My cousin and I swap coupons and deal information. It seems that almost every Sunday I get a phone call or a Facebook message about this weeks coupons and deals. I don't mind at all. First, I really like her so an opportunity to chat is never unwelcome. Second, talking deals is one of my favorite things to do.
I've been posting to Facebook about playing the drugstore game, and about the deals I get for a while now on my own page. I think it was a comment by one of her friends on one of her posts that reminded me just how overwhelming it can be to start couponing.
So that got me thinking. I remember being a new couponer, bemoaning the sea of deals I could not do. Sure, there are deal match ups to view online, but what if you don't have 6 months worth of coupons to draw from? There are lots of places online that do the deal matching for you, but how many focus on this week's deals with this week's coupons? None that I know of.
I can do that.
I am pleased to announce a new feature, effective immediately.
This week's deals, this week's coupons.
Every week I will match up the current week's coupons with the current week's drugstore deals, and post what are, in my opinion, the best deals. I will post the money makers and freebies I find, and any other really good deals using the coupons immediately available at the end of your driveway or at the local corner store.
There is no better motivation when you start on your personal road to savings than a little success.
Showing posts with label the drugstore game. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the drugstore game. Show all posts
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Rite Aid trips 5/7/2011
Have I mentioned how much I love Rite Aid?
I went to 3 different Rite Aids today, did 5 separate transactions, and walked away with a bunch of stuff.
Rite Aid has Pampers on sale through today for $9.99, with a $2 +UP reward on each, limit 4. There was a $1.50 off Pampers coupon in last Sunday's paper, of which I had 4. My personal limit on the price of diapers is that I refuse to pay more than $5. Since the little guy came home, I haven't paid more than $5 for a pack of diapers. Some weeks you can't find diapers for that little, but that's why I have a small stockpile. I try to keep a month's supply of diapers on hand at all times. My supply has been dwindling, having not found any spectacular deals for a few weeks now.
I love Rite Aid and their surveys. Almost every receipt I have gotten for at least a month now has had a survey code on it. Complete the survey online, print a $3 off $15 purchase coupon. $9.99 Pampers is most of that, so by stacking $3 off $15 coupons with the Pampers deal, I could score, and score pretty well, today.
4 of my 5 transactions had a single pack of Pampers, and enough other stuff that I had coupons for or that were otherwise good deals to get me up to $15.
Today I came home with:
4 jumbo packs of Pampers
2 bottles of Scope (at a friend's request, I didn't have a coupon, but they were on sale)
2 tubes of Crest toothpaste
2 quart bottles of Similac Ready To Feed
2 boxes, 10 count each, of Breathe Right strips
4 tubes of Desitin that I had a rain check for from MONTHS ago, the rain check gods smiled upon me today
In total, I paid Rite Aid $17.69 more, in cash and +UP rewards, than they gave me back in +UP rewards. If we assume everything else was free, then I paid $4.43 a pack for Pampers. $4.43 is higher than I'd like, but still below my maximum acceptable price for diapers.
I went to 3 different Rite Aids today, did 5 separate transactions, and walked away with a bunch of stuff.
Rite Aid has Pampers on sale through today for $9.99, with a $2 +UP reward on each, limit 4. There was a $1.50 off Pampers coupon in last Sunday's paper, of which I had 4. My personal limit on the price of diapers is that I refuse to pay more than $5. Since the little guy came home, I haven't paid more than $5 for a pack of diapers. Some weeks you can't find diapers for that little, but that's why I have a small stockpile. I try to keep a month's supply of diapers on hand at all times. My supply has been dwindling, having not found any spectacular deals for a few weeks now.
I love Rite Aid and their surveys. Almost every receipt I have gotten for at least a month now has had a survey code on it. Complete the survey online, print a $3 off $15 purchase coupon. $9.99 Pampers is most of that, so by stacking $3 off $15 coupons with the Pampers deal, I could score, and score pretty well, today.
4 of my 5 transactions had a single pack of Pampers, and enough other stuff that I had coupons for or that were otherwise good deals to get me up to $15.
Today I came home with:
4 jumbo packs of Pampers
2 bottles of Scope (at a friend's request, I didn't have a coupon, but they were on sale)
2 tubes of Crest toothpaste
2 quart bottles of Similac Ready To Feed
2 boxes, 10 count each, of Breathe Right strips
4 tubes of Desitin that I had a rain check for from MONTHS ago, the rain check gods smiled upon me today
In total, I paid Rite Aid $17.69 more, in cash and +UP rewards, than they gave me back in +UP rewards. If we assume everything else was free, then I paid $4.43 a pack for Pampers. $4.43 is higher than I'd like, but still below my maximum acceptable price for diapers.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Rite Aid trips 4/16/2011
Today, I made the happy mistake of checking a local Rite Aid that I generally avoid to see if they had any of this week's sale items in stock. Specifically, I was hunting Biore strips. Not only did they have them, they had them in abundance, and I was inspired to visit all 3 of my local Rite Aids to score some deals. Between the 3 stores, I did 7 transactions so I could use soon expiring $1 off you order Video Values coupons.
As I am generally opposed to shelf clearing, I limited myself at each visit based on how much stock the store had.
Today's score: 5 packs of Biore strips, 5 assorted Biore cleansers, 5 John Frieda shampoo, 2 John Frieda conditioner, 5 John Frieda Full Repair stylers, 1 John Frieda Weather Works/Frizz Eaze styler, and, not pictured, a lip gloss and 2 Old Spice body washes.
The lip gloss was courtesy of my daughter, who came with me and was lobbying for make-up. After coupons, one of my transactions had a subtotal of $9.99. I had $10 +UPs that I had planned on using to pay for the purchase, and, as teenagers are want to do, my daughter recognized a moment of weakness when I said, "Really?!?" to the cashier, and I caved. At that moment, being short ONE cent to be able to use the +UP, and knowing I was going to be making money, I let her have a full priced item. I don't carry make-up coupons in my binder, unless they're a known moneymaker, because I don't wear make-up. $4.99 for lip gloss, yikes!
Even after expensive lip gloss, I made money on this stuff today. I had spent my last few +UPs last week buying baby stuff that is never free (though I do insist on getting a good deal), so I had to actually spend real money today. Here's the break-down.
Spent $25.99, got back $30 +UPs.
Spent $10 +UPs and $6.61, got back $14 +UPs. (lip gloss, anyone?)
Spent $4 +UPs and $2.66, got back $10 +UPs.
Spent $2.31, got back nothing.
Spent $6.93, got back nothing, but I should have received $10 +UPs.
