Making Money Shopping at CVS and Walgreens

I get a lot of questions about how I save so much money with CVS. So here is the scoop on how the system works. The following links explain it in detail. But I will give you an overview of how I use it.

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/03/cvs-101.html
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/03/qa-making-cvs-w.html

Basically, the store offers Extra Care Bucks (ECB’s) on certain items each week. ECB’s are store credit. So you buy items that generate ECB’s and then use the ECB’s to purchase items the next visit that will generate MORE ECB’s and the process continues. Once you start the process, you just continue to buy items with your ECB’s and when combined with strategically chosen coupons, you save money. I very rarely spend more than $5 out of pocket at CVS. Most of the time, after the ECB’s that I make on my shopping trip, CVS had more or less paid me to shop there.

SOY JOY BAR Example


Buy 4 Soy Joy Bars, get 4 ECB’s (limit 5) This means I can get 20 bars


I had 3 BOGO coupons and 15 ECB’s.


My out of pocket expense was $2 and they paid me $20 in ECB’s.


So I made a profit of $18 in store credit.

CVS accepts coupons at face value, however you can “stack” the coupons on a single item, like I explained earlier. When I spoke with the manager, she said that they don’t have a coupon on the amount of coupons that you use in your visit. They do reserve the right to limit you, however, the sale itself will usually set a limit on how many deals you can take advantage of to get the ECB’s, even if you still use coupons for items that are not on sale.

Obviously, the first time that you shop at CVS, you will not have any ECB’s to get items for free, so you will have to spend some money out of pocket. However, once you start the process, it works very well.

They also have a green bag tag that you can keep and scan each time you shop there for using a bag you bring from home. Every 4th visit, you get 1 ECB.

You can also join the CVS advisory panel and they will reward you with ECB’s for providing input for them.



Walgreens

Although, I don’t use the Walgreens system, it pretty much works the same way. The link explains their system.

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/01/walgreens-101.html



I should add here that stores are not losing money when you use coupons. The manufacturer reimburses them for the coupons. The managers at Kroger and CVS both said that they encourage customers to bring their coupons.