Rain Checks 101

What's a Rain Check?

Rain check - a written document giving the consumer the ability to purchase an advertised item at the advertised price.  Consumers ask for a rain check from the supplier when an advertised product is not available.

How do I get a rain check?

Simply ask the cashier for a rain check on each item you cannot get. They are aware of this process.

Why are Rain Checks Great?

You can get a product for the sale price later when everyone isn't searching for it! And sometimes a BETTER coupon will be available to pair your rain check with!

Rain Check FYI

• CVS Rain Checks
• NEVER expire!
• Your ECBs WILL print when you use your rain check at a later date.

• Walgreens Rain Checks
• Expire in 30 days? Mine doesn't have an expiration date line...
• If the RR promotion for that item is still in progress, you'll receive the RR using the rain check.
• The RC should indicate the price AFTER RR or that you'll receive a gift card for the RR amount. Otherwise you're out of luck.

• Rite Aid Rain Checks
• "Should be" used in 30 days
• Read more details HERE

A few more tips...

• Cut out the ad showing the product (this speeds the process when getting the item later) and attach it to your rain check. There is an offer code in the ad.
• Go ahead and get a rain check even if you think you'll be back to the store later in the week!

CVS Tips

Here are a few things you may not know about and need to do to get better deals at CVS.

1. Register your card online to receive emails from CVS. Your first email will be a $4/$20 coupon!

2. Sign-up for the CVS beauty club! For every $50 you spend on "beauty" products you get $5 ECBs! That $50 total is BEFORE coupons and includes things like shampoo, body wash, suncare, and make-up! You also get an immediate 10% beauty shopping pass and $3 ECB on your birthday!

3. Get a Green Bag Tag! You attach it to your reuseable bag and you earn $1 ECB every 4th time you scan it! It can be scanned ONCE per DAY. Green Bag Tags are $0.99, but occassionally are featured as Free after ECBs.

4. Scan your CVS card at the big red coupon machine inside the store! Always scan your card as soon as you enter the store! Scan your card until it says "no more coupons available." Since these are CVS coupons, they can be stacked with manufacturer coupons!

5. Join the CVS Advisor Panel. You will complete surveys and be paid with ECBs!

CVS 101

Tips to remember when shopping at CVS...



1. Sign up for a CVS card and bring it with you each time you shop (and while you're at it buy a Green Bag Tag for 1.00)

2. Always scan in this order, CVS card first, item, Green Bag Tag.

3. To start off buy items that produce Extra Care Bucks. The idea is to roll the extra bucks.

In some instance, the item you are buying is actually less expensive than the ECB it will generate and thus you will “make money” by buying it. 

Let me explain: This week Gum-eez Flossers are on sale for $2.00 and they produce $2.00 extra bucks making them free. But wait, There is a 0.75/1 coupon for this item so you "make" $0.75.

(Please note: You will not be actually “making money” in that the store will be paying you cash for shopping there, but you will be “making money” in that you will be spending less out of pocket than you get back in ECBs.)



What does that mean?



Green Bag Tag- Every fourth trip yields $1.00 in Extra Bucks to use on any in store purchase.

 Extra Care Bucks- Almost every week, there are one or two items which are advertised as completely free after ECBs. What this means is that you will buy the item–paying out of pocket for it–and then you will receive a “coupon” at the end of your receipt which will be for the amount of the item purchased. This coupon is called an “Extra Care Buck” (or ECB as we refer to them online). You can use this coupon on your next purchase just like cash, with only a few exceptions (i.e. you can’t buy stamps or gift cards with them–the fine print on the ECB explains a little more in detail).

Rolling- Using the Extra Bucks you already have to get back as much as or more extra bucks.

Great answer to a common question!

Q&A: How do you get stuff for free at drugstores?

by Crystal at MSM on April 6, 2011

Lynn-Ann emailed in a great question this morning:

As I’ve received your e-mail updates, I’ve been a bit frustrated about the ECB/RR stuff. I will share with you what I mean: in the April 4, 2011 e-mail you share the following
Buy 1 Colgate Maxfresh, MaxWhite or MaxClean Toothpaste at $2.99, Get $3 Register Rewards
Use $0.35/1 coupon from the 4/3 SmartSource insert
Free plus overage after coupon and Register Rewards
I get so excited when I see FREE. But basically it isn’t free when I go to the register and check out is it? Since I still have to pay for the toothpaste at $2.99 and of course I can use the $0.35/1 coupon, but I basically pay the difference, because I don’t even get the Register Rewards til after my purchase is complete. Correct?
-Lynn-Ann, Kansas City, KS

Hi, Lynn-Ann!
Many times, it’s a little confusing when you first begin the drugstore game because you have to put an outlay of cash in order to start getting free groceries. However, once you invest $10 or so and start building up some Register Rewards or ECBs, than you can just use these instead of cash to pay for your groceries/household items. And you just keep rolling these and rolling these and rolling these! Meaning, you pay for your order with the ECBs or Register Rewards you earned from the last transaction instead of paying with cash.
Yes, you usually can’t get your order total down completely to $0.00 — though I’ve done it before! — but you can get it pretty close. To illustrate, back when we lived where there was a CVS store, I was able to get thousands of dollars worth of groceries and household items over the course of two years and spent less than $75 out-of-pocket for everything. I typically paid around $3 out of pocket for every $100 worth of purchases because I was rolling ECB’s from my previous transaction.
For instance, this week at CVS, you could do something like this:
Transaction #1:
Buy 2 GUM Eez-Thru Flossers (75-150 ct) at $2, Get $2 ECBs (Limit 2)
Use 2 $0.75/1 printable
You’ll spend $2.50 plus tax after the coupon and you’ll have $4 in ECBs to spend on your next transaction.
Take that $4 in ECBs and use it to do a second transaction.
Transaction #2:
Buy 2 Oral-B Manual Toothbrush (1 ct) at $2.99
Buy 1 Crest or Oral-B Pro-Health at $3.49
Use $1/1 Crest coupon from the 4/3 P&G insert
Use 2 $2/1 Oral-B coupons from the 4/3 P&G insert
Use $4 ECBs earned from Transaction #1
You’ll spend only $0.47 plus tax out of pocket and you’ll then get back $4.48 in ECBs.
So, for an outlay of $3 plus tax, you’ll have purchased five items and have $4.48 in ECBs leftover.
You can do another transaction to purchase ECB deals you’ve still not done for the week yet (like a second Oral-B — it’s a limit of two — or the Complete Contact Solution). Or, you can just hang onto the $4.48 in ECBs and use them for the ECB deals next week.
Walgreens is a bit more complicated, in my opinion, and it’s harder to get your totals down to under $1 — especially with the tax we have here in Kansas! But you can still significantly lower your totals by using Register Rewards from previous transactions to take off most of what you owe.
For more information, be sure to read Walgreens 101 and CVS 101 where I explain more in-depth how to maximize the mileage of your money at both of these stores.