I’ve been preaching the benefits of coupons and CVS to you all for a few weeks now, and I don’t know how many of you reader readers have taken the CVS plunge, but a few of my real-life friends have and it makes me oh-so-happy to be sharing the joy! A couple of weeks ago my friend Krista, (who has been my friend since the 5th grade!) who is a very busy working mom, e-mailed me that she wanted to give it a whirl and asked for some advice. As I mentioned, Krista works full-time (and she’s a CPA so she’s REALLY busy right now since it’s tax season) and wants to spend as much time with her daughter as she can when she’s off, so she wanted to see if she could make CVS work for her on her lunch hour. She e-mailed me a list (ok it was a spreadsheet! I said she’s a CPA!) of items she was interested in purchasing and what coupons she had and asked me if I could help her coordinate her transactions. Well, as luck would have it, my mom had taken my kids to my Grandma’s that day, so I said, “I’ll meet ya at CVS!” We rendezvoused in the parking lot and I organized Krista’s coupons into three separate groups (by transaction) while she went in and signed up for her ExtraCare card. I also had a couple of coupons for items she wanted to get that I contributed (because I am pretty much the best friend ever).
After Krista got her card we went in together and filled her cart with the items for transaction # 1. I hung out near the counter to make sure everything went ok with her coupons (they let ya stack at this store! Woot!) Everything went well and she got lots of ECBs and her receipt was reallllllllllly long! It was awesome! She then took her things out to the car while I started filling her cart with transaction # 2. Then when she was in the parking lot, something crazy happened. She noticed that the trunk of my car was open. Being a good friend, she went to close it for me. But it was very windy, and her very looooong receipt got caught in my trunk and ripped!! Here’s how Krista tells it, in her own words:
On my first trip out to put things away I noticed Jenny’s trunk was open. I reached over to shut it and my receipt got in the way. So the trunk was shut, but half of my loooooong receipt with my Extra Care Bucks were trapped inside! I run laughing into the store – high on saving money – to tell Jenny. We must have looked like two freaks running around CVS giggling the entire time with my wads of coupons.
I had to go out to the car to liberate Krista’s ECBs! There were SEVEN precious ECBS trapped in my trunk! I got them out and then we continued with transactions 2 and 3. We were indeed rather giggly and high on savings. I have never had so much fun in a store without buying anything!! In the end Krista spent about $25 out of pocket but she got a TON of stuff and had 14 ECBs to take home with her for her next trip! A couple of hours after she got back to the office she e-mailed me ANOTHER spreadsheet – this one of all her transactions and savings! (Did I mention she is a CPA? And VERY organized!)
It was really fun to help Krista get started CVSing – not just because I got to spend time with her (which was the best part), but also because I know that this is going to be a big help to her family just like it is to mine. If you haven’t started yet, I encourage you to jump in like Krista, my sister-in-law Ruthie (mom of SEVEN!) and my friend Bethany have. You don’t have to be all CVS CRAZY like I am. You can put just a little time & effort into it and still save a lot! Feel free to email me with questions, and go here to Money Saving Mom for CVS lessons or if you have no idea what the heck I am even talking about. She also has a great e-book called Supermarket Savings 101 which has helped me conquer grocery stores as well – you can check that out here!
Allright, ready, set, SHOP! And save! True retail therapy is when you get to shop and BUY lots of stuff without SPENDING hardly anything!
andrea says i have a problem… i can’t stop telling EVERYONE about my couponing. i follow with pictures so people believe me… i think i told 4 people about buying chip dip for 49 cents…..i WILL NEVER buy andything with out a coupon again
So I’m a nerd. Everyone who knows me already knows that. Now a lot of people who don’t know me, now know it too.
I love excel. I make excel lists of all kinds of things. For instance, I had an excel list with all my failed cycle specifics when I was trying to get pregnant. I had an excel template typed up that would tell me due dates and other important dates of a pregnancy based on the conception date. I kept a list of items needed to get ready for my baby when I was pregnant. I still use the spreadsheet I sent Jenny (the second one) as a template and drop my deals I’m thinking of doing into it and see how they come out before I head to the store. Then once the deal looks good, I just print it out and I know what I’m buying, how much I’m paying and how many ECB’s I should get back.
Thanks for being my CVS mentor, Jenny! I spend one lunch break a week clipping coupons and planning my deals and one lunch break going to CVS. I’m saving money, and getting things we need without taking away time from my family.
