CVS and food stamps?

[tenisha]

I wish I had applied sooner. AFTER I applied, I learned that Texas has a dire shortage of social workers, and it's an average of 70 days from the time you apply until you get the ebt card.

I only applied about 3 weeks ago and I'm getting a little desperate here.... :sad:

OMG... that is torture. In NY, they treat all FS applications as an "emergency" situation and they rush your application through. When you apply you get your card the same day at the office.You have to activate it and then wait one to seven days for whatever amount (depending on how many people are to be recieving FS) is supposed to be on the card. Then, you wait 30 days for the letter that tells if you are approved or not. If you are not approved, you use whatever you already got and then your card is inactive. If you are, then you will get an amount on a recurrent basis.

Oh and here's a tip: At Walgreens, if you have $10 in food and $5 of non food items in a single transaction, and you use $5 in coupons (doesn't matter food or non food) or Register Rewards after swiping your EBT card to pay for the food items you are charged still the $10 total of food and the coupon amount you used is applied to your non food items and you get the non food items free (or pay just the tax depending on what you bought). If there are any food items that generate Register Rewards, you still get them even if you pay using EBT. Also, if for example if you buy $10 in food that generates $5 in Register Rewards, and use $4 in coupons, (with no other non food item purchases) and pay with EBT- you are charged only the $6 after coupon total and still get the $5 Register Rewards.

[Grad_Student_Mommy]

Yes, I've noticed that my CVS charges me tax when I use coupons for my EBT food purchases. Usually it's only about 25 or 50 cents, though, so it's managable. Each week after reading the ad insert I try to buy all of the food that gives you ECBs as long as it's something that I can stomach. Then I can use the ECBs to buy things like toilet paper, shampoo, and diapers. I use coupons to make my foods stamps stretch.

I do the same thing at Walgreens (RR) and Target (gift card with purchase). For example, today I purchased 5 Quaker items (cereal & oatmeal) with food stamps and received a $5 Target gift card. Then I immediately used that gift card to buy cleaner for my kitchen floor. As a single mom and graduate student, it's the only way I can pay for the things me and my infant son need while still having money for bills, gas, and daycare.

[whitneymomma]

What about WIC? a little different than EBT because the check is for a certain item, not a certain amount. It would be nice to get ECB's on my WIC milk.