Memorial Day at CVS

Oops. I thought I already posted this, but it was in my "draft" section. A little late, but still a good one...

This $5 off a $30 purchase coupon has been BURNING a hole in my pocket!!! So today I was just waiting and waiting to have some time to use it, because of the Sun/Mon Only deals. I hardly EVER get to CVS on Sunday, since they close a 6pm and I usually hit CVS in the evenings when I do go. So I didn't make it yesterday. And I don't think the Sun/Mon Only deals start early on Saturday like the other stuff. We went to my parents early for Memorial Day/Ralph's b-day lunch and I was hoping to sneak out when Cooper took a nap, BUT he refused to take a nap. He jumped around in their crib and sang and did somersaults and basically played for an hour. So I decided to just take him home to nap. And by this time, he was entering cranky mode. Despite my mommy guilt, and since I knew exactly what I wanted to get before it ran out, we snuck to CVS before we went home and did pretty good. I was armed with biter biscuits and he did fine until my receipt was printing and then he just lost it. Poor kid. He pretty much zonked out as soon as I put him in his crib. Silly boy. So here's how I did with my $5/$30.



** 1 Revlon Nail Polish $3.99, no coupon. $3.99. Get 3 ECBs.

** 1 Colgate Total $2.99, minus $1 coupon. $1.99. Get 2 ECBs.

** 1 Playtex Sport $3.99, minus $1 coupon. $2.99. Get 3 ECBs.

** 2 boxes of Bandaids $2.29 each, minus 2 $1 coupons, minus $1 CRT for Bandaids. $1.58 for 2 boxes. Get 4 ECBs. (2 ECBs per box)

** 1 Clearasil Face Wash $3.99, no coupon. $3.99. Get 3.99 ECBs.

** 2 Sobe Life Waters, on sale BOGO, minus 2 $0.50 coupons. $0.49 for 2.

** 2 Speed Stick Pro deodorants $3.99 each, minus BOGO coupon, minus $0.75 coupon. $3.24. Get 7.98 ECBs. (3.99 ECBs for each)

** Candy filler to bring total to $30. (I thought the price of the other Sobe would count toward my total, but I don't think it did, so I had to grab a filler. And I think I forgot that the Bandaids were $2.29, not $2.99 like the iheartcvs ad had posted, but I was psyched that they were $2.29!)



Total: Around $30.00.

Used $5/$30 coupon.

Minus all other coupons, New Total: Around $15-16 with tax.

Used $14 in ECBS, plus $1.25 from my gift card ($0.64 was tax.)

Received about $24 ECBs!



Yay! I needed that! My ECBs have really been lacking, so this is the perfect boost to my ECBs stash! I am so happy I made it today and everything I went in for was there! Now, here's hoping there will be some other good deal weeks like this one through the summer!

CVS Trip 5-20

This week was pretty much a huge bummer at CVS to me. I do, however, use Dry Idea deodorant and it gave back ECBs this week, so I went in for it. I also had a Sally Hanson CRT (from the coupon printer) coupon that expired today and I wanted to use it. Here's how I did:

** 2 Dry Idea deodorants 2/$5, minus 2 $2 off coupons. $1 for 2.

** 4 Sally Hanson fingernail polishes, clearance to 50% off, $1.39, minus 4 $1 off coupons, minus $2 off a Sally Hanson $5 purchase. Free plus $0.44 overage.

** 1 Palmer's stretch mark lotion, clearance 75% off, $1.70, minus $1 coupon. $0.70.** 1 set of Bic Dry Erase markers, clearance 75% off, $1.15 (would have been much better if I had the $1 off any Bic coupon, but I didn't have it with me. I've been needing these though.) $1.15.

Total: $13.41 Minus coupons: $2.41 plus tax

Used $2 ECB and $1.07 out of pocket. ($0.66 was tax) Received 2 ECBs for deodorant. If I didn't get the lotion or markers, it would have been better. But I'm going to add the lotion to the baby gift basket, I do use that brand of deodorant (even though I have plenty) and like I said, I did need the markers, so I'm alright with it. I had enough change in my change purse, so I didn't have to use my debit card or my CVS gift card, which is always nice.

BTW: I'm trying to stretch out my CVS gift card. I got it for Christmas from my hubby. $50!!! He knew I could make it last and so far I still have money on it. I've gone though it faster than I thought I would. Mainly because every now and then something in a transaction gets screwed up and I pay more out of pocket than I planned on. (Like $8 or something! What? At CVS??) I usually find the mistake, but not til after I've paid. They give me cash back or whatever, and we all know, cash doesn't stick around as long as a CVS gift card. :P So I will let you know when my gift card has swiped it's last swipe. Hopefully it won't be anytime soon. :)

Big CVS News...

