007 at 08:42 am
P.S All of my family has been informed, for Christmas...I want CVS giftcards!
November 7th, 2007 at 05:08 am
January 10th, 2008 at 01:47 pm
May 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am