CVS -seedlady's wagon train (a guide for newbies.)

[seedlady]

this is the way i understand the saturday shopping thing.


( i don't do it, because my store doesn't start the deals till 10 p.m. and i have no desire to pit my 10 pm brain against the system.)

at some point, the manager flips a switch, and the next week's deals are activated. there is supposed to be an actual sound, so the employees know when it has occured.

then, the deals for both weeks are active, till midnight, when last week's deals die.

the bucks for both weeks will print during that overlap period, BUT the computer chooses which deal is better, if there are 2 deals on the same product.

any deals that are 2 day, or 3 day, will NOT print during the overlap, since it is not sunday, monday, or tuesday.

that makes too many variables for me, since i don't do returns if at all possible, since they freak out the manager, who already thinks i'm cheating by using coupons. he has explained it to me that by using coupons and getting everything free, cvs is losing money every time i shop.


( he is WRONG, but i don't have the patience to headbutt him every single time. i have talked to corp, and they want us to use coupons, since they get the full money back, and they can get better deals from the manufacturers because of volume.)
but if something doesn't work, i'm usually stuck with the item, so i stay home and chat on hcw at 10.

[momtoemryab]

there's no sound. i was a manager at cvs when ecb's first came out. we just activate the event in the computer sometime on saturday once we start putting up the sale signs for sunday.

[seedlady]

ok, maybe there isn't a sound. they just told me there was a click noise. but i admit i never heard it.

[seedlady]

Originally Posted by aneesha33 Seedlady..This is my first year for back to school shopping at CVS. I would like to get all of my daughters school supplies using ECBs as well as get some for my classroom supply closet. So here is my question. In the past has CVS put ALL school supplies on FAECB??? Im particularly looking for crayons..LOL! TIA! Just wanted to know my chances so that I dont miss any other good deals since I am mainly a CVSer.

crayons are at target, and glue at kmart in my bts memory. and staples has both crayons and glue for 19 cents each, most years.

(side note to teachers- staples will let teachers buy a "classroom set" of each, even when there is a limit of 5 or 10. so ask.)

i just watch, and whenever a store has the supplies i need, i hustle over and buy the limit. some years i get lots of scissors, some years it's mostly crayons or glue or tape.



by the way, non-parents of school age children people- there is no reason you can't pick up tape or glue for 19 cents and use it at your house.

[seedlady]

Originally Posted by atladner32 I love this train! Wish I found it sooner! I was wondering, how can I tell if I am spending too much time on couponing? Maybe I am addicted... Seriously though, I was wondering, how do you become a moderator? And do you get paid to be one?

you get invited to be a mod, and , no pay. we are all volunteers.


i would think the best way to get invited would be to spend 2 or 3 hours a day answering questions in a forum, and in a year or so you will probably get invited. that's how i did it.

[seedlady]

Originally Posted by ungerm Question for you: I was getting the 5/25 coupons printing off pretty regularly a few months ago. I didn't have the time to think about coupon shopping so I stopped & now I'm not getting any of those great coupons. What triggers those to print off?

one year i was bored on thanksgiving , and called the 800 number, and got a chatty bored rep. nobody had called in for a long time- they were all eating turkey. i spent about an hour getting every question i could think of answered. he said the $/$$ coupons were totally random, but set by quarters. so i started watching my cards, and i think he might be right. did it seem like you got them regularly, then boom, they shut off? if they start back, try to watch and see if they stay on for 3 months, then shut off again.


he also said the $/$$ ones that are emailed go by quarters also, so once you don't get those, you won't till your number comes back up another quarter.

i think that would be as a trend- i'm not sure we could see an exact day when they change, but they do seem to go in cycles, and i've never been able to influence it at all.



(last month i met the district manager, the regional manager, the pharmacy manager and the marketing director for my area, because the store manager brought them over and introduced me as someone who knew the extra care system and made good use of it. i offered to answer questions, but they said no thanks, was there anything i wanted to know? so i asked how things worked for about 15 minutes.


i made good and sure the manager heard them say how good coupons were for the store. she is one who doesn't like them at all. i think she fears they come out of her bonus. so, she had to listen to a good 5 minutes of marketing guy explaining how good they are, and how cvs works with the manufacturers to set up the deals. ha! )

[seedlady]

Originally Posted by nccouponqueen Seedlady (or other savvy CVS shopper), If you have 2 CVS cards (one for hubby, one for self), when you're using your ECBs, do you need to use the same card you earned the ECB for when you're spending the ECB? Or can you mix and match- ie he uses an ECB you earned for a purchase made with his card?

they MUST be used on the card that earned them.

