[kasey124]

Hi! Newbie here! I cannot believe the great savings you all get at CVS! I have been studying how to get these deals for weeks now, and feel like I finally may be able to get it down. I am starting with $4ECB's from the Fusion razor deal a few weeks ago. I understand that I will have to spend some OOP before I can really start saving, so I was wondering what should I be spending OOP on my first real trip?! Please help! Thanks!

[kimbra923]

I can't really help much because I guess I wouldn't consider any of mine to be "real" trips...I've never spent more than a couple dollars because I just keep rolling my ECBs into deals that produce about the same amount...it's nice to not pay so much but I can't really get many items unless I do a bunch of separate transactions...

[greanbeanmama]

When I was getting started, I had a $20 gift card, so that was my CVS startup fund. If you have kids in school, the upcoming week's school supply deals would be a great way to get started.

For about $20, you could get 2 of each of the school supply deals from the 8/2 to 8/8 ad, then you would get the same amount of ECBs printed. With your 4 ECS on hand, and any CVS coupons (like a $4 off $20), you could actually MAKE some money!

Hope that helps! Good luck!

[Bethtoons]

It all depends on how you want to build your ECB routines. A lot of people keep their transactions small to roll ECBs. After a few months of tiny transactions to roll RRs at Wags, I switched to CVS primarilly so I wouldn't have to do small transactions to roll ECBs.

So, I prescribed to the "go big or go home" mentality and dove in with a $50 transaction my first week netting me ~ $30 + ECB and have been doing a single large transaction each week (and occasionally one smaller one to suppliment later in the week). It's a little more math to work out ahead of time, and a little more on the fly math in the store when stuff is out of stock, and occasionally I end up with a large value ECB to spend, but I like that I'm not spending every moment available in the store to eek out another transaction or 2. My big transaction each week has been anywhere from $40 - $70 depending on the stock and the deals and I can usually whittle that down to under $3.00 OOP each time.