Got $10 gift card back, because my +UPs didn't print.
Spent $2.31, paid using GC, got back the $10 +UPs I should have gotten before.***
Spent $7.93, most of that what was left on the GC, got back $10 +UPs.
I got back $15.26 more in +UPs than I spent in the store. Even if you subtract the $10 I made that I shouldn't have because their computer burped, I still made money.
***Failure to print was in one store, printing was in a completely different store. I didn't even look at the receipt before putting it in my pocket, because there shouldn't have been a +UP. Didn't even notice it til I came home and wanted to see how much I made.
I work pretty hard trying to make money at the drugstores. It's all a cleaver ploy to reduce my cost for items I actually need, like diapers, that are almost never free. The drugstores have pretty good diaper prices frequently enough, at least once a month jumbo packs are under $5 after +UPs and coupons at Rite Aid. I haven't paid more than $5 for a pack of diapers since the baby was born, and the lowest I've lucked in to was $2.99 each. Making $15 equates to 3 or more free packs of diapers later, when they go on sale.
Free is the greatest four letter word in the English language.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Rite Aid trip 3/13/2011
I visited Rite Aid today. I spent most of my prep time on the CVS deal. Had I done more than quickly flip through Rite Aid's ad (which I've done since coming home), I'd have noticed other good deals. In a quick flip, I saw these. 40 count Motrin PM on sale for $3 each with a $1 +UP reward.
I've been couponing for a few months, and back in January Rite Aid had 20 count Motrin PM on sale for $3 with a $2 +UP. In that Sunday's paper there were coupons for $6 off when you buy 2 Motrin (and a couple of other items). I remember grabbing as many as I could then, because $2 back more than covers the sales tax on $3, so they were all money makers. In the time since, I've been to several coupon swaps. At every swap I've been to, I've found these $6 off 2 coupons. I've picked up quite a few. In fact, a few weeks back Tylenol Precise was also a money maker if you had these coupons. I've been making money hand over fist on these coupons, and I still have more.
Anyway, quick flip through the ad and there's $3 Motrin PM with a $1 +UP. I run in, grab 6, pay and get out.
My subtotal was zero, but I had to pay $1.40 in sales tax. On my receipt, it printed 6 +UPs for $1 each. Math time: $6 earned - $1.40 spent = $4.60 money maker.
CVS trip 3/13/2011
Today, I ventured to CVS. I had $12.98 in ECBs to roll, and there were deals to be had.
Before I go too far, I have to say, while I only have one Extracare card, my mother has made her Extracare card available to me. When there is a limit of 1, like this week's baby deal, having a second card to use is wonderful. Today, I used Mom's Extracare card because I had earned ECBs on her card and they were due to expire later this week. I have ECBs from my card, but they don't expire until April. If you don't use them you lose them, and if I can't make it back to get a deal, or the deals are sold out, with my card's ECBs I still have time to roll those without losing them.
I decided to split my order up into two transactions. Doing so would allow me to immediately roll ECBs from the first order on to the second, reducing my out of pocket (OOP) and reducing the amount of ECBs I'll have to work to roll later on. I could have done a better job spliting it up had I thought about it.
For my first order, I got a pack of Tena. They're adult incontinence pads. I don't need them, but they're easily donateable. They're on sale for $9.99 with a $9.99 ECB. There's also a coupon on Tena's website for $2.50 off. Money maker!
I paid for the Tena using $7.99 in ECBs, the $2.50 coupon from their website, and 12 cents in cash. I got back $9.99 in ECB. I made $1.88 on the deal (the rest of the $2.50 from the coupon was absorbed by sales tax). I also still have $4.99 ECB that I walked in the door with.
In my second order I purchased 1 Enfamil Newborn powder tub and a 50 count Advil (which was oddly part of the baby deal, between those 2 I met the $25 threshold to earn ECBs), 1 Dulcolax Balance 14 count, 1 Dulcolax tablets 25 count, and (2) 150 count Dentek picks.
Both the Dulcolax are on sale this week for $4.99. CVS mailed me coupons a few weeks back, one was for $5 off Dulcolax Balance 14 count, and one was for $3 off any Dulcolax. $5 off a $4.99 product is my kind of deal, and for the price of sales tax I'm OK with adding it to my assortment of OTC medications for whenever we might need them in the future. But it gets better. Those coupons are both CVS coupons, which means I could stack a manufacturer's coupon on for greater savings. A little web searching later and I found $4 off any Dulcolax coupons printable online (most online printables are a limit of 2). So, I could get two Dulcolax, at least one of them being the Balance variety, for $9.98 - $8 in CVS coupons - $8 in manufacturer's coupons = $6.02 overage towards the rest of my order.
Dentek has an ECB deal, spend $5 get $2 ECB. I had 2 $1 off 1 Dentek over $2 coupons. My family likes and uses these products, they don't often go on sale or have coupons. I selected (2) 150 count Dentek picks priced at $3.49 each. Take off $1 each from my coupons, and they'll give me back $2 in ECB. Not a bad deal.
I need formula. Enfamil is what my baby prefers, and all this effort for money makers and overage was really a blatant attempt to get the cost of the formula down. CVS's sale this week on Enfamil is really good, but with a little strategy I knew I could make it better. The Advil was the low price, name brand item I could buy to hit the $25 that I also had a coupon for. $22 for the Enfamil, with a $2 off coupon and a $5 formula check, $4.50 for the Advil with a $2 coupon, and hitting the $25 mark I get $10 back in ECBs.
I give the cashier my 2 CVS Dulcolax coupons, $8 in total, the ECBs I brought in and just earned on the Tena, $14.98, $2 Enfamil coupon, $2 Advil coupon, (2) $1 Dentek coupons, (2) $4 Dulcolax coupons and a $5 Enfamil check.
My total: $3.58
My receipt prints $10 and $2 ECBs for the baby deal and the Dentek.
Let's do the math.
I walked in with $12.98 in ECBs. I paid them $3.70 ($3.58 + $0.12 from the Tena transaction) in real money. I walked out with $12 in ECBs and all that stuff.
$3.70 plus the 98 cents more in ECBs I spent than made, and if we say everything else was free, I just paid $4.68 for a large tub of Enfamil powder. Those things retail around $25 in most stores.
I could have done better, but my CVS was out of the free after ECB Theraflu singles that I found a $2 off coupon for. Maybe they'll have it later in the week. If not, I'll get a raincheck.
Having a plan: Playing the drugstore game at Rite Aid
Rite Aid may be the most complicated of the drugstores to work, but they are hands down the best deal.
