A Good Day at CVS!

For those of you who don't have the CVS/Extra Care card, you need to get one! I have saved hundreds of dollars at CVS just this year alone! The extra care card is simply like the KrogerPlus card, or the Food Lion MVP card. It's a FREE program that gives you discounts and free money, all for shopping at their store. They give out rewards in the form of Extra Bucks, which is basically a gift-card to use in the store. Each week they designate a few items that you can earn the extra bucks on. Typically, it will say something like this, Buy One Herbal Essence Shampoo, get $2 Extra Bucks. So, if the shampoo was $3.99, it would almost be like getting it for $1.99. However, you can't use the extra buck on the current purchase. For example, if you got a $2 extra buck coupon at the end of your reciept, the NEXT time you purchase something at CVS, give them the coupon and you get $2 off your total purchase. It's free money!
Basically, what you do is read the weekly circulars to see what is on sale that week for ExtraCare customers. Then, to maximize your savings, you match the coupons you find in your Sunday paper to the sales. Here's an example:

This week, I didn't need to many items because of good sales the past few weeks. Here's what I got:

2 RightGuard deoderant sticks: regularly 4.49 ea, on sale for 2.99, and buy one/get $2 extra buck, PLUS a 55 cent off coupon on each container....what would have originally been 8.98 for both sticks, I got for 88 cents! I had to pay 4.88 out of pocket, but walked away with $4 in extra bucks, so I basically got them for 88 cents!

Batteries, one 8-pack of AA, two 4-packs of AAA, and one pack of 9-V: batteries were regularly 7.99 each pack, but were on sale for 5.99, plus if you spent $20 on batteries you get $15 extra bucks, PLUS I had a coupon for $5.00 any two packs of batteries. So, what would have originally been $31.96, I got for $3.96! I had to pay $18.96 out of pocket, but walked away with $15 in extra bucks!

So, the next time I go to CVS, I have $19 in extra bucks that I can use on my next purchase. So if my next purchase is $24, I use my extra bucks and only pay $5!

The trick is to read the sale paper, and add any coupons you have on TOP of the sale price. CVS doesn't double coupons, but most grocery stores do, so you can get even bigger savings. Occasionally I'll hit the jackpot and the store will essentially PAY me to take that item! I got a can off cresent rolls last week for free PLUS 4 cents. They paid me 4 cents to take the rolls!

It only takes about 30 minutes each Sunday to clip coupons and read the circulars. For me, 30 minutes is worth all the money I save!