CVS Trip 10-5-10

I wanted to get to CVS today to use my $7 off a $15 Revlon CRT (abbreviation for Cash Register Tape) that printed from the Coupon Center at CVS last week. Last week there was a deal on Revlon too but I chose to wait until this week because… it was a moneymaker!! Last week, I would have used my $5 Extra Care Bucks (ECB) and gotten 6 back. This week, I almost doubled my ECBs! Here’s what I did:

**5 Revlon nail polishes $3.99 each. Used my $7/$15, minus 5 $1 off any Revlon product coupons (I found these at CVS in the beauty section. So what was $19.95, became $7.95. Then I received 3 ECBs for each polish! 3x5= 15 ECBs!
**1 Glade Air Freshener $1.69. Minus a $1.50 off any Glade product CRT. $0.19.
**2 pairs of “Halloween” socks. (I chose the striped ones with Halloween colors, without any Halloween pictures.) 2/$5. Minus a $5 off any Halloween costume, accessory or decoration. Free!

My total was $26.64. Minus all my coupons, it came to $8.14! I had a $7.50 in ECBs, so my new total was $0.64!! Oh, yeah. And I got back 15 ECBs for the future. I haven’t had a good ECB return in awhile so I was pumped. The male cashier was excited for me too, so that was nice.

Bonus: I will probably use the nail polish and the fuzzy socks for stocking stuffers for Christmas, so that’s a nice small extra gift that didn’t cost me much at all! (I know it’s only Oct. 5th, but it’s not too soon to think about Christmas shopping, especially when you need to be thrifty about it!)

Rite Aid Trip 10-4-10

Today I hit Rite Aid after I picked Cooper up from school. Target was not kind to me, so I went to Rite Aid for the affirmation I was looking for. :P

Cooper was armed with a snack and was a very pleasant shopping buddy! Always a good thing!

Huggies were on sale for $7.99, plus coupons, and I wanted to pick up a package for a baby shower. I also wanted to grab some other things to make my total at least $25 so I could use my $5 off a $25 purchase coupon. Rite Aid has had some kickin’ deals lately so it was easy to do! Here’s how it went down:

**1 pack of Huggies Size 1 diapers. $7.99, minus a $2 manufacturer’s coupon, minus a $2 Rite Aid Video Value coupon. New price: $3.99.
**1 Schick Hydro Razor. $5.99, minus a $4 man. Coupon, minus a $2 VV coupon. New price: Free. 1 Bounce Dryer Bar. $3.99, minus $0.75 coupon. $3.24, get back $1 UP reward coupon.
**2 packs of Dixie Paper Plates. 2/$4. Minus 2 $1 Rite Aid Clip & Save coupons. Final price: 2/$2, plus earn a $1 UP reward.
**2 York Peppermint Patties 2/$1, minus $0.50/2 VV coupon. Final price 2/$0.50.
**1 Oral B Toothbrush. $2.69. Minus $0.75 man. Coupon, minus $1 Clip & Save coupon. Final price: $0.94, plus earn a $2.69 Up reward.

The total was around $29. With all my coupons and the $5/$25 coupon, I paid around $8-$9, which includes tax!! Plus I got back $4.69 in UP Rewards, which is like cash to use on my next purchase! I was very pleased. That’s about the regular price for the pack of diapers!! So the rest was just a bonus. Rite Aid is in the running to be my new CVS!!

A Strike Against Target 10-4-10

No, I’m not going on a Target strike (although I have gone on several store strikes in my lifetime). But I do want to complain about them.

Yesterday I was in Target. We needed trashbags and I had a $1 off an Up&Up (that’s the Target brand name) product coupon. Plus I saw in the ad that the Shark Portable (Handheld) Steamer was advertised for $99, and get a $20 gift card. I’ve been wanting to get one, and when I bought my Shark Steam Mop, they did the same $20 gift card deal, so I knew that it would come back. I just had a feeling! Well, voila, here it was. Also, I decided to do a “Price Match” on the Bounce Dryer Bars that are on sale at Rite Aid, because I had a manufacturer’s coupon AND a Target coupon, so I thought I’d get a better deal this way. I was wrong.

