If you have not yet couponed at CVS, known as "CVSing", you are missing out! This is a great place to get things for pennies or even FREE.
First you need to sign up for a CVS Extra Care card. The card gives you the special sales prices and tracks your spending. You can do this right in the store and they will give you your card and you can start shopping right away. The other option is to apply online for a card, which you can do here. If you choose this option you will have to wait a few weeks for your card.
Next step after getting your Extra Care card is to sign up for CVS exclusive e-mails. You can do that here. Just by signing up you will receive a printable coupon for $4 off your next $20 purchase. (note: that $20 dollars is BEFORE coupons!) By signing up you will receive an email or two a week from CVS and many of these will contain more printable coupons for dollars off a purchase (i.e. $4 off $20, $5 off $25) so don't delete the e-mail without checking first!
Beauty Club
After you sign up for your e-mails, go here and sign up for the CVS Beauty Club. I LOVE the Beauty Club. By signing up you will recieve a one time use 10% off shopping pass and $3 Extra Care Bucks (ECB) each year on your birthday - more about ECBs in a moment. You will also receive $5 ECB for each $50 purchase you make in beauty products (the $50 is before coupons). This $50 does not have to be in one transaction or even in one day, it tracks on your card and once you hit the $50 threshold you will have $5 in ECB. There is no time limit as to when you have hit the threshold so think of this as a "forever" ECB deal.
Extra Care Bucks
Grab a CVS weekly ad or you can look at the current weekly ad here, be sure to choose your store location. Look through and find the items that will give you Extra Care Bucks (ECBs). ECBs are store credit and can be used on anything in the store except alcohol, tobacco, lottery, gift cards, money orders, postage stamps, pre-paid cards, prescriptions, and special order Home Health Care items. Treat these like cash!
When you purchase these items in the store the ECB will print on the bottom of your receipt. When paired with coupons these can make for some great deals! For example: Let's pretend Colgate toothpaste is on sale for $2.96 and it will print a $2.96 ECB, this is technically a FREE item. Lets say you have a coupon for $1 off Colgate toothpaste. This will make your subtotal $1.96 and you will still get $2.96 in ECB, congrats you just made $1 for purchasing toothpaste! In couponing we call that a "money maker".
Not all deals will be like this, but scenarios like the one above come around quite often at CVS. You may also see deals in the weekly ad where it says something like buy $15 worth of these participating products and you will get $5 ECB. Always remember that the $15 is before coupons. Your Extra Care card tracks so you don't have to purchase all $15 dollars in one transaction and not even on the same day, once you hit the amount needed your ECB will print. You just need to make sure you make the qualifying purchases in the week the sale is going on.
Remember that there are limits on the ECB deals, usually the limit is 2 but always look in the fine print of the weekly ad to be sure. If the limit is 2, the ECB will print twice if you but two of the same item.
Plan out your shopping trip. If this is your first time, do something small. Look at the coupons you have and try to find something that matches up that will print an ECB. If you do not have any coupons that match look for a little deal like the toothpaste one above (doesn't have to make it free but look for a good price) If the limit is two you can buy one get your ECB then turn around and buy the same thing again, but use the ECB you just got to pay for the second one, pay the difference, get your second ECB and go home. Now you have an ECB to use for next week. Just keep applying the same principle each week, pair coupons with ECB deals and use ECBs from the previous week to pay for the products that will print you more ECBs.
Now you are ready to shop!
The Coupon Center
Once you set foot in CVS go straight to the little red coupon center. The coupon center doubles as the price scanner. Scan your Extra Care card and coupons will print! Always scan your card twice as two sets of coupons usually print. You may even want to scan a third time just to be sure. When you have received all the coupons you can it will tell you to try again tomorrow. You can print coupons daily with your card. This is also where your Beauty Club ECBs, Quarterly ECBs, and sometimes your Green Bag Tag ECBs will print. Don't forget this!
Green Bag Tag
One of the first purchases you need to make is a Green Bag tag. This only cost $0.99 and it pays for itself. You just need a reusable shopping bag (any one will do, it doesn't have to be the one they sell in the store). Purchase the Green Bag tag and attach it to your reusable shopping bag. When you purchase the tag it links to your CVS account. The tag has a barcode, bring the reusable shopping bag with you each trip and have the cashier scan the tag at checkout. With every fourth scan you will receive $1 ECB . Even if you do multiple transactions it only counts one scan per day. Buy this tag alone, put it on your bag and then have them scan it on your transaction that day and you already have one scan out of the way. Three more to go and you have $1 ECB!!
You will also receive 2% back with every purchase in-store and online at CVS/pharmacy (calculated after coupons) and $1 ECB for every 2 prescriptions purchased at CVS or CVS online. - These accrue and print 4 times a year.
Order to give cashier coupons:
1) Give $ off total purchase (like the $4 off $20) FIRST! Hint: if you give other coupons first it will lower your total and the $ off total won't work.
2) Store and manufacturer coupons (you can combine one CVS store and one manufacturer coupon for the same item)
3) Extra Care Bucks - remember to check your laws, in most states you still have to pay tax and ECBs will not cover tax, only the subtotal
Now you are ready! Happy CVSing!
**Please note CVS does not yet have an official coupon policy, it is left to the individual stores. I have never had any issues with couponing at CVS and the cashiers are usually very educated when it comes to coupons. Please know CVS welcomes couponers and if you ever have any major issues with an individual store you can call CVS Corporate for help @ 1-800-746-7287 (M-F 8am - 6pm)
