I love shopping at CVS and have been a CVS shopper for years (long before I started stockpiling). CVS has a fabulous system and if you use it to your advantage you will walk away with free products each and every week! If you work the CVS system to your advantage you will not pay for any health of beauty item!
They do not double coupons. They do however allow you to stack manufacturer and store coupons. It is a very coupon friendly chain. They do have a store card – extra care card and you can have 1 per household. My advice is to never shop at CVS without it. You can pick one up from the cashier before checking out. Then be sure to link your card to your email account so that you can get their email updates.
Always hand your CVS card to the cashier first before they ring up a single item. This allows for you to get credit and the correct sale prices. At CVS you can earn Extra Care Bucks (ECB) and Extra Care Coupons (ECQ) which print at the bottom of your receipt.
ECB’s have an expiration date of month month from the date they are printed and they are the same as cash. If you were to find an expired ECB they will normally allow you to use it for 7-14 days after the expiration date. You must have your Extra Care Card to redeem your ECB and ECQ. You will have to pay tax (unless it is food) when using an ECB. Make sure you use your ECB from highest to lowest in value because they will not allow you to use ECB to pay for sales tax.
If you work the CVS program you will be able to walk out the door with free merchandise and normally make money while doing so (by earning ECB’s to use the following week).
Always scan your CVS card at the Coupon Kiosk to see if you have any special offers available or store coupons.
You will need to invest money the first time you shop at CVS to start the process. What you are going to do is target items that produce an ECB. You are going to select the items that net free after ECB. You are actually earning the same amount or sometimes more than what you are paying for the item in ECB’s. You are going to “roll” your ECB’s earned towards a purchase the following week on additional items that net free after ECB. Meaning you can pay for an item with ECB’s and earn ECB’s at the same time. This system will allow you to spend the least out of pocket and if worked correctly after your first investment you are going to pay very for all of your future shopping trips.
Also you can earn by using the GREEN BAG TAG program. The cost is $.99 but you earn $1.00 ECB every 4th time you make a purchase using your Green Bag Tag. It is a great way to earn additional ECB’s.
We do a weekly CVS Matchup that is posted weekly on Friday at 1:00 pm EST. This is for the following week’s ad.
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hi, just found your website and i love it. question…if i have 4 ecbs from my previous trip to cvs can i use all 4 of them at the same time on my next trip to cvs ? i believe you said they act just like money so i think the answer will be yes. i am just learning this stockpiling stuff so i appreciate your answer.
yes, you can!
Hello,
By stacking coupons, does that mean they take more than one man coupon for each item? Thanks, your site is so helpful!
Yes, stacking means using 1 manufacturer coupon and 1 store coupon or 1 digital coupon at the same time on the same item.
I recently tried using a manufacturer’s coupon for Planters nuts at CVS and the cashier wouldn’t let me because I printed it from Walgreen’s website and it said “use at Walgreens” on it. It definitely is a manufacturer’s coupon, and it doesn’t say “use ONLY at Walgreens”, so I thought it would be OK – any thoughts? Thanks!
If it said Manufacturer’s coupon at the top then it should be fine. I would always ask for a manager if that happens. Cashiers think they are the experts…in my opinion, when they are indeed not always.
I love CVS too! I just am confused about one thing. Can you only get 1 ECB per transaction so you have to do mulitple transactions? Or can you buy everything at once and get mulitple ECB’s if there not for the same items?
I love to use the ECB, where i live they do a pretty good job at accepting all coupons that you have. i save a lot at cvs
I just started to shop at CVS, got some great deals. sometime they are out of the item I really wanted to get, I guess I need to check two locations or get there earlier! Thanks for sharing about the card and bag tag.
I went to CVS and they were out of somethings. I got a raincheck instead of driving around to other stores.
I had printed 4 coupons for $1.oo off any Nature Made item.., currently they are BOGO,… when I got to the register, the cashier said I could only use 1 coupon, because the barcode had the same number on them… I told her that, that was the way they printed. I had actually printed my “limit”, which was a total of 4… so, were they “wrong” for not accepting both of my coupons? I would think that it would be impossible to have a different barcode # on every single coupon…
Should I take it back and “debate” this deal with the Manager?
The on-line sites I use, only let you print 2 of each coupon. They usually have the same bar code to identify the item, but then have a second bar code to identify that it a second coupon and not a copy. Depending on whether it is a SmartSource, Redplumb, or another coupon, bar codes usually appear at top right and bottom left on the coupon. One of these will be different on the 1st and other copies you print off. If they are, call this to the cashiers attention, that they are not copies, but are in fact different coupons.
When you buy an item that gives you ECB. Your receipt prints out limit reached. The next time you go into CVS can you use it on the same item again to get another ECB or no? Is it 1 item per household only because they do scan your CVS card. So I’m assuming CVS keep track of the things you buy.
I just did my 1st transaction using ECB’s. I read somewhere that you should give your CVS card 1st then ECB’s and then the Manuf. coupons. I think it has something to do with tax. When I tried this the cashier told me I needed to give ECB’s last, that the computer would unlikely take the manuf. coupon. Could someone let me know what I am suppose to be doing
thanx
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