There seem to be a lot of posts lately about rolling ECB to gift cards. The huge benefit to that is the gift cards never expire, whereas the ECB expire in a month. But, here's the major downfall I've figured out with gift cards: If you are paying ONLY with a gift card, you pay tax; if you are paying with ECB, you do NOT pay tax. So, as much as you might want to roll all your ECB to a gift card, the ECB do come in handy and lower your total. For those pinching pennies, the ECB are more beneficial than gift cards, in a way.

But, of course, the gift card is convenient when your total is five cents, and you don't want to go looking around for a nickle.

Like today at Target my total was .22
and I only had .21 so I used a gift card

Or if it is a GC to your favorite restaurant. That always works too!

my cvs wont let you any ways...they say it is like stealing...but i don't know...and i tried to get a cvs one too it wasn't like i wouldn't be spending it there anyways!

Some of us cannot use ECB to pay tax, even when using ECB. (Although I don't roll ECB into gift cards.)

Ex. my oop the other day was $3.11...$1.18 of that was tax on my purchases. The only ECB I could have used was $1. I cannot use ECB for tax.

I think people use these cvs gc to pay there low out of pocket. Like right now I have 75 in eb so I would roll 20 onto a gc and still have 55 to do my deals with. I still use eb to pay but then when my total is .78 and I don't want to lose eb I use my gc. I still haven't done the gc thing I am a little afraid to but I might have to try it cause my last rx gc is at .22 so I will have to start spending real money oh the horror.

I am one that can't use ECB's to pay tax ... but still ok. No worries.

Ahhhh...I have had this happen before too! I would have given you the penny!

I know what you mean about having to pay real money for oop. I have a few gc's and the other day the computers were acting up and wouldn't take my gc's. I had to pay $10.79 oop...I was really bothered about it for a few days!!!

No, you can't use ECBs to pay tax, but ECBs do lower your taxable subtotal (they act like a store discount as far as the register is concerned), so you can use your manufacturer's coupons to pay for any leftover tax if you do things in the right order. To do that, you have to use your ECBs first and *then* your manufacturer's coupons. The register will only accept ECBs for the amount of your subtotal before tax, but for any amount that they pay, the register does not charge you tax on. That's why, if you pick up an item for $9.99 and pay w/ a $9.99 ECB, you do not have to pay the tax that would have been associated w/ your purchase. If you have manufacturer's coupons to use w/ your purchases, pay w/ ECBs first and then give them your manufacturer's coupons - the register will accept manufacturer's coupons for the entire face value as long as the item associated w/ it is worth at least the face value of the coupon and as long as your total w/ tax is at least that amount. If you pay in that order and do some math first, you can get a negative subtotal, w/ tax adding back just enough so that your final total is not negative.

Back on topic, I've been told that rolling ECBs to gift cards is a big 'no no' and therefore do not try it myself.

I can't use ECB to pay tax either, but I'm still not going to complain when I walk out paying pretty much that most of the time.

If we were able to roll them to gift cards, I would rather get an iTunes card or restaurant or something like that. That I wish we could do.

Yeah, I mostly do ITunes as gifts for DH or my nieces and nephews. Tried to do a Nordstrom today for mom for mother's day and got SHOT DOWN. I'll try again tomorrow...

CTSunshine