Multiple Transactions

So, you've gotten the hang of drug store shopping, using register rewards and ECBs and rolling your rebates. Now it's time to master multiple transactions. At first glance, it seems that breaking up your order into a few smaller transactions wouldn't save you much money, but with a little planning, it can save you a significant amount of money by reducing your out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. Basically, it allows you to use newly acquired rebates immediately, rather than paying OOP for your items in order to get more rebates. Here's a example to illustrate what I mean. Let's say you're at CVS and you buy the following items:

Deodorant: $4.00; $2.00 coupon, $2.00 ECB

Shampoo: $5.00; $1.00 coupon, $5.00 ECB

Razor: $8.00; $4.00 coupon, $5.00 ECB

Toothpaste: $2.50; $1.00 coupon, $2.00 ECB

If you start the day with $5 in ECBs, here's how it breaks down in one transaction:

Total (without tax): $19.50

After coupons: $11.50

Once you spend your $5 in ECBs, you are still paying $6.50 OOP. Now let's say you divide your order into 2 transactions:

Transaction 1:

Razor: $8.00; $4.00 coupon, $5.00 ECB

Toothpaste: $2.50; $1.00 coupon, $2.00 ECB

Total (w/o tax): $10.50

After coupons: $5.50

After ECBs: $0.50

ECBs earned = $7.00

Transaction 2:

Deodorant: $4.00; $2.00 coupon, $2.00 ECB

Shampoo: $5.00; $1.00 coupon, $5.00 ECB

Total (w/o tax): $9.00

After coupons: $6.00

After $5 ECBs (from razor): $1.00 OOP

So after 2 transactions, you're only spending $1.50 OOP and you still walk away with $2 ECBs. With 1 transaction, you walked away with the entire $14 in ECBs, but you had to spend $6.50 OOP. You're still earning the same amount in ECBs, but with multiple transactions you save $5.00 in out of pocket expenses!

• Multiple transactions can be used at CVS and Walgreens, where you get register print outs instead of mail-in rebates.
• Use it any time you have several items which will earn you ECBs/RRs.
• Try to limit your OOP expenses to $2 or less per transaction

Don't be discouraged if you end up with fewer RRs/ECBs after your shopping trip. Remember, if you're using multiple transactions, you don't needs as much "start up money" because you're rolling your rebates in several small transactions instead of one big one. Even if you only use it twice a month and save $5 each time, you're saving $120 per year. Rolling rebates is all about using free money to get more free stuff. Using multiple transactions will just make that free stuff even "free-er"!

Weekly Deals for March 15

Well, the list isn't as long as last week's, but there are definitely some good deals to be had. If you're only going to go to one drug store this week, I'd make it CVS. Here's the link to the spreadsheet for this week.

Deals to look for:

At CVS, there is a GREAT deal on Pantene. It's a little confusing on the spreadsheet, so here's how it works. Pantene 13.5 oz shampoos and conditioners are $3.50 each. You will earn $2 ECB WYB 2 Pantene products, limit 5. There are $1 coupons for the Nature Fusion products. AND there are supposed to be coupons for a FREE styling product WYB Pantene shampoo and conditioner. So, if you get a combination of 4 shampoos and/or conditioners and 2 styling products, you can use 4 coupons for the Nature Fusion and 2 Free wyb 2 coupons and get $6 in ECBs. You grand total will be $4 or $0.75 per product. If you don't want the Nature Fusion or don't have enough coupons, there are $1/2 coupons for any Pantene shampoo or conditioner. That will make your total $6 or $1.00 per product. Not bad if you're addicted to Pantene like I am - I will definitely be stocking up!

At Walgreens there is another good deal if you need to stock up on candy. Palmer easter candy is on sale $2.99 and BOGO. You can also apply for the $10 EasySaver rebate WYB $20 of Palmer candy. At this price, you'll have to buy 14 of them, but it makes each bag of candy $0.78 each, for a grand total of $10.93.

That's about it - I need to go to bed now! I'll update this post if I see any other deals when I go out tomorrow.

CVS

Everything you need to know to score big at CVS

CVS is probably the easiest of the 3 drug stores to get the hang of and to really start saving money. The first thing you need to do is to get an ExtraCare Card. This is CVS’s customer loyalty card and you will need to use it every time you go there in order to take advantage of all their sales. In addition to earning ECBs on select purchases every week, with your card you’ll also earn ECBs for the total dollar amount you spend each quarter.



So, what is an ECB?

ECB is short for ExtraCare Buck. These are like gift certificates that print at the bottom of your receipt. You earn them by purchasing select items with your ExtraCare Card. Every month CVS puts out a catalog of items that give you ECBs. This catalog is found in the front of the store, usually beside or on a rack under their weekly circular. There are ALWAYS items that are FREE after ECBs!



How do I spend my ECBs?

You can use ECBs just like you would a coupon. In fact, you can also use them in conjunction with a coupon. The only catch is that the item total for your order has to be equal to or greater than the amount of the ECBs you want to spend. You will also need to have the cashier scan your ExtraCare card in order to spend ECBs.



What does it mean to “roll over” ECBs?
Rolling over ECBs is one of the joys of shopping at CVS! Remember, ECBs are like gift certificates that you can use to buy anything in the store. When you spend your ECBs on items that generate MORE ECBs, you begin a cycle of purchasing that requires you to spend next to nothing to buy all sorts of items! When there are really good sales with lots of items that generate ECBs, you can even do multiple transactions. You should try to do this when you are going to be buying a lot of items that generate ECBs at the same time. Separate your items so that you can use the ECBs that you earn from transaction #1 to buy items for transaction #2. Then use those ECBs for transaction #3 and so on (this is where planning your purchasing really pays off). This keeps your out of pocket expense much lower and keeps you from having a large dollar amount of ECBs that all expire at the same time.



What else should I know about CVS?

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• CVS usually has special deals that are only good on Sunday and Monday. Try to get to the store or check their circular (online or in the newspaper) every Sunday so that you can take advantage of these sales.



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• CVS is also a really great place to take advantage of rain checks. If an item you want is out of stock, CVS will gladly issue you a rain check so you can get the item at the sale price at a later date. Rain checks can be used to get ECBs on an item at a later date. That means that if there is an item that is free after ECBs, but the store is all out of them, you can get a rain check and buy the item after the sale is over and STILL GET THE ECBs!!



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• A blog called Keeping the Kingdom First posts a new CVS $5 Challenge every Sunday. This challenge shows you how to spend $5 or less to earn at least $5 in ECBs so you can start rolling them over!