[ekoury]

Originally Posted by JenniferCR Ok, I have a couple of questions for you (lol)! I'm a question asker by nature so please forgive me! 1. When you talk about the "series" purchase. Do you end up having to pay tax on each item (for example, the glue is $0.99 and pay for it with a previous purchased glue ECB)? Hope that makes sense! 2. How many cards do you have and how many cards do you recommend using? I've been CVSing for a couple of months now but I need to work on lowering my oop and wondering if multiple cards might be the trick. I do have 4 cards but I wondering if I really need to be using ALL 4 of them or not. 3. And last but not least...I was wondering if you or someone else that does your awesome notebook method could post some pictures of what their notebook looks like? I'm a visual learner (besides being a question asker...hehe...I'm high maintenance, huh?) so this would help me out a ton! Thanks again Seedlady and everyone else who posts their awesome tricks and tips! Sometimes I feel like a chicken with its head cut off walking around CVS trying to figure out my deals so all of this will really help in lowering my oop (which is what I really need to do...and my hubby would oh so appreciate it too)!

The tax question. It depends on your state. Here in TX, we only pay tax on what's left after every mq and store coupons. In case with the glue, I would pay $0. Some states require you to pay tax on pre-coupon value.

The card question. IMHO, the number of cards does not make your OOP lower or higher. It is more about how you do your transactions and what you buy and what mq you are using. Higher number of cards allows you to get more products or make more money when there are MM deals out, which in turn can allow you to spend that money on something you need or want.

[aneesha33]

Originally Posted by JenniferCR Ok, I have a couple of questions for you (lol)! I'm a question asker by nature so please forgive me! 1. When you talk about the "series" purchase. Do you end up having to pay tax on each item (for example, the glue is $0.99 and pay for it with a previous purchased glue ECB)? Hope that makes sense! 2. How many cards do you have and how many cards do you recommend using? I've been CVSing for a couple of months now but I need to work on lowering my oop and wondering if multiple cards might be the trick. I do have 4 cards but I wondering if I really need to be using ALL 4 of them or not. 3. And last but not least...I was wondering if you or someone else that does your awesome notebook method could post some pictures of what their notebook looks like? I'm a visual learner (besides being a question asker...hehe...I'm high maintenance, huh?) so this would help me out a ton! Thanks again Seedlady and everyone else who posts their awesome tricks and tips! Sometimes I feel like a chicken with its head cut off walking around CVS trying to figure out my deals so all of this will really help in lowering my oop (which is what I really need to do...and my hubby would oh so appreciate it too)!

Here is Florida when I did my deals yesterday this is how it went

3 pens 2.97
used 2.99 ecb (from scissors
paid zero oop

It seemed every time the amount was a couple of cents less up to the exact amount of the ECB I paid zero tax.

Also the way to lower your OOP is series buying as well as doing lots of transactions.

See when I started I use to do one transaction. All of the things I wanted minus the qs minus the ECBs and then earn the ECBs. This amounted to 10-25.00 OOP. Then I saw this thread and the scenarios thread and that turned on the light for me.

For example I did 5 transactions yesterday and paid 1.81 total OOP.

Next the number of cards. I now have 4 and that was only because I really wanted to take advantage of the school supplies deal this week by getting a meter to pay for everything. Now will I use all 4 every week. Probably not. I had two cards to start with one for rolling deals and one for getting things i need by earning and burning in times when we are short on money...

I hope that made sense.

[seedlady]

Originally Posted by ungerm I have another question. I hope I didn't miss your answer in recent posts. How many cards are "allowed"? If we can have more than 1 do you use 1 at each store or how do you do it? {I read a thread some time ago about a CVS employee taking a women's keys because they saw she had several key tag cards on her key chain.} How do you keep things straight? Thank you so much for this thread!! I don't know if there is a way to do it or not but when new people sign up this thread should be sent to them in the welcome note to help them figure CVS out. JMO Michelle

we discuss cards and household limits every once in a while.


i spent a happy 15 minutes talking it over with the regional manager and the marketing guy.

they think cvs is happier when my household has one card, and buys everything on that one card. they sell the info to the companies, and that makes it easier to market.


now, me, i like to have several cards, because say what you will, some get better offers at the register (oars) (( the things most people here call crts, or receipts)).

so , i like to have several cards available, scan them, and choose which one to buy tylenol on. ( the one that got the 3$ oar!).

i do keep track and only buy the household limit, unless it is soyjoys, and then all bets are off. i figure there are a LOT of households not buying their share, and i help out.

but scissors, pencils, tape, that sort of junk- i don't need more than 2 or 3 anyway.

the men agreed that i was within my rights to have more than one card.



btw, i started my second card during the halcyon days of no limits, when i was buying enough listerine pocket packs to get a 55 dollar ecb, and even i, during week one of my cvs career knew how hard it would be to spend a bigger buck. so i opened my little 2nd card, named it purple, and gave it a purple envelope and notebook.


all right, it has a purple folder and purple index cards , too. are ya happy now?

but i'm not admitting that red yellow blue and pink ever had all that. ( most of those are closed now, and merged into red.)



a titch obsessive? who, me?



i c&ped this from another thread, because i was already thinking of moving it over here, rather than retyping it.