Follow the below steps to start CVSing.
- Sign up for the Extra Care card at CVS.
- View the current weeks CVS ad. Purchase items that are free after ECB or free after ECB and coupons.
- Make your first purchases trying to keep your OOP costs to $10-$15. You shouldn't have to spend more than this to get started.
- Take the ECB's you earned (prints on the bottom of your receipt) from this transaction and use it to pay for your next transaction. The goal is to spend as little OOP as possible. A successful trip is generally considered to be less than $1.
- In future weeks continue to roll your ECB's forward. Try to use them in the order they expire. You may need to break down your transactions into smaller amounts if you don't have enough ECB to cover the cost. There will be weeks when there are no good deals so be careful with expiration dates.
- If you have an ECB that is going to expire and you do not have any deals to roll it into, then you need to burn your ECB. Basically that means buying something you need/want so the ECB will not go to waste. A good example would be to buy a gallon of milk or something like that.
Some things to remember when shopping at CVS:
- Register your card at CVS.com in order to receive money saving coupons and emails.
- Scan your card at the red coupon scanner every visit for additional store coupons and emails.
- Purchase a green bag tag (99 cents). Every visit use a reusable bag and have this card scanned. Every 4 visits you will earn $1 ECB.
- Since many of the deals have limits, sign up yourself and your spouse or other family member to get more than one card.
- The weekly deals officially start on a Sunday morning. It varies from store to store, but they will turn the deals as early as 2 pm Saturday in some stores. Therefore, if you shop on a Saturday you can potentially do 2 weeks worth of deals, but YMMV.
- Most CVS stores will take expired MFQ's, but YMMV.
- Pay in the following order: $X/$XX coupon, CRTs, MFQ, ECB.