Target recently has advertised that they will “Price Match” exact items from competitor’s ads for the same week. So after my regular check out, I took my Bounce Bar up to the Customer Service (they can’t do it at the regular check out for some reason—boo.) :P The lady came to help me. The only problem was that Rite Aid wasn’t listed as a competitor, even though CVS and Walgreens were both on the list. So this prompted the nice and willing cashier to have to ask her supervisor. Who was very rude from the get-go. Boo. The first cashier asked “Would they be a competitor?” “I wouldn’t think so” said the second, in a rude voice. Then she didn’t believe me that the price or product was correct. I read her the ad. She looked and looked at it (trying to find some reason NOT to let me have the deal.) She finally said that because I have to use my “Wellness Card” at Rite Aid, and it was a special “Wellness Card” deal, that Target couldn’t give that price. Bull-ogna. (Like bologna, but with my bull!)

So, the moral of the story, TARGET—don’t offer this great “Price Matching” if you can’t handle it! Because someone out there will blog out it! And someone else, may just start a Target strike. (It could have possibly been me, but I have a $20 Target gift card I need to use!)

I'm Bringin' Thrifty Back

Ok, it’s time to get my thrifty back on!! I don’t know where I’ve been, other than everywhere. And all the time. I’ve been going non-stop since June, but now I feel like I can and WANT to get back to blogging. I love deal shopping and I love writing about it (for some reason??) so here I am again.

I scored some Mega sales over the summer, many dealing with diapers! Score! Back in May, I guess, I scored with many packs of Huggies. They switched the packaging and they went to 75% off at CVS. Remember that?? Plus there was a $3 coupon, or something like that out, so they were basically $1.49 or less!! Depending if you had any CVS coupons for Huggies. It was awesome. And I was mildly obsessed with it. J I shopped until I ran out of coupons.

Then, in August, Amazon.com did the Diaper Deal of the Century! 95% off of their boxes of Pampers diapers!! Again, I become obsessed. For the deal to fly, I had to round up orange insert cards from the August or September issues of Parents or Parenting magazines. Which resulted in the Great Library Tour of 2010. I hit up almost all the Dayton Metro Library libraries, plus a couple more. I ended up buying… wait for it… wait for the crazy… 19 boxes of diapers. Yes, 19. With the coupons (you could use 3 different amazon.com coupons, plus Pampers had a $1-2 coupon on amazon.com) the boxes were between $2.50-$4.19. And this is the LARGE box of diapers. Regularly priced around $35-$40. Can you believe that?? I got Cooper 6 boxes I believe. I got 3 boxes for my preggo BFF (a box of Huggies Size 1, 2 and 3). The rest that I bought, I sold! I was going to keep some, but we needed the dough, so I sold them for a nice profit. I roughly estimate that I spent about $60 for all 19 boxes. The ones I sold brought me in about $230.

Ok, so anyway, I’m going to be better about posting my deals. Because I love it. The clipping, the sorting, the shopping, the saving, the bragging about it. :P Just kidding. But it’s something I like, a hobby, and a major blessing, all in one. And if I can help anyone find blessings, I’m happy to do it!

Almost 2 months!

Well, I promise you, it hasn't been 2 months since my last deal. :) I've just had some serious computer problems and so on, so I've been a little behind in posting. But, we now have High Speed internet (I know, welcome to the 21st century) and I will now be able to download pictures, again, too!

