After doing my first Saturday night CVS shopping trip, I learned something new, and I was reminded of a few things Extra Care Buck-related. So I thought I'd share them with you.
- If you shop on Saturday night, you can get the deals from the current week AND the deals from the upcoming week. I don't know what time this starts. I arrived at 8:30, and the new Extra Care Bucks (ECB) shelf tags were already out. The tough part is that the old ECB shelf tags are put away. You have to know what's going to generate ECBs for you.
- If you shop on Saturday night, the 3-Day Sale items will NOT generate ECBs. The cashier can't even force the register to do it. Those items must be purchased on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday if you want the ECBs. I didn't know this when I went tonight, and I learned the hard way. My gracious cashier kindly returned the two items for me. Fortunately there wasn't anyone in line behind me.
- ECBs no longer expire. I know that there's a date printed on them, but you can ignore it. The same is true of the other coupons that print at the end of your cash register tape (a.k.a. CRT coupons)
- For some ECB deals, the limit per card is more than one. If you buy multiples in one transaction, you'll get the ECBs for all of them. However, they will print as one large ECB, not multiple smaller ones. Example, if you can buy 3 Colgate toothpastes that each generate $2 ECBs, you're going to get one ECB coupon for $6. It can sometimes be hard to spend the big ECBs, so watch how many you put together.
- ECBs can only be used to pay your total BEFORE tax. If your total is $2.14 but $.14 of it is tax, you can pay with $2 in ECBs. You will need to pay the $.14 tax out-of-pocket.
- You cannot use ECBs to buy gift cards, alcohol, lottery, money orders, postage stamps, pre-paid cards, tobacco products, or prescriptions.
- If the store is out of an item that generates ECBs, you can get a rain check. That rain check is good for the sale price of the item AND the ECBs it was supposed to generate. One manager told me that these rain checks never expire, but I haven't verified that anywhere else.
- ECBs generated using your Extra Care Card can only be used with your card. You can't pass them along to someone else. They are card-specific.
The best advice I can give you is to carry your ECBs in your wallet along with your cash. I have lost mine at home twice in the last two weeks. I spent quite a bit of time hunting them down. Fortunately I was able to find them each time! I used to carry them in my wallet and got out of the habit. But I'm definitely going back to that now!
Do you have any other Extra Care Buck tips to share? Anything you've learned along the way?
8 comments:
I always check the coupon machine when I walk in the door ..sometimes you can get some really valuable coupons that way. Now that ECBs don't expire. I am going to start hording them for a bigger purchase , like a patio set !
Yes I found out how you can get the two weeks deals on Saturday night! I was so excited!! The kind saleslady told me she had already activated the upcoming week's deals. good to know.
That's correct..rain checks don't expire. Actually, I have one right now and on the back is printed, "This Raincheck Does Not Expire"!
The rainchecks say on the back that they don't expire.
Rainchecks are great to have on hand if you receive a $off/$amount coupon. You can really make some great deals if you have rainchecks, along with your Mfg coupons.
Kathy
Are you SURE extra bucks and CRT's don't expire? Are you sure that's not a store by store thing? My stores around here seem to be sticklers about all expiration dates.
Lana, I actually shop at 4 different stores in 2 different states, and all of them have said that they don't expire. It might be worth an email to corporate if your store isn't allowing you to use expired CRTs and ECBs.
I have a 3x5 accordion file in my car for coupons, and in the first slot I keep CVS extra bucks. Since the file is opaque, I can see them every time I look at the file. To train myself to look first to see if I have any extra bucks. I put my extra bucks card on a key ring right in the file with the CVS bucks. So when I went to get my CVS card I had to see the CVS bucks next to it. That trained me to look in the file before I head into the store.
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