I got a $5 off a $30 purchase CRT today at CVS!!! I'm excited! It doesn't expire until 5/26, so I am DEFINITELY waiting until next week to use it. The deals look good and there are several of them that are free after coupons or moneymakers! Wish me luck!!! I'll let you know how I do.

Meijer Cheese Trip

We hit up Meijer last week for the cheese deal. And crackers among other things. I was happy with my turn out. I thought I got a lot of good stuff for less than $20. Plus Cooper was with me, and I took longer than I wanted. I think we went through 4 of those biter biscuits thingys. They keep him pretty occupied, and messy. :) Here's what I came out with:

** 2 boxes of Ritz Crackers $2.50, minus 2 $1 coupon, minus 2 $1 Meijer Meal Box coupon. $0.50 each.
** 1 box Ritz Bitz Crackers $2.50, minus $1 coupon, minus $1 MMB coupon. $0.50.
** 2 boxes of Wheat Thins $2.50, minus Buy Ritz, get Wheat Thins free coupon, minus $1 coupon. $1.50 for two. (And I got back the Free Crystal Light coupon for buying 2 Wheat Thins.)
** 1 box of 100 calorie snacks $2.50, minus $1 coupon, minus $1 MMB coupon. $0.50.
** 3 chunks of Kraft cheese $1 each, wyb 2 Nabisco crackers, minus $1/2 coupon. $2 for 3.
** 2 Kraft Miracle Whips $2 each, minus 2 $1 coupon, minus 2 $1 MMB coupon. 2 for Free.
** 1 Kraft Salad Dressing. $1.58, minus $1 coupon, minus $1 MMB coupon. Free plus overage.
** 8 Kraft Mac n Cheeses $0.50 each. Used 2 Buy 3 Get 1 Free coupons. 8 boxes for $3. $0.38 each.
** Meijer Cheese slices. $2.00.
** Budding Lunch Meat. $2.50.
** Bottle of Meijer Lite Syrup. $2.00.
** Bottle of Heinz Ketchup. $2.00.
** Bag of Meijer Mini Marshmellows. $1.24.
** 4+ lbs. of bananas $0.27/lb. $1.12.
** 1 box Fruit Loops $1.80, minus $1 coupon. $0.80.

Total before coupons: About $43
(Receipt says that I saved $37.60 from sales, coupons and promotions.)
After coupons: $19.74.

I thought it was a good haul. I picked up things we needed that I didn't have coupons for, and it was still under $20. Oh, plus I got a $2 off your next order coupon from the Mac-n-Cheese, I think. I thought I might have gotten one from buying 5 Nabisco products (read that somewhere) but I didn't. I was ready to leave, Cooper was ready to leave and the cashier was patient with me already, so I just didn't go there. :) I think it may have been cause I bought Ritz Bits for my 5th cracker purchase and not just the regular crackers that may have not qualified. Not a big deal.

I do have a picture, but I'm just going to post this for now and maybe get a picture up later. (I think I've said that before and haven't done it. We'll see.)

More Gift Card Action!

You know me, gotta roll those gift cards! I LOVE it!

Well, this week it was a Swiffer deal. Buy 2 Swiffer products, get a $5 gift card. The refills were $4.04 and they qualified! Cool. Saturday evenings aren't the best for Huber Target. They take all their sale signs/gift card sale signs down, so I'm always leary of my purchase. Sometimes the price checker will read that the item is part of a Gift Card deal, but not always. Oh well.

** 1 Swiffer Wet refill, $4.04, minus $0.50 off coupon. $3.54.
** 1 Swiffer Dry refill, $4.04, minus $1 off Target home mailer coupon. $3.04.

Total: $6.58.
Used $5 gift card from last gift card deal.
Total: $1.58 plus tax (I think it was $1.70 something.)
Received new $5 gift card! Sweet! And two products that I use (but need to use more often.) :P

A CVS Trip Across Town

I feel like we are ALWAYS at the Children's Hospital. I seriously would like to get an employee parking pass cause we're always there. The thrifty in me HATES to pay $2 everytime we are there. Ugg. And I haven't convinced my husband to park across the street in the neighborhood and just walk to Children's. Oh well.

Anyways, this week, I politely asked my hubby if after my son's therapy appointment, if we could hit up a CVS that's kind of out of the way, but closer to downtown than our house. My bloggy friend Jenny at Momminitup told me that this particular one is very coupon friendly AND they take competitor coupons, along with $/$$ off coupons, and expired CVS coupons up to 30 days. Ok, I'm thinking about moving! :) Just kidding, but occasionally I like to make the trek down there to roll my ECBs, especially if it's not a great week and I need the $/$$ coupon for a boost.