I've had two great diaper scores in the last week or so. For some reason, I get a little stressed when I'm running low on diapers. I guess it's the fear that I may have to pay $8-10 for a pack of diapers. NOOOO! :)

Last week, Rite Aid had Huggies on sale for $8.99. I had been saving my Holiday Gift of Savings check ($20) for awhile now, waiting for the right price and time. I picked up 4 packs. I had (4) $2 off Huggies manufacturer's coupons, plus (2) $1 off Rite Aid Video Values Huggies coupons, and also a Video Values $5/$20 purchase coupon. My total before coupons was $37+. After my $20 rebate check, my $8 in manu Q's, $5 off, and $2 RA coupons, I paid $1.77! NOT BAD! I also will enter my receipt and get $3 back for the Huggies Single Check Rebate award. I will take it! What a blessing!

Then yesterday, I was reading Money Saving Mom's post about a good deal on Pampers from diapers.com. I tweeked it a little bit for my own benefit, and ended up paying $32 for 179 diapers, plus I'll get a $15 rebate back! Here's how it all happened:

I was reading the post, which gives a code (SAVEMOM) for $10 off your order. But I remembered that I received an email awhile back from diapers.com that said something like "Buy Pampers, and take $10 off your order, plus get 500 Pampers Gift to Grow points." I had never ordered from diapers.com so I thought, "Well, both the deals give me $10 off, but why not take the 500 points while I'm at it." IN ADDITION, I checked out my Pampers Gift to Grow points, which I had added to recently, and I was around 1100 points. I searched through the awards catalog, and for 1000 points, you could buy a $10 gift certificate to diapers.com. I made sure that I could use both the promo code (10PAMPERS) AND the gift certificate, buying looking in the Help section at diapers.com and the answer was YES!

So here's what I did: I put a Extra Large Case of Pampers "Baby Dry" in my cart, and also clicked that I wanted to use the $1.50 off "ecoupon". I then added a jumbo pack of Huggies "Little Movers" which also had an ecoupon for $2 off (even though I usually buy the Snug and Dry because you get more in a pack--but I wanted to be able to use the $2 off coupon.) My total was around $52. Minus the Promo Code, Minus the Gift Certificate (the code for the GC showed up on the screen at pampers.com once I "bought" it). My new total was around $32. I printed out the rebate form, which I have 4 weeks to turn in) and so I'll get $14.97 from that!!

I probably wouldn't have paid $32 for 179 diapers, unless I got the rebate. I'm just so spoiled from getting my diapers by using Extra Bucks at CVS or other deals, like my Rite Aid ones. But with the $15 back, it will be only about $17 for the equivalent of about 6 packs of diapers. So that's worth it. And it will ease my diaper-stash stress. :)

Oh, and as soon as I checked out on diapers.com, my 500 Gift to Grow code popped up on the screen! So now I have 600 something points. Not to bad. I do not know if anyone can use the 10PAMPERS code, or if you can only use it if you got the specific email. ??? In the email, it said "Click here" for the deal and then the diapers.com page popped up, along with the message about "Order now and earn your 500 points" thing. But maybe you got the email too. Or I could forward you mine!! That might work. :)

Happy diaper shopping to you!! :) Hope you find some great deals this week!

Lots of Free Huggies!! :)

I have been waiting for Huggies to go on sale at Rite Aid. I had a $20 Fall Gift of Savings certificate I have been wanting to use, but just couldn't stand to pay full price for Huggies. :) Here's what I did:

* 4 packs of Huggies Jumbo packs $8.99 each. Minus 4 $2 off coupons, minus 4 $1 off Rite Aid Video Values coupons. $5.99 each.
* 3 boxes of 24 count Tylenol Muscle/Pain $2.99, minus 3 $2 off coupons. $0.99 each.
* 1 bag of Sun Chips $0.99 (hubby's request)
* 1 GE lightbulb (sign said $0.99, but it rang up $6+) WHAT!! Will definitely be going to get my money back. I did use a $1 off coupon, so it was supposed to be free.
*1 box of Kleenex (280 count) $1.99, minus $0.75 coupon. $1.24.

My total was like $57. (which goes toward my Holiday Gift of Savings certificate that I can get up to $20 back for. I'm up to a $10 gift certifcate right now.)

