artofthecoupon.com

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For those who aren’t familiar with the Extracare program, let me give you a brief summary of how CVS-ing turned into a verb, and why there are a select few of us who frequent the store 3, 4, 5, even upwards of 6 times a week.

CVS has a program in which they offer Extrabucks for buying certain items. The Extrabucks work like CVS cash, and can be used in subsequent orders on any products you’d like (excluding stamps, prescriptions, Tobacco and Alcohol). They are good for 1 month from the date of issue. The products that you must purchase to get these Extrabucks change weekly (or in some cases monthly). Each Sunday, CVS puts out an ad detailing which product purchases will result in the return of Extrabucks. Each month, CVS also puts out a monthly book of deals which are good for, you guessed it, the month. This month, for example, customers could purchase Oral Care toothbrush value packs for $6.99 and get $6.99 in Extrabucks. And, this week, customers could purchase $20 worth of Bounty/Charmin or Duracell Products (in any combination that adds up to $20 or more) and get $10 back in Extrabucks.

So, sounds good enough right. 1/2 off paper towels and free toothbrushes. But, it gets better. You can also use manufacturer coupons on the products you are buying for Extrabucks. For example, if you buy $20 worth of Charmin (which would be 4 packages) you could use 4 of the $1 off Charmin coupons in the paper. So, you’d only have to actually spend $16 in cash to get $10 back. This is an even sweeter deal for the Oral B Toothbrushes which are free after you get back your $6.99 that it cost to buy it. If you use a $1 off coupon, then you only pay $5.99 in cash and you get $6.99 back in Extrabucks. So, you just got yourself a free toothbrush and made yourself a dollar.

The final crowning touch is that CVS also sends out promotional money off coupons. They email coupons, like a coupon for $4 off a $20 purchase, in exchange for providing them with your email address. They also sometimes email them just because you have been a good customer, or print them on the end of your receipt or have these types of coupons displayed in store.

So, now you use a $4/20 coupon, 4 $1 off charmin coupons, and you pay $12 in cash and get $10 back in Extrabucks. Thats a $2 cost for 4 of the big 12 packs of Charmin.

Once you make an initial cash investment, the idea is to “roll over’ your extrabucks, effectively eliminating cash from the equation. So, you could pay your $12 with a $12 extrabuck you had from purchasing some other weekly or monthly special, and then get a $10 extrabuck back so you would have spent $0 in cash, and $2 in Extrabucks.

The idea, of course, is to combine the money off coupons with the manufacturer coupons to buy the specials, so you can end up stocking your house with toilet paper and shampoo and endless other assorted drug store products WITHOUT SPENDING ANYTHING!

So, go clip your coupons and get out your CVS ad and get started… later on I’ll be posting some “advanced” CVS tips and sharing how I handle my extrabucks!