So that's what we did this week, and thankfully my hubby was very considerate with my crazy idea, and very helpful with my son who now instantly freaks out whenever I pull into CVS. Not so much any other store, just CVS. He used to not mind at all, where ever I took him shopping, now that he's nearing 2, he's starting to develop some opinions of shopping, especially when it comes to CVS. I botched that up somehow. Oops.

We did pretty good. I was able to be relatively focused. I had $12 ECBs that expired on that day, so I did my best to get some back. I walked out with $9 ECBs so that's not too bad. The best part was that I didn't just get more razors/medicine/toothpaste, like normal. I actually walked out with a lot of FOOD! Here's what I got: (no picture, right now, sorry)

** 3 Skippy Peanut Butters, 3/$5, minus 1 $0.30 coupon. $4.70. I wish I had more! :(
** 3 Ragu Spaghetti Sauces, 3/$5, minus 1 $0.40 coupon. $4.60. " "
** 1 Schick Quattro Razor, $8.99, minus $4 coupon. $4.99.
** 2 boxes of Rice Krispies, 2/$4, minus 2 $1 coupons. $1 each.
** 2 bags of Gold Emblem nuts (chocolate covered Bridge mix--yum) $0.99 each, minus $2 off any 2 Gold Emblem nuts--coupon took off $1.98. Free
** 2 Johnson's Cucumber Melon Baby Lotions, $1.12 clearance price. Minus 2 $1 off coupons. $0.12 each.
** Bayer 4 ct. Crystals, $2, no coupon. $2.

Total: $29.21, minus $5 off $25 purchase from Rite Aid. $24.21.
Minus all other coupons, New Total: $13.53.
Used $12.47 in ECBs, paid $0.56 out of pocket!
Received 3 ECBs for Skippy/Ragu, 4 ECBs for Quattro razor, 2 ECBs for Bayer Crystals. 9 ECBs total.

The sweet check-out lady was nice and complimented me on my purchase. She said "Now, do you take a class on how to get such good deals?" Looking at the next person in line, she said "She only paid $0.56 for all of that!" :) The person politely acted impressed, but just wanted to check out. :) When someone asks me that, I usually always direct them to Money Saving Mom, cause that's where I got started and it's easy to remember. :) moneysavingmom.com

Long story short, I used about $12 ECBs, got 9 back. If not for that $5/$25 coupon, it would have been kind of a downer week, so I was glad we made it there.

CVS News

I have decided to consolidate my CVS shopping. What?? Ok, maybe not the actual shopping, but the use of more than one card. I know, I probably should just only have 1 card, so that's where I'm going. I started with just one CVS card for myself, when my awesome friend Suzanne introduced me to her great deals. After a couple months, I registered my hubby for one, and then my mom started letting me use hers. I hadn't planned on using hers, but something she bought gave her $10 ECBs, so she gave them to me, but I had to use her card to use them, so the cycle began. :) Since my ECBs have been dwindling anyways, along with the fact that it's torture to get Cooper to even go to CVS anymore, (not so much any other store, but he hates CVS and instantly starts crying when we pull into the parking lot. Yikes.) I've decided to stop using my hubby's card and my mom's. Even though, CVS doesn't limit how many cards you have per person/household, some people get pretty uptight about it, so it will alleviate that issue. I originally wanted additional cards for baby/diaper deals, when there was just a Limit 1 on sales. But now I'm just going to use up their few ECBs and focus on my one card. Maybe I'll be able to grow them more if I concentrate on just one... Hopefully. I MAY use their cards IF there is something that I can get free and get ECBs, but we'll see. That doesn't happen too often. And I'll just turn around and use the ECBs right away on necessities.

Ok, on to the CVS deal news, if you haven't been looking, check out all the baby aisle stuff. LOTS of things are going 75% off lately. Some of them not marked--Huggies Natural Care wipes refill (2 refills) are ringing up $1.62. Playskool wipes have been marked down to $0.82 cause they are redoing the packaging. Some of the Huggies Clean Team wipes are 75% off (not sure of price). Some Johnson's Baby stuff is going to 75% off. Many of the Playskool baby items (bottles, toys, etc.) are being marked down. Some of the Gentle Naturals items are on clearance because they are redoing the packaging. Palmer's Stretch mark lotion I just found 75% off in the baby section. Some nursing pads (Lansinoh) I saw on 75% off. ALL great additions to a baby gift basket!!! And don't forget to use coupons to make the deals even better!!!

Here are some of the great clearance deals I have gotten lately:

** 2 Johnson's Cucumber Melon Baby Lotion, $1.12 each, minus 2 $1 coupons for the Johnson's baby site. $0.12 each! Great for a baby gift basket.
** Gentle Naturals Cradle Cap lotion, $2.25, minus $2 off coupon. $0.25!
** 2 packs of the Huggies Natural refills (2 ct.), $1.62 each, minus a $2 off any Huggies tub or refill coupon from the coupon machine, minus 2 $0.50 off manufacturer coupons! $0.24 total!

