CVS Trip

I am really trying hard to maximize my grocery dollars this month to see if spending $20/person/week is a realistic goal for me. One way to do this is to play the drug store game. I tend to focus on CVS because it is the closest store to me and it is much easier to pay attention to only 1 store at a time. There are only so many hours in a day, you know!

This challenge is different than a typical "eating from the pantry challenge." I am not trying to minimize my spending. I am still shopping as I typically would and when possible I am building my stockpile so that I don't pay full price for items in the future.

So, with $3.50 in ECBs and a $3/$15 coupon burning a hole in my pocket, I headed to CVS with the goal of adding to my stockpile.

This is what I got:


Grand total: Around $7 including tax plus I earned $2 ECBs back that I will roll into another deal. Not bad considering each laundry detergent retails for $7.

I haven't bought laundry detergent in over a year and these bottles combined with what I still have left will probably last me close to that long again. So cross laundry detergent off the list of things to buy in 2011 :)

CVS Trip

I made a quick trip to CVS this week to use up some ECBs that were expiring. I ended up getting some toothpaste and dish soap for FREE plus I walked away with $3.50 in ECBs. Not bad at all.

You may remember that I specifically stated last month that I don't need anymore dish soap. Whoops - well it was free so whatever! I may end up donating it somewhere because I certainly won't be using it anytime in the near future.

More CVS deals!

I have been having such good luck at CVS recently. I thought my deal on deodorant couldn't be beat but this might be coming close.

I ended up with 2 Gillette body washes, 2 right guard deodorants, 1 Gillette proglide razor (which for some reason comes with a battery...), 1 box of pop tarts, and 1 package of wafer cookies.

Here is how it worked out:

The poptarts and cookies were just filler. The cookies were $1 and the poptarts were on sale for $1.67.

The deodorants were $4.49 each regularly but they were BOGO and I had a $3/2 coupon making them $1.49 for both.

The body washes were on sale for $4 each with a $4 ECB (limit 2). I had a BOGO coupon making them $4 for both not counting the ECBs.

The razor was on sale for $9.97 with a $5 ECB. I also had a coupon for $4/1.

Finally I had a coupon for $5/$25 that I got in my email and a $5 ECB from my earlier CVS trip.

So the grand total out of pocket was $5.57 including tax. AND I GOT BACK $13 in ECBs.

Interestingly, I've managed to score deals on a number of 'man products' and yet I have no actual man living in my house. Now, a number of those products I have no problem using on my own but I'm not really in need of that much man body wash so I think I am going to be able to make a nice donation to a local shelter. All in all, I consider it a very successful CVS mission :)

CVS deals!

Holy moly I hit the jackpot at CVS this week! Thanks to Hip2Save I was alerted to a great deal on Dove deodorant so I wandered on down to CVS with some coupons and my ECBs from my last transaction and scored 6 deodorants plus a newspaper for $1.28 PLUS I got $5 back in ECBs. And, at the bottom of my receipt a $5/$15 purchase. Well this got my wheels turning since I saw a bunch of Pantene shampoo in the clearance bin WITH $1 peelies on them.

So, I went back and picked up some make up and shampoo. I'm on my last bottle of shampoo so this was a necessary find. Also the foundation was essential because I am almost out of it. Anyway, for the 2 bottles of shampoo and makeup, I paid $9 and got $5 back in ECBs. That was a little bit more than I would have liked to spend out of pocket but given that the foundation itself is $10, it was a great deal. And I never seem to be able to find a much better deal on makeup since my sensitive skin limits my options!


Anyway, I was pretty darn excited about all of this. All in all I ended up with 6 deodorants, 2 shampoos, foundation, and blush all for about $10 out of pocket plus I ended up with $5 in ECBs. Retail price was about $45 for a savings of about 78%. Wahoo!

CVS

CVS has a pretty sweet ECB deal going on if you are willing to spend a little $$ out of pocket to generate some ECBs. I didn't have any ECBs stored up so I was looking for a way to generate some.

Right now the Gillette body wash is on sale for $4 each with a $4 ECB (limit 2). At some point there was a coupon for a Buy 1 Get 1 Gillette body wash that would make this a $4 money maker. There was also a save $4 on 2 body washes that would essentially accomplish the same thing.

Anyway, I walked over to my local CVS and they actually did have some body wash left (the good deals seem to go fast!). So I paid $4.62 out of pocket with tax and got back $8 in ECBs.