I used a $5 off a $25 purchase coupon. Used my $20 Fall certificate and $7 I had left on my Rite Aid gift card. My total after all of that was $4.xx. Awesome! Had I caught the lightbulb slip up, I wouldn't have had to use all of my gift card--but believe me, I will take care of that asap.

Plus, I will get a voucher for a FREE pack of Huggies from Rite Aid. And I have a BIG pile of receipts I need to mail into the Caregivers Marketplace to get $0.75 back per pack of Huggies that I've purchased. It should be a pretty nice check I think. Maybe $30? I've been saving them up from all year... That would be nice. I don't know--I'll have to count it up and get back with you. :)

So, obviously, I was very happy when I walked out of the Rite Aid door, even paying $4, I thought that was awesome. Now knowing I get $6 back, I'm even happier! I could get another pack of diapers!

Happy holiday shopping! I hope you've had some time to get some good deals with all the hustle and bustle. Merry Christmas!!

Target: Price Matching 12-03

Well, I decided to try out some "price matching" today for the first time. I have heard that Target has started doing this, so I was going to go for it. Target has their own "Target coupons" that can be combined with manufacturer's coupons, so I thought this would be a great way to save even more. It worked! It took a little extra time, but I was very happy with it. I wish I had a picture of my loot, but my computer is still not cooperating in that area. Use you imagination, I guess.

Upon gathering all my treasures, I headed to the check-out counter. The cashier was unsure of how to do this and a manager told me I had to go to customer service to do price matching. (I imagine since it's new, the cashiers are pretty oblivious about it still) The cashier at Customer Service was very nice, very friendly. A "Trainer" according to her name tag. She was repeatedly super-excited about my deals and savings. It was refreshing. :) Here's what I did:

3 boxes of Ritz crackers (I need these for a cookie exchange I'm doing--they are one ingredient) Target has them on sale for $2.49. BUT Kroger has them on sale for $1.99, so she adjusted the price. Then I had 2 $1 off Target coupons. 1 $1 off manufacturer's coupon, and 1 $1/2 manu. coupon. 4 boxes $1.97 total!

4 Glade Holiday scented oil candle tins and 1 scebed oil candle refill. Target has these for $2.50 each. PLUS if you buy 5, you get a $5 gift card. BUT Walmart has them in their ad for $2.25. And I used 5 $1.50 off manufacturer's coupons. $0.75 each ($3.75 total). Received a $5 Target gift card. (I am using these for gifts for teachers/etc. I've collected quite a few, cause I've been rolling these gift cards, so you may get one too.) :)

2 12 packs (Pepsi products). On sale for $3 each. This was about the best price around this week, that I saw, so I didn't do price matching for this. But I had 2 $1 off Target coupons. $2 each.

2 bags of M&M's (for upcoming gingerbread house making). On sale at Target for $2.49. BUT on sale at Walgreens for 2/$4. Also used a $1/2 manufacturer coupon making them 2/$3.

1 box of Wheatables. On sale for $1.99. Used $1.50 off coupon. $0.49.

1 pack of holiday pencils from the Dollar Spot. $1.00.

4 refill packs of Up & Up (Target brand) baby wipes. $0.97 each. Used 4 $1 off Target coupons (took $0.97 off each.) F-r-e-e.

I think that's it. My total before price matching and coupons would have been $37.85 or more.

After coupons, my total was $15, even. Plus I got a $5 gift card for next time! Sweet!

The cashier was astouded! It was kind of funny. She said she wanted to hang out with me shopping and kept telling the cashier next to her about it. I have had some semi-miserable experiences coupon shopping at Target, so this was nice.

Also, SC Johnson has a rebate going on right now that I can get a $5 rebate for purchased 3 SC Johnson products (GLADE!). And I can do the rebate 3 times! So, if I roll my gift card one more time.... let me add that up... carry the one... that $15 back in rebates. Very sweet. So, I will have to do just that.

Happy Shopping!