I am hopefully going to go back and get some of the Palmer's lotion for my gift basket that I'm making (I think it was $1.72 and I have $1 off coupon.) If I can find a Lansinoh coupon, I may get some of those for the basket too (I think they were around $2.)

If your store has a price scanner, load up your cart and check things out! There could be more that I don't know about (do tell, if you find something). I love when companies change packaging. Score!

Something to Talk About

It's been a little while since I posted. There hasn't been much to get excited about. The grocery store deals the last couple weeks have been blah. CVS is less than exciting lately.

I did do the 3M "metal" hook deal--buy $15 worth and get 5 ECBs. They were $2.50 each. So you had to buy 6 in order to reach the $15 mark. Well, 3M (along with Scotch) always has great coupons out on their website. AND they always put them in pdf format, so you can print as many as you want. So they had $2.50 coupons for the "metal" 3M hooks. HOW CONVENIENT! So I printed off 6 of them and got them all FREE, plus the 5 ECBs. So that was the latest good deal at CVS. It would have been even nicer if you could do it more than once per card, but they have been really strict about that, so it was a Limit 1.

Anyways, I do have something to talk about today. Yesterday I had a 2 hour time frame to get out of the house. I needed the me time, but I also had 12 ECBs expiring, so it was a necessity in more way than one. :)

I got all of the items in the following pictures for LESS THAN ONE DOLLAR! Sweet.

Here's how I did it:

First stop: Kmart. (Loot in the middle of the picture.) I remember Kmart was doing doubles up to $0.75 and last time I went (when they were doubled up to $2) I found a big box of the Scotch Pop-Up tape dispensers for $0.99. I had coupons for them, but didn't have them in my stash at the time. This time, I did!

**4 Pop Up tape dispensers $0.99 each, minus 4 $0.75 coupons, doubled. Free.

**2 Halls cough drops $1.34 each, minus 2 $0.73 coupons, doubled. Free.

Paid only $0.32 of tax out of pocket.

Next stop: Target. (loot pictured to the right) I wanted to do the Fiber One gift card deal, with my previous gift card from the Special K deal.

**2 boxes of Fiber One bars $2.39 each, minus 2 $1.35 coupons. $1.04 each.

**1 box of Fiber One toaster pastries $1.79, no coupon, but wanted to try them. $1.79.

**1 box of Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal $2.39, minus $1 off coupon. $1.39.

**1 small bag of Chex Mix $0.99, minus Target $1 off Chex Mix coupon. (No size stated, but it beeped. Cashier pushed it through.) Free, plus $0.01 overage.

**1 Dove chocolate bar, minus Target $1 off Dove candy coupon. (No size/type stated, but it beeped. Cashier pushed it through.) Free, plus $0.01 overage. (not pictured, eaten. yum.)

**4 trial size containers of Band Aids. $0.97 each, minus 4 $1 off ANY Band Aid coupons. (Coupon beeped, but cashier pushed them through.) Free, plus $0.03 overage each--total $0.12 overage.

Total came to $5.25 after tax. Paid with $5 gift card from Special K deal. Paid $0.25 out of pocket AND got a new $5 gift card!

Last stop: CVS. (loot pictured to the left) Like I said, I had $12 ECBs expiring and wanted to make the most of them. I had cereal coupons and the Colgate coupons, so that's what I decided to do.

**3 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats, 3/$10, minus 3 $1 coupons. 3/$7.

**1 Colgate Max White toothpaste, $2.99, minus $1 coupon. $1.99.

**1 Colgate Max White toothbrush, $2.99, minus $1 coupon. $1.99.

**2 Russell Stover Private Reserve chocolate bars, (add to Mother's day gifts) clearanced $0.50 each. $1.00.

**1 Gentle Naturals Cradle Cap Care lotion (add to baby shower gift), clearanced from $8.99 to $2.25, used $2 off coupon. $0.25.

Total: $12.23. Used $12 ECBs and $0.23 out of pocket. Got back 5 ECBs for cereal and 4 ECBs for Colgate products.

So all in all, $0.32 + $0.25 + $0.23 = $0.80 for all of that in the picture. I was excited to come home and drag all my bags in and say "I got all of this for about $1." :) Almost everything will go in my stash/stockpile. The gifts will be put in their places. But the Fiber One bars will stay out (yum--oats & caramel) and my hubby already had some Chex Mix. So even if I just wanted the Fiber One bars to have around for snacks, I could never get two boxes for just $0.80 total. I love deals. Love 'em!