Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Why CVS is my favorite store!

I had so much fun today at CVS! The LaVale store is, by far, my favorite coupon stop. The deals are incredible, stock is almost always there, and the staff is helpful, friendly and very used to couponers!  Shopping at CVS is similar to shopping at Rite Aid (see my older post). But, I've developed a few tips and tricks to make the experience even better.

First of all, sign up for an Extra Rewards Card. It's free and you can't do anything without it!  I checked out today with a full cart for $20.00. The gentleman at the register beside me had two items, no rewards card and his total was $20.00.  It pays to carry the card.

After you have your card, head over to the CVS website and register there. Today alone, I received a $10.00 coupon and a BOGO coupon via email. You can also sign up to receive their Deal of the Day. Today, it was BOGO Gain dishwashing liquid, which was also on sale!

This cute red machine is the CVS shopper's best friend. Also known as the "magic coupon machine", this is your first stop once inside the store. You scan your Extra Bucks card and coupons magically appear!  Here's my super secret tip - don't just scan your card once!  Keep scanning until the screen tells you there are no more coupons to be printed. I've received lots of free items and store cash from this magic machine.

Next, you want to see which items have Extra Care Bucks (ECB's) associated with them. These are like Rite Aid UP rewards with one major difference. ECB's are good right away, while UP rewards aren't good until the next day at 6:00am. Why is that so wonderful?  Because you can split your order into different transactions and use the ECB's from one to pay for the other!  Brilliant!

CVS is also one of the only stores that allows a BOGO coupon on a store BOGO offer. Confused?  Let me explain, because you want to make sure you know this trick. Let's say that CVS is offering Tide as a store special Buy One Get One Free, and you are lucky enough to also have a BOGO coupon for Tide. You would purchase the first one and get the other two free!  Don't try to do this in other stores...it won't work!

Remember talking about stacking coupons?  CVS is one of the best places to stack. You can use a store coupon for an item, a manufacturers coupon on an item, a store transaction coupon (Get $3.00 off a $10.00 order) and pay for it all with ECB's. I get excited just thinking about it!


While you're shopping, make sure to look for these yellow tags. They aren't sale tags (which are bolder and in a different font), they're clearance tags. For example, the Biotene pictured was originally $9.49 but is on clearance for $2.37. But you know that's not the bottom line price - you have a coupon!  I'm able to snag lots of good deals for my stockpile this way.

A few more thoughts about CVS - if an item isn't in stock, make sure to get a raincheck. If the item has ECB's attached to it, your friendly cashier will manually enter them also when you redeem the raincheck.





No comments:

Post a Comment