CVS Plans!

Each week on saturday afternoon I plan a sunday morning trip to CVS.

I have to go out sunday mornings to get my newspapers. I look at the CVS weekly sales ahead of time on a great website: Southern Savers.

As an aside- I don't have newspaper delivery because I buy a different number of papers each week after I look at the Sunday Insert Preview. I almost always buy the Tampa Tribune, sometimes the St Pete Times doesn't have all of the inserts. If you are not in the Tampa Bay area consider buying a variety of papers to get a sense of which ones have the most inserts.

Anyway, back to my CVS trip. CVS has an incentive program called Extra Care Bucks. You earn them by buying specified products and they print out as a coupon after you have completed your transaction. Often times the Extra Care Bucks will be equal to the cost of the item, for example, buy a $4 toothbrush and get a $4 ECB. So, if you have a $2 coupon then you will only pay $2 but you will get $4 back. I use this to my advantage by "building up" money that I can then use to buy anything I want!

You might not think there is much for you to buy at CVS, but my recent shopping trips have included mineral makeups, Method laundry detergent, and Vitamin Water, all for free.

There is a really simple, easy totally free deal this week at CVS:

Sobe Lifewater is Buy one Get one Free
use the B1G1 Sobe Lifewater *printable*

and get 2 free!

If you want to get started with Extra Care Bucks it seems the best bet is to pick one item that will earn you ECBs, use a coupon to buy it and walk away with more money than you came in with. Then roll that ECB into the next deal! Southern Savers has a great page explaining it all here.

I've worked out my shopping list- I have $8 in ECBs from last week and I'm planning to get my newspapers & more for little or no cost and still walk away with some ECBs.
More info in the morning!