Of course I believe it is 'man-scented' body wash but soap is soap, right? :)

CVS, Week of 8/2

The CVS deals just keep coming! My trip today was very successful. I purchased the above items in 2 transactions this morning. There was also a candy bar that is not pictured because I left it at home for my mom. I am so excited about this purchase because it is definitely a step in the right direction as far as minimizing the grocery budget is concerned! Also I eat an abnormal amount of peanut butter so to get 3 jars of it for only pennies is a HUGE deal!

Anyway, here is how it happened:

Transaction 1: Starting with $1.98 in ECBs
2 Stayfree pads @ $5.00 each (on sale)
1 Softsoap bodywas @ $4.99
1 folder @ $0.49 (on sale, purchased as filler).

I had some great coupons to use for this transaction. I had a $3/$15 CVS coupon, a BOGO coupon for the stayfree pads, a $1 coupon for the other stayfree pads, and a $2 coupon for the bodywash.

Total Value: $18.16
Total OOP: $2.78

Earned $9.00 in ECBs

Transaction 2:
3 Skippy peanut butter @ $2 each (on sale)
2 Ragu pasta sauce @ $2 each (on sale)
1 candy bar @ $1 each

I used 2 coupons for this transaction: $1/2 Skippy and $1/2 Ragu. I paid for this transaction using the $9 ECBs from transaction 1.

Total Value: $14.75
Total OOP: $0.06

Earned $3.00 in ECBs

Summary:

Total Value: $32.91
Total OOP: $2.84

Savings: 91.4%

And I have $3 in ECBs to carry over until next week!

CVS, Week of 7/26

Another great week for school supplies at CVS! I've been poking in and out of various CVS stores this week to snag these great deals in 3 transactions.

I started with $1.98 ECBs.

Transaction 1:

2 post-it notes @ $0.99 each (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $3.98

Paid with ECBs, Total OOP: $0.10

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 2:

2 packs of pens @$0.99 each (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $4.38

Paid with ECBs from transaction 1, Total OOP: $0.10

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 3:

2 composition books @ $0.99 each (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $$5.98

Paid with ECBs from transaction 2, Total OOP: $0.10

ECBs earned: $1.98

Summary:

Total value before sales: $14.34

Total OOP: $0.30

Savings = 97.9%

Plus I have $1.98 in ECBs to roll into something next week!

More CVS deals, Week of 7/19

Yay for continued great deals from CVS this week! The CVS next to my office is too hard to pass up when I know I can get basically free items! So I grabbed 2 packages of notebook paper, a pack of pencils, and 2 small notebooks in 4 separate transactions (spread over 2 days - don't worry I didn't stalk the CVS people). I won't go into the details because frankly I am pretty sure no one cares that much...but here is the summary:

Total OOP: $0.48
Total Value: $8.65

Total Savings: 94.5%

Plus I have $1.98 in ECBs to put towards something next week!

CVS, Week of 7/19

Another awesome week at CVS for school supplies if you can find anything left on the shelves! I ran errands today and stopped by 2 CVSs to see about grabbing some stuff. The first CVS had absolutely none of the free after ECB deals left but the second one had the pens left.

Here is how is went down:

I started with $1.98 in ECBs from last week. The pens were on sale for $0.99 each for a total of $1.98. So my out of pocket total was $0.00 AND I got $1.98 back in ECBs. Woo! I may check out the CVS next to my office at some point this week to see if I can roll those into another free item.

Original price: $1.99 for one

Savings: 100%

CVS, Week of 7/12

I've been looking for a good opportunity to build up some ECBs at CVS and this was definitely a good week for it. I have a CVS next to my office so it was easy to run in real quick today after work. I thought most of the 'free after ECB' deals would be gone by now since they expire tonight but for some reason the sales weren't marked at this CVS so there was plenty of everything. I don't particularly need school supplies so I will probably keep a package of pens and then donate the rest to a local shelter. The only thing they did not have that I actually wanted was the scissors. I may try to hit up another CVS tonight for those.

Anyway, I did this in 3 transactions with no ECBs to start.

Transaction 1:

1 CVS notebook @ $0.99 (on sale)

1 CVS notebook @ $0.99 (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $5.58

Total OOP: $2.09

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 2:

1 package pens @ $0.99 (on sale)

1 glue @ $0.99

Total value before coupons and sales: $3.18

Paid with $1.98 ECBs from transaction 1 Total OOP = $0.00

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 3:

1 package pens @ $0.99 (on sale)

1 package pens @ $0.99 (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $4.38

Paid with $1.98 ECBs from transaction 2 Total OOP = $0.00

ECBs earned: $1.98

Summary:

Total value before sales: $13.52

Total OOP: $2.09

Savings = 84.5%

Plus I've got $1.98 in ECBs to use on something else. WOO!