Rite Aid has a rewards program, called wellness+. You can go in to Rite Aid and get a wellness+ card. They will keep track of how much you've spent, and when you've earned enough points you'll get a discount everyday on regularly priced merchandise in the store. You earn 25 points filling a prescription (with certain limitations, like you don't earn points if the prescription was paid for using Medicare/Medicaid). You earn one point per dollar spent in the store. At 500 points, you've earned an everyday discount of 10% off regularly priced items. At 1000 points, you've earned 20% off the same. At 125, 250 and 375 points, you'll earn a 10% off savings pass good for one purchase.
Like CVS and Walgreens, Rite Aid has a reward that prints at the register good towards your next purchase. At Rite Aid, they're called +UPs. To get +UPs you make a qualifying purchase (either something from the sale flier or something with in store signage, or sometimes even something that has no signage in your store for whatever reason) and +UPs print at the end of your receipt. +UPs can not be applied to sales tax, just like the other drugstore programs. You need to use your wellness+ card at the register to get +UPs, but even if your purchase will not generate +UPs you should use it anyway so that your purchase will count towards earning your next reward level.
Pretty frequently there's something or other available for free after +UP reward. You go in, pay the sale price and a +UP for the price of the item prints at the end of your receipt. So long as you use the +UP before it expires, you've not paid anything but sales tax on the item. In a perfect world, you roll your +UPs by spending them on other items that generate +UPs (or rebates, but we'll get to that).
In addition to +UP instant rebates, Rite Aid has Single Check Rebates. Every month they publish a flier with all the rebate items and amounts listed. You buy an item during its rebate period (some times it's the whole month, sometimes it's a particular week) and you submit it for the rebate. You can only request a check once per month, which is why it's called Single Check Rebates. You can keep your receipts and mail them with the form in the SCR flier OR you can enter them online as you make purchases. The later is a vastly superior method. So long as you remember to enter the receipt when you get home, there's nothing to keep track of. Once you sign up online for the rebates, there are no annoying forms to fill out. Keeping track of things, or lack thereof, and not wanting to fill out forms to mail are two very common reasons people don't submit rebates. I like that I don't have to waste the postage.
Submitting SCR online also allows you to double dip, or at least not stress separating orders. There have been manufacturer's mail in rebates for all sorts of things. It can be a giant pain to sort out what in your basket is for a SCR and what in your basket is for a manufacturer's rebate, and heaven forbid something qualifies as both or you make a mistake and buy an item with the wrong order. You can submit your receipt information on the SCR site, and still have the receipt to mail in for another rebate.
A few times a month, items will be free after SCR. For those not inclined to keep track of +UPs, these are awesome (they're awesome either way to be honest). You buy the item, go home and enter your receipt on the website and at the end of the month you request your rebate check. Rite Aid sends you a check for the cost of the item, and all you are out is the sales tax. If you use the occasional coupon, you can actually make back the cost of sales tax and unlike +UPs this is a real check you can take to the bank and get real money to spend any way you want. If you can keep track of your +UPs, free after SCR items are a good way to spend +UPs and get back real money.
Now, if you use coupons for your item, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR. If you pay entirely with +UPs, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR. If you've earned an everyday wellness+ discount, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR. If a SCR is for ALL of a particular item, and you find one on clearance, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR (last month, all Almay eye make-up had a $2 SCR, and I found a less popular shade set on clearance for $1.94, it had "gift for my young niece" written all over it).
Rite Aid has in ad coupons which you can stack with manufacturer's coupons to get a better deal, but the real magic with Rite Aid's own coupons are their Video Values program. You sign up for Video Values on their website. You watch short video ads, many of them the exact same commercials that are on TV, and you earn credits. Some of the credits are for the particular item you are viewing an ad for. Some of the credits are cummulative towards a larger reward. Some are good for both.
For example, this month there is a Video Value beauty bonus. You watch 12 videos and earn $2 off a $10 beauty purchase. Some of the videos also earn you a coupon towards that item. If you watch all the beauty bonus videos, you can print the $2 off $10 coupon, and the individual item coupons. If you select $10 worth of product, you can use both the $2 off coupon and the coupon for the item AND, if you have a manufacturer's coupon, you can use that too. I, personally, do not wear make-up (weird for a woman, I know) or I would dazzle you with a deal scenario that I'd done recently using these offers. I may not wear make-up, but I watched the videos anyway. You never know what will go on sale, and I've been known to print out the right combination of VV coupons to stack with manufacturer's coupons to score free product. I have a daughter, and she loves it when I tell her there is free make-up to be had.
Most Video Values ads are short, around 30 seconds. Some can be as long as 4 minutes, but those tend to be either high value product coupon offers or $$ off your purchase.
Video Values coupons are store coupons. In ad coupons are store coupons. Even though they're both store coupons, you can stack VV with in ad coupons on the same item. The most recent example of this was during this past week's sale. There was an in ad coupon for $5 off 3 Dixie products. There was also a VV coupon this month for $5 off 3 Dixie products. I used them both, coupled with a 10% off regularly priced merchandise coupon (Dixie wasn't on sale so the 10% off applied), and I got 3 packs of Dixie plates for 79 cents plus tax. I have a friend who is at the 20% off reward level, and with those same coupons her total was $1.20 less than mine. Let's do a little math, .79 - 1.20 = -.41. That's right, she got free plates and 41 cents credit towards the rest of her basket for watching a short video (actually, she also had a manufacturer's coupon for $3 off 2 Dixie which they also took and deducted from her total, but I have no idea where she found it).
Rite Aid, more so than the other drugstores, has awesome stacking opportunities that can trivially net you free product. Moneymaker opportunities are plentiful almost every week. If you take the time to watch the Video Values, without buying newspapers and clipping coupons, and spending less than 5 minutes a week researching the ad, you can easily pick up $50 worth of product a month for pennies on the dollar. A few minutes research for online printable coupons to match with free or almost free after +UP or SCR, and you can make money almost every week. Become a serious couponer, collect coupon inserts from the paper for a few months, and making $10+ a week becomes fairly common.
I didn't hit Rite Aid all that hard last week. I got 12 cans of sardines (donating), 4 cans of tuna, 4 Thermacare heat wraps, (5) 32 oz Similac, 1 box of Similac RTF newborn bottles, 2 Ester-C, 1 Keri lotion, 3 packages of Dixie plates, 4 tubes of toothpaste, a Snickers bar and a bottle of Cepacol (which my husband had to have because he didn't feel well, I paid full price, no coupon). I spent $3 more in +UPs than I earned on my transactions. I spent about $4 in sales tax and small overages. I earned $14 in SCR which I will get a check for after I submit when the month is over. Not a gang-buster week, but I got all that product and in the end they'll pay me $7 more than I spent for it. My SCR for February (which I only requested this week and hasn't arrived yet) was $49.97.
Rite Aid has a rewards program, called wellness+. You can go in to Rite Aid and get a wellness+ card. They will keep track of how much you've spent, and when you've earned enough points you'll get a discount everyday on regularly priced merchandise in the store. You earn 25 points filling a prescription (with certain limitations, like you don't earn points if the prescription was paid for using Medicare/Medicaid). You earn one point per dollar spent in the store. At 500 points, you've earned an everyday discount of 10% off regularly priced items. At 1000 points, you've earned 20% off the same. At 125, 250 and 375 points, you'll earn a 10% off savings pass good for one purchase.
Like CVS and Walgreens, Rite Aid has a reward that prints at the register good towards your next purchase. At Rite Aid, they're called +UPs. To get +UPs you make a qualifying purchase (either something from the sale flier or something with in store signage, or sometimes even something that has no signage in your store for whatever reason) and +UPs print at the end of your receipt. +UPs can not be applied to sales tax, just like the other drugstore programs. You need to use your wellness+ card at the register to get +UPs, but even if your purchase will not generate +UPs you should use it anyway so that your purchase will count towards earning your next reward level.
Pretty frequently there's something or other available for free after +UP reward. You go in, pay the sale price and a +UP for the price of the item prints at the end of your receipt. So long as you use the +UP before it expires, you've not paid anything but sales tax on the item. In a perfect world, you roll your +UPs by spending them on other items that generate +UPs (or rebates, but we'll get to that).
In addition to +UP instant rebates, Rite Aid has Single Check Rebates. Every month they publish a flier with all the rebate items and amounts listed. You buy an item during its rebate period (some times it's the whole month, sometimes it's a particular week) and you submit it for the rebate. You can only request a check once per month, which is why it's called Single Check Rebates. You can keep your receipts and mail them with the form in the SCR flier OR you can enter them online as you make purchases. The later is a vastly superior method. So long as you remember to enter the receipt when you get home, there's nothing to keep track of. Once you sign up online for the rebates, there are no annoying forms to fill out. Keeping track of things, or lack thereof, and not wanting to fill out forms to mail are two very common reasons people don't submit rebates. I like that I don't have to waste the postage.
Submitting SCR online also allows you to double dip, or at least not stress separating orders. There have been manufacturer's mail in rebates for all sorts of things. It can be a giant pain to sort out what in your basket is for a SCR and what in your basket is for a manufacturer's rebate, and heaven forbid something qualifies as both or you make a mistake and buy an item with the wrong order. You can submit your receipt information on the SCR site, and still have the receipt to mail in for another rebate.
A few times a month, items will be free after SCR. For those not inclined to keep track of +UPs, these are awesome (they're awesome either way to be honest). You buy the item, go home and enter your receipt on the website and at the end of the month you request your rebate check. Rite Aid sends you a check for the cost of the item, and all you are out is the sales tax. If you use the occasional coupon, you can actually make back the cost of sales tax and unlike +UPs this is a real check you can take to the bank and get real money to spend any way you want. If you can keep track of your +UPs, free after SCR items are a good way to spend +UPs and get back real money.
Now, if you use coupons for your item, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR. If you pay entirely with +UPs, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR. If you've earned an everyday wellness+ discount, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR. If a SCR is for ALL of a particular item, and you find one on clearance, you can still submit for the full value of the SCR (last month, all Almay eye make-up had a $2 SCR, and I found a less popular shade set on clearance for $1.94, it had "gift for my young niece" written all over it).
Rite Aid has in ad coupons which you can stack with manufacturer's coupons to get a better deal, but the real magic with Rite Aid's own coupons are their Video Values program. You sign up for Video Values on their website. You watch short video ads, many of them the exact same commercials that are on TV, and you earn credits. Some of the credits are for the particular item you are viewing an ad for. Some of the credits are cummulative towards a larger reward. Some are good for both.
For example, this month there is a Video Value beauty bonus. You watch 12 videos and earn $2 off a $10 beauty purchase. Some of the videos also earn you a coupon towards that item. If you watch all the beauty bonus videos, you can print the $2 off $10 coupon, and the individual item coupons. If you select $10 worth of product, you can use both the $2 off coupon and the coupon for the item AND, if you have a manufacturer's coupon, you can use that too. I, personally, do not wear make-up (weird for a woman, I know) or I would dazzle you with a deal scenario that I'd done recently using these offers. I may not wear make-up, but I watched the videos anyway. You never know what will go on sale, and I've been known to print out the right combination of VV coupons to stack with manufacturer's coupons to score free product. I have a daughter, and she loves it when I tell her there is free make-up to be had.
Most Video Values ads are short, around 30 seconds. Some can be as long as 4 minutes, but those tend to be either high value product coupon offers or $$ off your purchase.
Video Values coupons are store coupons. In ad coupons are store coupons. Even though they're both store coupons, you can stack VV with in ad coupons on the same item. The most recent example of this was during this past week's sale. There was an in ad coupon for $5 off 3 Dixie products. There was also a VV coupon this month for $5 off 3 Dixie products. I used them both, coupled with a 10% off regularly priced merchandise coupon (Dixie wasn't on sale so the 10% off applied), and I got 3 packs of Dixie plates for 79 cents plus tax. I have a friend who is at the 20% off reward level, and with those same coupons her total was $1.20 less than mine. Let's do a little math, .79 - 1.20 = -.41. That's right, she got free plates and 41 cents credit towards the rest of her basket for watching a short video (actually, she also had a manufacturer's coupon for $3 off 2 Dixie which they also took and deducted from her total, but I have no idea where she found it).
Rite Aid, more so than the other drugstores, has awesome stacking opportunities that can trivially net you free product. Moneymaker opportunities are plentiful almost every week. If you take the time to watch the Video Values, without buying newspapers and clipping coupons, and spending less than 5 minutes a week researching the ad, you can easily pick up $50 worth of product a month for pennies on the dollar. A few minutes research for online printable coupons to match with free or almost free after +UP or SCR, and you can make money almost every week. Become a serious couponer, collect coupon inserts from the paper for a few months, and making $10+ a week becomes fairly common.
I didn't hit Rite Aid all that hard last week. I got 12 cans of sardines (donating), 4 cans of tuna, 4 Thermacare heat wraps, (5) 32 oz Similac, 1 box of Similac RTF newborn bottles, 2 Ester-C, 1 Keri lotion, 3 packages of Dixie plates, 4 tubes of toothpaste, a Snickers bar and a bottle of Cepacol (which my husband had to have because he didn't feel well, I paid full price, no coupon). I spent $3 more in +UPs than I earned on my transactions. I spent about $4 in sales tax and small overages. I earned $14 in SCR which I will get a check for after I submit when the month is over. Not a gang-buster week, but I got all that product and in the end they'll pay me $7 more than I spent for it. My SCR for February (which I only requested this week and hasn't arrived yet) was $49.97.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Good shopping trip at Rite Aid
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| My Rite Aid purchase 3/11/2011 |
I stacked a Rite Aid discount coupon (I'd earned a 10% off regularly priced merchandise coupon) with in ad Rite Aid coupons ($2 off any Similac, $3.99 off Thermacare), Rite Aid Video Values coupons ($2 and $1 off on Ester-C) manufacturer's coupons (2 $3 off Ester-C, $2 off Keri), and used 3 Similac formula checks for $5 each.
I have a baby, but he doesn't drink Similac. Similac still mails me checks from time to time. I keep them in the hopes of finding a way to get nearly free formula so I can donate it.
My total came to 19 cents. I did not pay using any +UPs.
I received back $2 in +UPs, though I'm not entirely certain why. There is also a $6 Single Check Rebate on the Keri lotion.
I paid 19 cents. They're giving me back $8.
This is not the first time I've purchased Similac and Thermacare at Rite Aid this week. My last trip did not generate +UPs. None of the items had signage to indicate I would earn a +UP. I think it was for the infant bottles, which I had not purchased before. The +UP says it's for purchasing "Dsny kids." That rules out the Ester-C and the Keri. I had planned to have low OOP and make money, I just made more money than I expected.
And, in other weirdness, there is a Single Check Rebate on 32 oz Similac Concentrate. I did not buy the concentrate, since it was more expensive and I would have had to pay a couple of bucks more, even after accounting for the rebate, for each bottle. However, the store shelf signage showed that all 32 oz Similac was eligible for the rebate. It's a $2 rebate per bottle, limit 4. If I get it, wonderful. If I do not, I still made money. I've entered my receipt at the Rite Aid website for the Keri lotion. In a few days they'll update my rebates and I'll know, one way or the other, whether I'm getting any more back for buying the formula. Edit: I submitted my 3/11 and 3/10 receipts on Rite Aid's website last night, both having 32 oz RTF Similac, and the 3/10 receipt updated today showing I'd earned $2 for each of that day's 3 Similac. It's a limit of 4, so with the 3/11 purchase shown here I won't get $2 for each, just for one more. Still, that adds $2 to how much money I made on this trip. I made money by thinking about those in need. That's just awesome! I'll use it to cover tax on other freebies I score here and there to donate.
Now, I appreciate that you may not have formula checks laying around, buying formula to donate may not be a free proposition for you and you might not be sitting on a 10% off discount. That's OK. With the same Video Values, in ad and manufacturer's coupons, and without +UPs to spend, you would have paid about $2 + tax in cash and had a SCR to submit for $6, which is more than you paid.
Using the 10% off discount, the Thermacare, which is normally $3.99, rang up for $3.59. The in ad coupon took off $3.99. I have friends who have earned a 20% off discount everyday on regularly priced merchandise and they've been ringing in at $3.19 - $3.99 in ad coupon, and they're getting 80 cents overage toward the rest of their basket every day.
I aspire to have an every day discount. I'm at around 300 points. At 500 points, you get 10% off every day on regularly priced items. At 1000 points, you get 20% off. We all should have something to aspire to.
Having a plan: Playing the drugstore game at Walgreens
It's a common opinion among couponers that Walgreens is the hardest of the drugstore chains to score great deals at. Sure, their sale prices can be just as good as the other stores, but their coupon policies stink.
In CVS and Rite-Aid, the reward coupons that print after you've made your purchase can be used, for the most part, as cash (you can't pay sales tax with them though). Walgreens rewards coupons, called Register Rewards, or RRs for short, are manufacturer's coupons. Walgreens will only allow you to use one manufacturer's coupon per item. If they're having a great sale this week, and by stacking coupons with the sale you can score big, you might need a filler item or 3 to be able to use last week's RRs on your purchase. Buying filler items, low priced stuff you don't have a coupon for, is something to avoid. While occasionally miscalculating and grabbing a candy bar to cover overage happens from time to time to even the most math proficient couponer, having to make a habit of it just to get the good deal diminishes the value of that good deal.
Walgreens doesn't have a rewards card like CVS and Rite-Aid. On it's face, this looks like a good thing. Limits, after all, are a major impediment to a big score for a couponer. No rewards card, no tracking how many times you've done a particular deal. If you've got the time to separate transactions, functionally, there is no limit, past store stock, to how many times you can score a great deal. There's just one small catch.
If you buy an item that generates RRs, and then try to spend those RRs to pay for an item by the same manufacturer, a new RR will not print for the next transaction. Let's say something is free after RRs. You buy it, and get your RR. If you come back in and try to buy it again, and pay with the first RR, you won't get a new RR. If you pay cash the second time, you would get a new RR. Rarely are there enough items free after RR with the same RR value from different manufacturers in a sale week for you to roll RRs well. Rolling is when you take your rewards and use them to pay for new stuff that generates new rewards.
Sometimes RRs clearly state what you got it for buying, "Thanks from Kleenex," and sometimes they don't, "Thank you for your purchase." Because I don't know whether they'll be clearly identified or not until they print, I try to avoid buying 2 items in the same transaction that will generate the same value RR. If I walk out of Walgreens with 2 $2 RRs, and neither of them clearly specifies a manufacturer, I'm going to have a harder time rolling them. If I walk out of Walgreens with a $1 RR and a $3 RR, I can grab a pencil as soon as I get home and write on the RR that I got it for buying Kleenex. Since it's fresh in my mind, and even if I forget I have my receipt and sale flier to consult, I'm less likely to fail at rolling it because I know what I can't roll it on.
Another weird thing about RRs that makes them hard to roll, if an item is $2.99, free after RR, the RR that will generate will actually be $3. If Walgreens has 3 different items from 3 different manufacturers priced at $2.99, free after RR, you can't just buy one and take the RR to get the next one. You're going to have a penny overage. Walgreens doesn't like overage. You'll need a filler. Fillers diminish the free-ness of the stuff you're getting and make it less a good deal.
Walgreens doesn't really like taking coupons that exceed the value of the item. CVS and Rite-Aid will both take a $1 off coupon for an 88 cent item, and so long as that does not bring your order total negative, they really don't care. The manufacturer is going to send them that $1, plus a small handling fee, so they're not out any money. They won't give you change, but they'll credit $1 towards your order. The amount over the cost of the item is called overage. Target won't go that far, but if you present a $1 coupon for an 88 cent item, they will manually enter 88 cents as the coupon value. I'm OK with that. Walgreens, on the other hand, outright refuses to accept manufacturer's coupons for more than the cost of the item. They can, but many won't, manually enter a coupon for the cost of the item. This makes no sense to me, at all. If I present a $1 coupon for an 88 cent item, and they mark the coupon down to 88 cents so that I can get my freebie, they still get reimbursed $1 by the manufacturer. By taking and marking down my coupon, they'd be making more money on my item than the guy behind me paying cash for the same. Walmart recently announced a change to their coupon policy. They used to discount coupons, like Target, but now they will allow overage to be applied to your order or will even issue you change from your coupon tender.
Walgreens has in ad coupons some weeks. They also publish a monthly coupon book that is good all month. A "month" starts on a Sunday near the beginning of the month and ends on a Saturday near the end of the month, good for either 4 weeks or 5. Both in ad coupons and coupon book coupons are Walgreens store coupons. You can "stack" a store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon. Just remember, if there will be overage, order matters. A manufacturer's coupon will beep and may not be accepted if it exceeds the cost of the item. Give them your manufacturer's coupons first, then your store coupon. A store coupon will not beep if it exceeds the cost of the item, so long as your subtotal (amount before they add tax) will not be negative. You also need to have enough stuff to cover any overage. I recommend keeping your store coupons completely out of the cashier's view until they've accepted all your manufacturer's coupons.
Still, every so often a Walgreens deal comes along that is too good to pass up. Every 6 weeks or so something they have in the ad is good enough to get my attention, and I wander in. I only do it if it's a moneymaker, or something we use all the time, or something that almost never goes on sale that I feel we should have in the house.
This week, they've got a deal on Pediacare. I have an infant, and there's a $5 off Pediacare coupon in their sale ad. It's a Walgreen's coupon, so I could stack it with a manufacturer's coupon if I wanted to. The Pediacare infant fever drops are $5.99 for 0.5 oz, or $9.xx for 1 oz. If I get 2 of the 0.5 oz, which would be 1 oz total, I'll pay $1.98, or I can get one of the 1 oz and pay $4.xx (you don't need to be a math whiz to see I'd be getting the same amount of medication for less money, and why I really didn't care to remember the cents on the 1 oz price). Even if I can't get them to take a manufacturer's coupon, this is something I want in my house. I'll get over it not being free when I crack it open at 3 am to give to my child instead of sending my husband to the 24 hour grocery to pay $8 for it. But, there's an internet printable coupon for $2 off any Pediacare. If I can get them to take them both, I'll have overage. I look through the ad, and there's a Venus razor, $7.99 with $4 RR back. I have a coupon for $5 off a Venus razor, if I'm lucky, when I get in the store it will be included in the sale. If it isn't, I'm going to need to find $2.02 worth of fillers to cover my overage, or the register will beep and I'll have to pay 99 cents for each of my Pediacare. I now have a plan and head off to Walgreens.
As luck would have it, my razor coupon is for the razor that is on special. $7.99 - $5 = $2.99 I'm going to pay $2.99 for my razor, and they're going to give me $4 off my next order. Money maker! I grab 2 of the 0.5 oz Pediacare. $5.99 - $2 -$5 = Money maker (times 2)!
I give my cashier the 2 $2 off Pediacare coupons and the $5 off Venus coupon. She tells me the total. "Oooh, wait!" I open the ad like a ninja, and have her scan the in ad coupon. $5 x 2 comes off. New total, 97 cents plus sales tax (which gets calculated on your pre-coupon total, this would vary by your tax rate).
I kindly pay my 97 cents plus tax. The catalina machine spits out a $4 RR.
While I can trivially carry around $20-40 worth of CVS ECBs or Rite-Aid +UPS at any given time, I get concerned if I have more than $5 in RRs. The whole "free after rewards" thing only works if you use the rewards, otherwise you've paid for your stuff. In a perfect world, you roll your rewards week to week. I have difficulty rolling RRs (as do many couponers, that's why we don't shop Walgreens). In this case, if I fail to use the RR, I'll get over it. 97 cents is not so much to pay for 2 bottles of Pediacare and a Venus razor system. But $4 is a good amount to have for an RR. Between now and when it expires, if no good way to roll it presents itself I can always just buy milk.
In CVS and Rite-Aid, the reward coupons that print after you've made your purchase can be used, for the most part, as cash (you can't pay sales tax with them though). Walgreens rewards coupons, called Register Rewards, or RRs for short, are manufacturer's coupons. Walgreens will only allow you to use one manufacturer's coupon per item. If they're having a great sale this week, and by stacking coupons with the sale you can score big, you might need a filler item or 3 to be able to use last week's RRs on your purchase. Buying filler items, low priced stuff you don't have a coupon for, is something to avoid. While occasionally miscalculating and grabbing a candy bar to cover overage happens from time to time to even the most math proficient couponer, having to make a habit of it just to get the good deal diminishes the value of that good deal.
Walgreens doesn't have a rewards card like CVS and Rite-Aid. On it's face, this looks like a good thing. Limits, after all, are a major impediment to a big score for a couponer. No rewards card, no tracking how many times you've done a particular deal. If you've got the time to separate transactions, functionally, there is no limit, past store stock, to how many times you can score a great deal. There's just one small catch.
If you buy an item that generates RRs, and then try to spend those RRs to pay for an item by the same manufacturer, a new RR will not print for the next transaction. Let's say something is free after RRs. You buy it, and get your RR. If you come back in and try to buy it again, and pay with the first RR, you won't get a new RR. If you pay cash the second time, you would get a new RR. Rarely are there enough items free after RR with the same RR value from different manufacturers in a sale week for you to roll RRs well. Rolling is when you take your rewards and use them to pay for new stuff that generates new rewards.
Sometimes RRs clearly state what you got it for buying, "Thanks from Kleenex," and sometimes they don't, "Thank you for your purchase." Because I don't know whether they'll be clearly identified or not until they print, I try to avoid buying 2 items in the same transaction that will generate the same value RR. If I walk out of Walgreens with 2 $2 RRs, and neither of them clearly specifies a manufacturer, I'm going to have a harder time rolling them. If I walk out of Walgreens with a $1 RR and a $3 RR, I can grab a pencil as soon as I get home and write on the RR that I got it for buying Kleenex. Since it's fresh in my mind, and even if I forget I have my receipt and sale flier to consult, I'm less likely to fail at rolling it because I know what I can't roll it on.
Another weird thing about RRs that makes them hard to roll, if an item is $2.99, free after RR, the RR that will generate will actually be $3. If Walgreens has 3 different items from 3 different manufacturers priced at $2.99, free after RR, you can't just buy one and take the RR to get the next one. You're going to have a penny overage. Walgreens doesn't like overage. You'll need a filler. Fillers diminish the free-ness of the stuff you're getting and make it less a good deal.
Walgreens doesn't really like taking coupons that exceed the value of the item. CVS and Rite-Aid will both take a $1 off coupon for an 88 cent item, and so long as that does not bring your order total negative, they really don't care. The manufacturer is going to send them that $1, plus a small handling fee, so they're not out any money. They won't give you change, but they'll credit $1 towards your order. The amount over the cost of the item is called overage. Target won't go that far, but if you present a $1 coupon for an 88 cent item, they will manually enter 88 cents as the coupon value. I'm OK with that. Walgreens, on the other hand, outright refuses to accept manufacturer's coupons for more than the cost of the item. They can, but many won't, manually enter a coupon for the cost of the item. This makes no sense to me, at all. If I present a $1 coupon for an 88 cent item, and they mark the coupon down to 88 cents so that I can get my freebie, they still get reimbursed $1 by the manufacturer. By taking and marking down my coupon, they'd be making more money on my item than the guy behind me paying cash for the same. Walmart recently announced a change to their coupon policy. They used to discount coupons, like Target, but now they will allow overage to be applied to your order or will even issue you change from your coupon tender.
Walgreens has in ad coupons some weeks. They also publish a monthly coupon book that is good all month. A "month" starts on a Sunday near the beginning of the month and ends on a Saturday near the end of the month, good for either 4 weeks or 5. Both in ad coupons and coupon book coupons are Walgreens store coupons. You can "stack" a store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon. Just remember, if there will be overage, order matters. A manufacturer's coupon will beep and may not be accepted if it exceeds the cost of the item. Give them your manufacturer's coupons first, then your store coupon. A store coupon will not beep if it exceeds the cost of the item, so long as your subtotal (amount before they add tax) will not be negative. You also need to have enough stuff to cover any overage. I recommend keeping your store coupons completely out of the cashier's view until they've accepted all your manufacturer's coupons.
Still, every so often a Walgreens deal comes along that is too good to pass up. Every 6 weeks or so something they have in the ad is good enough to get my attention, and I wander in. I only do it if it's a moneymaker, or something we use all the time, or something that almost never goes on sale that I feel we should have in the house.
This week, they've got a deal on Pediacare. I have an infant, and there's a $5 off Pediacare coupon in their sale ad. It's a Walgreen's coupon, so I could stack it with a manufacturer's coupon if I wanted to. The Pediacare infant fever drops are $5.99 for 0.5 oz, or $9.xx for 1 oz. If I get 2 of the 0.5 oz, which would be 1 oz total, I'll pay $1.98, or I can get one of the 1 oz and pay $4.xx (you don't need to be a math whiz to see I'd be getting the same amount of medication for less money, and why I really didn't care to remember the cents on the 1 oz price). Even if I can't get them to take a manufacturer's coupon, this is something I want in my house. I'll get over it not being free when I crack it open at 3 am to give to my child instead of sending my husband to the 24 hour grocery to pay $8 for it. But, there's an internet printable coupon for $2 off any Pediacare. If I can get them to take them both, I'll have overage. I look through the ad, and there's a Venus razor, $7.99 with $4 RR back. I have a coupon for $5 off a Venus razor, if I'm lucky, when I get in the store it will be included in the sale. If it isn't, I'm going to need to find $2.02 worth of fillers to cover my overage, or the register will beep and I'll have to pay 99 cents for each of my Pediacare. I now have a plan and head off to Walgreens.
As luck would have it, my razor coupon is for the razor that is on special. $7.99 - $5 = $2.99 I'm going to pay $2.99 for my razor, and they're going to give me $4 off my next order. Money maker! I grab 2 of the 0.5 oz Pediacare. $5.99 - $2 -$5 = Money maker (times 2)!
I give my cashier the 2 $2 off Pediacare coupons and the $5 off Venus coupon. She tells me the total. "Oooh, wait!" I open the ad like a ninja, and have her scan the in ad coupon. $5 x 2 comes off. New total, 97 cents plus sales tax (which gets calculated on your pre-coupon total, this would vary by your tax rate).
I kindly pay my 97 cents plus tax. The catalina machine spits out a $4 RR.
While I can trivially carry around $20-40 worth of CVS ECBs or Rite-Aid +UPS at any given time, I get concerned if I have more than $5 in RRs. The whole "free after rewards" thing only works if you use the rewards, otherwise you've paid for your stuff. In a perfect world, you roll your rewards week to week. I have difficulty rolling RRs (as do many couponers, that's why we don't shop Walgreens). In this case, if I fail to use the RR, I'll get over it. 97 cents is not so much to pay for 2 bottles of Pediacare and a Venus razor system. But $4 is a good amount to have for an RR. Between now and when it expires, if no good way to roll it presents itself I can always just buy milk.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Having a plan: Playing the drugstore game at CVS
My general strategy is to pay as little as possible for as much quality stuff as I can. The more stuff I can get for my family at little cost, the more money I have free in the budget for other things. When I started couponing, I first tackled learning to play the drugstore game.
Yes, I said drugstore game. It's like chess. You make all the right moves and you can be the hands down winner. Name brand deodorant for the cost of sales tax. Toothpaste that they pay you to take out of the store. Laundry detergent for 75% off retail. Free over the counter medication. There are so many good deals to be had at the drugstores if you look.
CVS has the easiest rewards program to understand. It's called the ExtraCare program, and the rewards are ExtraCare Bucks, or ECBs for short. The most common way to earn ECBs is to buy items marked in the store or in the sale ad that have a listed ECB. The simplist way to work the ExtraCare program is to grab the weekly circular and see what's free or nearly free after ECBs. If you never bought a Sunday paper or printed an internet coupon, you could supply an average family with free toothpaste indefinitely just by picking it up every time it's free after ECBs.
Here's how it works: You buy something that generates ECBs. You pay for it, and walk out the store with ECBs in hand. ECBs are good towards your next order, though they can't be used to cover the sales tax. Next week, you go back to CVS and buy something else that generates ECBs. You pay with your ECBs, keeping your out of pocket expenses low. Repeat. The process of using ECBs to get stuff and more ECBs is called "rolling" ECBs.
It might not seem like much, but if all you do is pick up 2 tubes of free toothpaste a month that you would otherwise pay $3.50 each for, you're freeing $7 a month from the "Out" column on the budget. That's $84 a year.
If your family uses 1 liter of mouthwash a month, and you avail yourself of the free/cheap after ECB mouthwash at CVS every month, instead of paying $5 a month for mouthwash you can pay, on average, $1 a month without ever clipping a coupon. If you pay extra attention and buy the sale limit when it's free, you might never pay for mouthwash again. So now you're saving another $4 a month, without clipping coupons. It still may not seem like much, but you're now saving $132 a year.
Lots of other stuff is free after ECB pretty regularly enough too. Eye drops, for example, are free after ECB on occasion. Now, maybe you don't need eye drops this week. That's OK. I'm of the opinion that anything I can get that will keep long enough to be used that can be gotten for free should come home with me. I get eye drops when they're free after ECB. Last week, my husband had a horrible case of dry eyes. He wanted me to run out to the store to buy eye drops. I just smiled. He's a smart boy, and he asked "do you have a coupon?" Better, I have a couple of bottles of eye drops I picked up absolutely free from CVS during a past sale. If I hadn't picked up eye drops when they were free, I would have had to go out and buy them. Cheap eye drops are around $4. A little foresight saved me $4.
Contact lense solution, cough syrup, heartburn relief, fiber laxatives, all of these things are in my medicine cabinet, and I got them all playing the drugstore game for free. Some of them were money makers with the addition of a clipped coupon, but all of them were free on their own.
I may not meet all my family's OTC needs with freebies, and you might not meet your's, but an average person, NOT clipping coupons, can get several hundred dollars worth of stuff every year absolutely free for 2 minutes research a week and a trip to the right drugstore. No coupon clipping required!
In addition to picking up the freebies, I'd highly recommend getting a Green Bag Tag and tacking it on to the reuseable bag of your choosing. Bring your own bag, get your Green Bag Tag scanned, and for every four scans (limit one scan per day) you get $1 ECB. It doesn't matter if all you've been grabbing is the freebies, you earn ECBs just by bringing your own bag. Green Bag Tags cost 99 cents, and pay for themselves really quickly.
You also earn ECBs based on a percentage of your spending in the calendar quarter. Since the goal is to roll ECBs and not really spend anything, don't be terribly surprised to not get much for a quarterly ECB.
And if you have prescriptions, you can earn ECBs by having them filled at CVS.
CVS has a Beauty Club, where you earn $5 ECB after you spend $50 on beauty products, and you get a $3 bonus ECB on for your birthday, and they have a Diabetes Care program too.
Feel free to look up the program specifics over at the CVS website.
Yes, I said drugstore game. It's like chess. You make all the right moves and you can be the hands down winner. Name brand deodorant for the cost of sales tax. Toothpaste that they pay you to take out of the store. Laundry detergent for 75% off retail. Free over the counter medication. There are so many good deals to be had at the drugstores if you look.
CVS has the easiest rewards program to understand. It's called the ExtraCare program, and the rewards are ExtraCare Bucks, or ECBs for short. The most common way to earn ECBs is to buy items marked in the store or in the sale ad that have a listed ECB. The simplist way to work the ExtraCare program is to grab the weekly circular and see what's free or nearly free after ECBs. If you never bought a Sunday paper or printed an internet coupon, you could supply an average family with free toothpaste indefinitely just by picking it up every time it's free after ECBs.
Here's how it works: You buy something that generates ECBs. You pay for it, and walk out the store with ECBs in hand. ECBs are good towards your next order, though they can't be used to cover the sales tax. Next week, you go back to CVS and buy something else that generates ECBs. You pay with your ECBs, keeping your out of pocket expenses low. Repeat. The process of using ECBs to get stuff and more ECBs is called "rolling" ECBs.
It might not seem like much, but if all you do is pick up 2 tubes of free toothpaste a month that you would otherwise pay $3.50 each for, you're freeing $7 a month from the "Out" column on the budget. That's $84 a year.
If your family uses 1 liter of mouthwash a month, and you avail yourself of the free/cheap after ECB mouthwash at CVS every month, instead of paying $5 a month for mouthwash you can pay, on average, $1 a month without ever clipping a coupon. If you pay extra attention and buy the sale limit when it's free, you might never pay for mouthwash again. So now you're saving another $4 a month, without clipping coupons. It still may not seem like much, but you're now saving $132 a year.
Lots of other stuff is free after ECB pretty regularly enough too. Eye drops, for example, are free after ECB on occasion. Now, maybe you don't need eye drops this week. That's OK. I'm of the opinion that anything I can get that will keep long enough to be used that can be gotten for free should come home with me. I get eye drops when they're free after ECB. Last week, my husband had a horrible case of dry eyes. He wanted me to run out to the store to buy eye drops. I just smiled. He's a smart boy, and he asked "do you have a coupon?" Better, I have a couple of bottles of eye drops I picked up absolutely free from CVS during a past sale. If I hadn't picked up eye drops when they were free, I would have had to go out and buy them. Cheap eye drops are around $4. A little foresight saved me $4.
Contact lense solution, cough syrup, heartburn relief, fiber laxatives, all of these things are in my medicine cabinet, and I got them all playing the drugstore game for free. Some of them were money makers with the addition of a clipped coupon, but all of them were free on their own.
I may not meet all my family's OTC needs with freebies, and you might not meet your's, but an average person, NOT clipping coupons, can get several hundred dollars worth of stuff every year absolutely free for 2 minutes research a week and a trip to the right drugstore. No coupon clipping required!
In addition to picking up the freebies, I'd highly recommend getting a Green Bag Tag and tacking it on to the reuseable bag of your choosing. Bring your own bag, get your Green Bag Tag scanned, and for every four scans (limit one scan per day) you get $1 ECB. It doesn't matter if all you've been grabbing is the freebies, you earn ECBs just by bringing your own bag. Green Bag Tags cost 99 cents, and pay for themselves really quickly.
You also earn ECBs based on a percentage of your spending in the calendar quarter. Since the goal is to roll ECBs and not really spend anything, don't be terribly surprised to not get much for a quarterly ECB.
And if you have prescriptions, you can earn ECBs by having them filled at CVS.
CVS has a Beauty Club, where you earn $5 ECB after you spend $50 on beauty products, and you get a $3 bonus ECB on for your birthday, and they have a Diabetes Care program too.
Feel free to look up the program specifics over at the CVS website.
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