A Simple Explanation of CVS-ing
February 1st, 2008 | 
Author: I had a good friend ask me for a really, really simple explanation of how the CVS system works. She’s read the explanations elsewhere and was impressed (aren’t we all?) with the savings; however, she said she just couldn’t grasp the idea. I decided to post my simple explanation in hopes of persuading some to give CVS a try or to help out some newbies. Here’s the response I emailed to her…
First, you want to buy a Sunday paper with the weekly CVS flier in it (or stop at CVS and pick one up). In the flier they have the usual ‘for sale’ stuff, but scattered throughout the flier, they have special yellow boxes on certain products. In those boxes, it tells you that if you buy that product, you earn the ECB (extra care bucks – something like an instant rebate that prints on your receipt when you buy the product).
For example, this week (1/27-2/2) Arm & Hammer toothpaste was on sale for $1.99 and the ad says if you buy the product, you receive $1 ECB so it’s like buying the toothpaste for 99 cents ($1.99 advertised price – $1 ECB). Then if you look in the Sunday paper at the coupons, you might find a coupon for Arm & Hammer toothpaste. In this case, there was a coupon on the A & H website for $1 off the toothpaste. (So, if you add the $1 ECB and $1 coupon from the paper, you can consider the toothpaste free. Since this is your first trip, you would still pay $1 in cash when checking out because you have to buy the product before receiving the $1 ECB, but then you have $1 ECB to use next time.)
Another good deal this week was Stayfree Ultra Thin 10-12 count pads. The sale price was $3.29 and the ECB was $3.29. So, you buy the pads and receive $3.29 in ECBs for next time (this is another ‘free’ product). More than likely there’s coupons out there too meaning you might pay $2.50 but receive $3.29 in ECBs – you gain money on that kind of deal.
The ECBs are just like money, but for your first trip, you won’t have any to use. But if you buy the toothpaste and pads this week, the next time you go, you will have $4.29 to use just like cash. Then on that trip, you want to use your $4.29 to buy products that earn you new ECBs.
It can get a little more complicated because CVS offers coupons like spend $20 and receive $4 off, or spend $15 and receive $3 off. Here’s how those work…… This week, I bought the toothpaste ($1.99), pads ($3.29), snickers to go 6 pack ($2.99), and 20 rolls of Cottonelle toilet paper ($9.99). My total was approx. $18. I used the $3/15 coupon so now I owed $15 (18-3=15). Then I had the toothpaste coupon for $1, so my total was $14. Then I used my ECBs from the other week – total of $5. I think I had another manufacturer’s coupon because I paid about $8.50 in real money. (Not the greatest because I usually try to spend less than $5 in real money but I wanted the toilet paper.) However, I left the store with $7.29 in ECBs for next time (both the snickers and toilet paper earned ECBs too). Another perspective is to say that I bought the toilet paper and received the toothpaste, pads and snickers for free.
Next week, if there is anything good on sale, I’ll try to ‘roll’ my ECBs meaning I’ll buy products that will give me at least $7 in ECBs and I’ll pay for my stuff using the $7 from this week. The idea is to not buy things when you need them, but to buy them, and possibly stock up, when you can earn ECBs and use manufacturer’s coupons. I compared a lot of the prices to Wal-Mart and the CVS sale price is very comparable, if not cheaper in most cases, plus you earn the ECBs.
Another tip is to buy the largest size possible – for example, there were various A & H toothpastes for $1.99. I looked at them, checked my coupon to make sure I had no size limits, and picked out the largest tube – like 7 oz compared to others that were 4 oz. (more product for the same amount of money).
So, that’s the simple explanation. If you would like to see an example of a CVS trip with multiple transactions and “rolling” ECBs, click here and here.
Edited: I know some “newbies” like to see transactions for awhile before actually doing them. If you click on the CVS category under “Labels,” you can see the majority of my recent transactions. Some are more detailed than others, but hopefully it will help some of you understand how CVS-ing works.
If you have any questions about CVS-ing, leave a comment and be sure to visit Crystal’s site at Money Saving Mom.
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You did great explaining how CVS works. I’m a pro at it, but I have trouble explaining it to others. Thanks