So, on Thanksgiving Day, after the meal was had and we got tired of looking at each other, I decided to coupon some and hit the crowds to do some shopping… at CVS. I brought my mom and my husband, who are always good sports, along with me and scored on some great deals! I used the website www.SouthernSavers.com to help me build my deals list as usual, which always saves me time. CVS was out of a lot of items already, but I had a great time and got some great stuff–you know I love my household stuff like deodorant, laundry detergent, toothpaste, etc. Plus some Christmas gifts! YAY!
After my Thanksgiving Day shopping trip, I had $18 in Extra Care Bucks (ECB), which you get when you are a CVS rewards member. You get these ECBs by buying certain items on sale that offer ECB rewards for purchase. You can combine store and manufacture coupons and still get the ECBs, so there’s a lot of potential when shopping at CVS.
I had about a month to use my ECBs on another shopping trip, so I decided to do a little couponing this week and hit some more of their great sales! After creating my shopping list on Southern Savers site again (she even will give you how to break your transactions up into multiple transactions to get the best deals!), I set out! Some of the items weren’t carried at my closest CVS, so I did some rearranging and adding on different deals to make it work out good for my personal needs.
After about 30-45 minutes of shopping, I left CVS having only spent $16 in cash, my $18 in ECB that I took with me and several dollars in ECB I earned during my different transactions; I also have $2 in ECBs to use at a later date. I left the store with a bottle of Arm & Hammer Oxy Laundry detergent (this was my splurge item), two 6-pack of Scott’s paper towels, a 10oz bottle of Palmolive dish soap, a 40-pack of Hefty ultra strong garbage bags, a pack of Zantac 75, a dozen eggs, a package of Kelloggs poptarts, and six other name brand items that I can’t mention because they are Christmas gifts! That’s nearly $1/item for all name brand stuff (especially when you count the $2 ECBs I have for later use)!
Pretty awesome, right? Now get this! I also use Receipt Hog, Ibotta, Checkout51, SavingStar and MobiSave. If you’ve read some of my other blogs, you know I LOVE these money saving apps! If you aren’t familiar with them, go ahead and check them out so you know what you’ve been missing. Moving on, I took an extra 15 minutes or so when I got home with my receipts and loot and earned even more money back on my purchases! I had a rebate for my Zantac, plus I got $3 on one app, then another $4 on another app–I will have nearly $16 back just from that item, which will cover my ENTIRE CVS purchase! I also got several more dollars back on some other items (that I can’t mention, LOL), so I technically was paid to go shopping tonight! Boom!
I know I’ve said it many times before, but you don’t have to be an extreme couponer to make it worth your time to coupon and shop. The prep time probably took me maybe half an hour (mostly fighting with my printer and switching out my eBay labels to regular paper), shopping took me about half an hour, so let’s say an hour and a half at most, but left with all of the items I mentioned above plus more money back. Most of these aren’t luxury, fun items, they’re things you can’t do without, so I love to stock up when I can for nearly no money! Wouldn’t you?
