Shopping for Free at CVS Part 3 of 3

Just Starting Out?  Check out Part 1 HERE.

Part 3:  CVS Extras

• If CVS has an item on sale for buy one, get one free, then you can also use a buy one, get one free manufacturer coupon on two items to get them both for free. 

• When you you make a purchase and your Extra Care card is scanned, the computers at CVS record how much you have spent out of pocket.   Quarterly, you will receive an ECB good for 2% of your total out of pocket purchase amount.  If you have spent less than $50.00 out of pocket for that quarter than you will not receive an ECB because the 2% would be such a small amount. 

• Usually products with an ECB reward will have limits.  For example: if you are buying a deodorant that is on sale for $2.99 with a $2.99 ECB back, and it has a limit of 1, then you can buy more than 1 deodorant, buy you will only get back 1 ECB worth $2.99. 

• CVS has “Green Bag Tags” available for purchase near the register for $0.99.  After you purchase a green bag tag you can attach it to your purse or reusable shopping bag.  Then every time you use your reusable shopping bag, or carry your purchases out, you can have the cashier scan the barcode on your green bag tag.  After every 4^th scan of your tag, an ECB for $1.00 will print out on the bottom of your receipt.  You can only get credited for one green bag tag scan per day.

• You can also get a $1.00 ECB for every two prescriptions that you purchase in-store and online through CVS when you use your card.

• If you find that CVS has a deal that is for spend $15 and get $5.00 ECB (or some other combination), the $15 purchase requirement for the ECB is calculated before all CVS and manufacturer coupons.  Also for a deal like this, you do not have to purchase everything at once.  As long as you reach the purchase requirement sometime during that same week, you can split your purchases up if you would like, then after you hit the purchase requirement, your ECB will print out.

• If you ever go into CVS and they are out of the item that you want, you can request to get a rain check for that item.  You can even get a rain-check for items that are free after Extra Bucks.  CVS rain-checks have no expiration date either. 

• You do not always have to wait until Sunday to get CVS’s new deals.  My store has all the coming weeks deals available starting on Saturday.  Sometimes they don’t have them marked yet, but the deals are active.  At my store you can get both the previous week’s and the coming week’s deals on Saturday.  Some CVS pharmacies do not change start the coming weeks deals until the evening of the Saturday before, you can always ask at your store how they do it.