[mdsmiley]

I am curious. To those of you who stash your ECBs have you found some sort of benefit to this? Am I missing something? I usually use mine from week to week to purchase the things I need. So this week I will use my ECB from last week to buy diapers, etc... I noticed people talking about stashing up ECBs to use for Christmas gifts. Aren't you putting the same amount of money out whether you use the ECBs now or later? Thanks!

[brook6]

you have to use them by the exp date, but they are good for a month...

sometimes, if you look ahead to future deals it may be better to save them than to use immediately

many people want to have some on hand for Black Friday deals

[inkprincess]

I'm fortunate to have a CVS that lets me use expired ECB's, so I stash mine. Also nice because it takes the pressure off of the "MUST NOT let ECB's expire" syndrome ! I never stashed on purpose tho - it's just kinda how it worked out for me - I generally don't like to burn more ECB's than what I'm getting back.

[bellasmama]

I seem to be able to roll mine by the expirations each month, and I never use any more than I will earn on a purchase. I suppose it would be nice if my stores allowed exp'ds but no dice for me

[Madmurphy]

The reason many folks have a stash of ECBs is because they've grown those ECBs. For instance, I started out with about $5 of my own money and grew those ECBs into well over $300 at one time with adding very little of my own money as oop expense. Since the ECB deals have dwindled, I've let the stash of my ECBs drop to a level that can easily be rolled each week/month without too much of a problem.

Lately with the $/$$ printables, it's been very easy to grow your ECBs by $5 with each transaction. With the stash of ECBs, that means you can pay for your transaction with ECBs and have very little oop expense. Free items and being "paid" to shop. It really doesn't get much better than that.

If I were to have been spending the ECBs all along, I'd be basically forced into buying CVS overpriced merchandised. Let's be realistic. We're couponers. We shop for sale items and merchandise that can be bought for less using coupons. Very seldom does anything that CVS sell that doesn't have an ECB deal to it or a really good sale fit that description. We buy our necessities elsewhere. We go to grocery stores (which hopefully double or triple coupon and accept competitor's coupons), we go to Target (which ad matches), we go to Walgreens (well, some of you do ) . We don't use CVS as a regular store.

Now, why have all those ECBs stashed away? Well, they are good for buying Christmas gifts. We will get the gifts on sale for a very good price and will pay for them using those ECBs that we've grown from our initial investment of $5 or so. So, over the year, we'll have received all of the "free after ECB" items for free, all of the other items that we've been able to get free after manufaturer's coupons and CRTs AND we'll now be able to get free Christmas gifts using the ECBs that we've grown from using the $/$$ coupons, manufacturer's coupon, CRTs and CVS store coupons. That's smart shopping.

[timmsa]

i would love to have a stash of ECB's that would be great.

[mdsmiley]

Thanks for all the responses ladies. I guess I have not mastered CVS yet because I have put MUCH more that $5 OOP since CVS opened in my neighborhood in September. I only buy things that I usually use though and only when it is a better deal than I know I can get elsewhere. So usually I don't have more than $5-$10 ECB each week. I know I am saving money but clearly not nearly as much as some of you!

[daisy]

I think many people buy things they are not actually going to USE.

If it is a money maker they buy it to get more ecbs. You can share those items with people you know or donate it

Good Luck on your savings. It gets easier as you go along.
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