Shopping at CVS

Personally, I think shopping at CVS is a lot easier than shopping at Walgreens. There aren’t as many types of store coupons, and they only have one kind of promotion. Let’s take a look at how shopping at CVS works.

CVS Store Coupons

• Item coupons – these are coupons that print at the end of your receipt, from a CVS coupon scanner in store, or come in your email that can be used on specific items. (For instance, $2 off a 12 pk of Cottonelle). These can be combined with MFCs.
• $X/$Y coupons – these may print on your receipt, from a coupon scanner, or be sent to you in your email, just like item coupons, but these are off a dollar amount purchase. For instance, if you received a $4/$20 coupon, you would get $4 off your $20 purchase. The $20 is BEFORE all your other coupons! You may also see something like $4/$20 beauty purchase, where the requirements are a little more strict. You can only use one $X/$Y coupon per purchase, whether it is off any merchandise or a specific merchandise category.

So now on to the CVS promotion. CVS has something called ECBs, Extra Care Bucks. How do they work? Well, here’s an example. This week at CVS, Crest toothpaste is $2.88 with $2 ECBs. That means when you buy Crest, you will pay $2.88, and a coupon for $2 off your next purchase will print at the end of your receipt. That $2 can be used on almost anything in the store. There are a few restrictions regarding tobacco, alcohol, and gift cards (maybe a few other things, too). You can even use that $2 to buy more Crest, and still get another $2 ECB, as long as you have not reached your limit. Each promotion has a specified limit. Sometimes it’s 1, sometimes 2, sometimes as many as 5. Your ECBs are tied to your ExtraCare card, which is how they keep track of if you have reached your limit or not. In the case of the Crest example from this week, the limit is 2. You can buy them in separate transactions or together. If you buy both in a single transaction, you will get a single ECB for $4.

Here are a few ECB facts:

• ECBs expire 1 month from printing
• You may use as many ECBs in a transaction as you like, but you will not get change back if your ECB amount is greater than the total of your order.
• ECBs reduce the taxable amount of your order

At CVS, MFC reduce your tax, so use your ECBs before your MFC, and it may reduce the amount of tax you pay.

Believe it or not, I think that’s about all there is to shopping at CVS. I hope this tutorial has been helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions!