Thursday, August 14, 2008

CVS/ Walgreens/ Rite Aid

Each month Rite Aid and Walgreens offer items that you purchase and fill out a rebate form and get the items for the cost of the sales tax. They both have made it easy and offer their rebate forms online so you can enter them without having to mail in a form. At Rite Aid you enter your receipt number and it automatically pulls up the items that offer a rebate. At Walgreens you have to enter the items you purchase. Rite Aid mails you a check that you can either cash at your bank or take into the store and use as money on your next months purchases. You can either mail in the rebate for or enter them online. They offer a check of gift card that is reloadable. If you choose the gift card you receive an extra 10% back. More free money!

CVS gives Extra Care Bucks back on certain purchases. You have to have a CVS card for your purchases. Look through the add and they offer items each month that they give back the ECB's. A lot of items are free. You have to buy them then an ECB will print out after you pay that is like store money to use on your next purchase. They also print out coupons for certain items. Try to combine those with a manufacturer coupon for free items. You generally have to make an initial investment the first month to earn your ECB's but then you continue to roll them monthly and have little out of pocket expense.

To start earning ECBs, instead of making all your transactions at one time, make one transaction that will produce ECBs. What is a happy day is when you combine a sale with a coupon and pay little for an item then receive more than you paid in ECBs. Then, calculate another transaction where you use coupons and your earned ECBs to buy those items for little out of pocket. You earn more ECBs to continue rolling them. Not every item produces ECBs so it does take calculating and working it to get the deals. I go to different stores or come different days or times instead of doing more than two transactions back to back. I don't want to make the cashiers hate me. The most I have done at one time is three transactions.

Walgreens offers Register Rewards that are similar to the CVS ECBs. Except, at Walgreens you cannot earn a RR for a certain brand product and rebuy that product and earn another RR. You have to use it to purchase other items.

At all these stores I am trying to use coupons on their sale items. Most of my toiletries and medicines are free after coupon and rebates or store bucks. Do you want to know how to MAKE MONEY????

This week at Walgreens you can work this deal:
Hershey's Bliss candy--$3 each
Buy 4 and use 2 $2/2 EasySaver coupon
Stack with 4 manufacturer's coupons here
Get a $5 rebate for buying $10 worth of Hershey's products (rebate #34)
Free plus overage after coupons and rebate

This week at Target you can work this deal:
Schick Razors (trial sized) - $0.97
Use the $2/1 coupon from the 5/11 SmartSource insert

Don't try to buy an item where it shows you have an overage. They are not going to hand you money. If you are negative pick up something else to make up the difference so it will go through their computer system.

There are great sites to go to that share deal scenarios.
Money saving Mom
More than enough
The centsible sawyer
Thrifty Florida Mom
There are also sites like A Full Cup and slick deals that have threads where people post their deals. It shows grocery stores, drug stores, and department stores.
These sites are where I find out about printable coupons. The printable coupons are usually higher value coupons.

Start slowly and don't try to catch all the deals. When I first started I was like an insane coupon lady and spent HOURS clipping, sorting, figuring out the deals and shopping. My family wasn't as amazed with me as I was. I was getting high off the success of the deals, which made me want more. I filled every nook and cranny with items and finally slowed down. I have actually gone weeks without shopping the deals out of wearing out. Balance it out. Thank God for His provisions. It does take time to clip and file coupons. Next I will tell you how I organize my coupons.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

This is a big help...Thanks