I my home town we don’t have a CVS but we do have a Walgreens and a RiteAid. I was wondering if they have any programs like this? It would be really nice to save $ while getting the things we need and use everyday! Thank you ahead of time!
Jenny, you have me hooked on the CVS bargain shopping! My husband was skeptical at first, but he now is seeing how much money I am saving and how much CVS is paying me to shop at their store. I can’t get enough of it! I am so anxious each week to get my ad in the paper and see what the deals will be! I started out slow and was spending the ecb’s as soon as I got them, but now I have a stash of approx. $33 and am very proud of them! I am also cutting my coupons every week to try and save even more money! I should also be getting a rebate back for the Sambucol I just purchased this week! Thanks for all the great money saving tips Jenny! Hopefully all this money saving will allow me to go part-time once we decide to have a second baby!
Here’s a question, well, actually, a couple:
#1 If you get a raincheck for something-do you still get the ECB’s for them if it is past that weeks sale?
#2 How do you know if your store stacks the $2/$10 or $4/$10 coupons? I have been CVSing for 3 weeks and I’m still trying to figure it out!
HELP!!!
Amy,
I’m not sure about question # 1. But I THINK yes. I’d have to email customer service to really know. Maybe I will do that! As for #2, the only way to know is to try it. All my local stores allowed it until Monday, and then one SHUT ME DOWN! I think they changed the policy just beause of me – it was my most-frequented store. 🙂 Oh well, I will just go to the other ones now. Fortunately I have 5 CVS’ within 5 or 7 minutes of my house.
Ok, so I did some CVSing this week, but I did it on my own terms since I refuse to buy a bunch of crap I don’t need. Still I did decently well in the savings department. But then today i did Walgreens and I kicked some MAJOR BOOTY. I got a lot of stuff (all practical and stuff I needed) and only spent $12. Now, unlike CVS, I don’t have anything to use next time, but I have to say I am a big fan of the Walgreens.
My main beef with CVS is that i went to 2 and they were out of tons of stuff. Walgreens seems to be WAY better stocked.
Really? Cause I can’t find any of that DANG 99 CENT CHEESE at ANY of my Walgreens this week! They aren’t restocking that. GRR! I am taking my babysistter there tomorrow to get some free makeup though. 🙂
THANK YOU for introducing me to this whole CVS concept. I just started last week, and tonight I returned from my first really successful trip. I got $44 dollars worth of stuff, spent $10 out of pocket, and got $15 ECB’s for next time. And that was without any manufacturer coupons (’cause I needed to start simple).
And they didn’t have a couple of the items I had on my list, but I was able to get enough of the other things. One question: when you print a coupon off the internet like a $4/20 that Money Saving Mom posted, can you keep printing it out and using it again until it expires or do they keep track on your CVS card?
Emily,
Way to go!! Those coupons are hosted on CVS.com and you can print them out & use them as many times as you’d like. I imagine they will start tracking them sometime in the future but they don’t do anything like that now. Yay!
I am so obsessed with CVSing that I took my 17yr old son with me so he could get an extra care card, and now he is obsessed! We started with the deoderant- we used a $3/15, paid $18 out of pocket…she handed him his ECB coupon for $19.95…HIS EYES LIT UP! Until that point he was confused about what we were doing. He used the ECB to buy a butt-load of candy and gum, and a Nyquil 2 pack. She gave him $3 more ECB…EYES WERE GLOWING! He found two big hershey bars, used his EBC for that, she gave him $1 more…he tossed down a pack of M&M’s and said, “I’ll take ’em!” iHe said it was like playing the lottery. I took part in the Pepsi Co. special and bought Propell and Lay’s chips and some Airwick refills, which I had coupons for, used 2 $3/15, spent $9 out of pocket and got $10 EBC back…WOOHOO!!! My 11 year old daughter was squeeling that she wanted a card too…and I owe it all to Jenny!
Oh Shelli,
That was so beautiful. I might CRY with happiness!!
They didn’t have some of the stuff I went for today at CVS so they wrote out rain checks. She wrote the prices minus the ECBs because she said they would NOT print when they processed the rain check (if it wasn’t in the same week/month as the sale).
I’ve taken my 8 year old son on most of my trips to CVS and Walgreen’s. He loves to see how much I save, how much I get and how little I pay! He gets about as excited as I do!