Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half! with Stephanie Nelson, The Coupon Mom

The best way to save money is to become a Strategic Shopping expert.  Strategic Shopping has three components:  Knowing your stores’ savings policies, knowing when to use coupons, and knowing the prices of your common items.  The magic of Strategic Shopping is being able to stock up on your items at prices that are 75% or more off the regular prices, all year long.  Once you learn the basics of Strategic Shopping, you can use the CouponMom.com website to learn what the best deals are each week. Each store has its own unique savings policies that you can combine with coupons and promotions–and the national drugstore chains always have great promotions every week that will help you stock up on free items all year long.  Each week I’ll explain the specific strategies of at least one store on this blog.

Drugstores:  The drugstore chains (CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid) all have many savings policies that are similar, but they work slightly differently at each store.  For example, each store has an “automatic rebate program” that gives you some type of reward in the form of store credit to be used on a future order.  These tend to be high-value rewards, but you will only save you money if you remember to use the reward in the future.   If you are new to Strategic Shopping at the drugstores, you may want to start with just one of the chains to hone your savings skills.  Once you’ve mastered one store, you may decide to add one or two additional stores.   Visit each store’s website for a detailed explanation of all of their savings programs.

This is an overview of some of the most frequently-used savings strategies at CVS.

CVS Savings Strategies (note: the CVS Deals list on CouponMom.com figures all of these strategies out for you):  

1. Weekly Ads.  CVS Weekly Sales prices begin on Sunday and end on Saturday.  You can find the circular in the Sunday paper, in stores and online.
2. CVS Extracare card:  If you don’t already have one, pick one up at your local CVS to get sale prices, store coupons and automatic rebates called ExtraBucks. Go to CVS.com to register the card and you will receive high-value store coupons via email and direct mail in the future.
3. CVS Coupon Center:  Look for the red coupon kiosk in stores, scan your CVS card and you will get CVS store coupons.  You can combine store coupons with manufacturers’ coupons on the same item for big savings, so make it a habit to scan your card as soon as you walk in the store.
4. Store coupons:  You will also get CVS store coupons on your receipts, so be sure to take a look at the bottom of your receipt to see if there are coupons you would use in the future.
5. Manufacturers coupons:  CVS accepts coupons at face value (they do not double coupons).
6. Extrabucks Rewards:  When you buy a qualifying item, an Extrabucks Reward prints on your receipt which is store credit on a future order.  These are just like cash so keep them in a safe place and remember to use them.
7. CVS Beauty Club:  This is probably the most overlooked easy savings opportunity at CVS.  Sign up at CVS.com for the Beauty Club, which gives you a 10% rebate on all qualifying personal care items.  When your accumulated spending hits $50, you will get a $5 Extrabucks reward which is equal to a 10% rebate.  Your product spending is tracked based on the sale prices of the items, before coupons are deducted.  Because it’s tracked automatically and the rebate is issued automatically, this is a no brainer.  Every time you spend the accumulated $50, you’ll get the $5 reward.  Note:  This is not limited to women, even though it’s called the Beauty Club.  Men’s shampoos, lotions, and other personal care products are also included in the list of participating items.  Sign up at http://www.cvs.com/extracare-cvs/beauty-club . 

A typical CVS deal would be a name brand of shampoo that is on sale for $4 (regularly-priced at $6).  It may have an Extrabucks promotion that would give you a $5 reward when you spent $12 on that shampoo line.  Therefore, if you bought three bottles you’d get the reward.  At the same time, there could be a $1 coupon for that shampoo in the Sunday paper, so you could use three manufacturers’ coupons.  When you scan your CVS card at the coupon center, you might get a store coupon for $3 off any hair care purchase over $10.  Let’s add all that up:  $12 for three bottles, less the $3 store coupon, less $3 in manufacturers’ coupons equals $6 spent at the register.  You would get $1.20 in credit for Beauty Club (the value of 10% of $12 in spending toward the $50 goal) and you would get a $5 Extrabucks Reward.  Although you spent $6 at the register, your net cost after subtracting future store credit of $6.20 would be three bottles FREE with a 20-cent profit in the form of future store credit. And you’ll have enough shampoo to last until the next sale!

Learn more by watching our How to Save at CVS video

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