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Monday, September 7, 2009

CVS - Week of 9/6.... Yup, already!

I came home from camping on Sunday only to turn myself around in the shower so I could go straight to a funeral service for one of my recent students... Frankly, I am still deeply saddened by the loss of such a promising young life... and I was having a really hard time shaking myself back to normal after the services. I thought that maybe a quick run to spend my $13.99 in ECBs at CVS would be good to get my mind focused on something else for a short while.

Jenny at Southern Savers has the BIG list for CVS and you can also view the actual ad scan here. I did not even really touch her Grand Plan (I notice I've been deviating from it a lot more... is that good?? Or is that why I've spent more out of pocket??) because I had twice as many ECBs to start, and I was missing a lot of the good coupons for things like Neutrogena and Loreal. Overall, I about broke even when you considered what I earned BACK... but I'm still trying to get AHEAD with little to nothing out of pocket in the first place! ARGH.

Like last week, I got to keep it easy with one transaction:

(1) Schick ST3 Disposable Razors, 8 ct - $6.99 ($4 ECB)
(1) Aussie Styling product - $2.99 ($2 ECB)
(1) CoverGirl Clean Liquid Foundation - $4.99 ($2 ECB)
(1) CoverGirl Line Smoothing Liquid SPF 15 - $7.99
(1) Quilted Northern Bath Tissue, 12 roll - $6.97

Use:
-$4 off Schick disposables
-$1 off any CoverGirl
-$FREE Face product wyb CoverGirl Foundation (see below)
-$1 off Quilted Northern
-$13 ECB

...... I needed the TP and had intended to use some of these ECBs for free paper goods anyway last week. The Aussie was a good deal with the ECB it spit back out (IMO) even though I didn't have a coupon for it. My total OOP SHOULD have been roughly $1.95, plus tax on ~$40 in items.

Jenny's site said you should be able to use the $1 coupon with the Get FREE wyb X coupon... but I think the CVS computers calculate those 2 coupons as covering 3 items, not 2. Basically after they scanned the $1 coupon, the FREE coupon beeped and told them there were too many items. Now, would it have worked if I'd had a little random filler item, or did I need to buy 3 CG items? I'm not sure.

So, I had them void the $1 and scan the FREE coupon instead. The FREE coupon was weird because it didn't state a max of ANY kind on it. Nothing. No direction what-so-ever. But I found out that the max is the non-sale price of the foundation ($6.19 for me). So, it worked, but in order for your Face Product to be truly FREE... it had to be less than whatever the regular foundation price was. This added almost $3 to my overall... SO:

Total OOP w/ tax: $5.75 + $2.77 = $8.52 (Saved 79%... still GRRRRRR)

Got Back: $8 ECB

Shelf Cost of everything? $40.62



I'm really going to start looking for ways to figure the tax ahead of time and see if I can get my ECB to cover that too. It's not a HUGE deal but it's messing up my projections of how much I'm supposed to spend and making me do double takes before I leave the store. Any ideas? I'm listening!


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2 comments:

  1. The Free coupon beeped because the dorks have to type in the amount of the "free" item, not because you had too many coupons. FREE Qs will always beep! Sorry that happened.

    Depending on the scenario you should always hand a StoreQ 1st then MQ's. Unless when stacking a StoreQ w/a MQ will cause overage then you hand the MQ first.

    Your ECBs will reduce your taxable amount thus reducing the tax you have to pay on your overall total depending on you handing the ECBs 1st & then MQs to the cashier. It's a little secret that not everyone knows. Did I lose you there?

    Example:
    Your total is $40.
    You have $28 in ECBs.
    You have $10 in manufacturer Q's.

    If you give the MQs first then you will pay tax on $30.

    If you give the ECBs first then you will pay tax on $12.

    Big difference.

    This method isn't exact science so sometimes my calculations are off BUT it does greatly reduce my OOP.

    Try it out...be prepared for a candy bar if your total is thrown into the negative because try as I may the computer always calculates a little funkier than my brain.

    Let me know how you do next time. :)

    Oh, and this works on RRs as well at Walgreens!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hmm... I'll give it a shot. Can't hurt, right?

    ReplyDelete