Free CVS Shopping

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Sheila

For the second week in a row, I have been able to shop for free at CVS:

I used 2 $0.75 off coupons from SS 8/26, a printable $1/3 for the candy, and from the Red box at CVS I had a Soft Soap coupon for $1.50 off, this was several weeks old. I also used 5 ECB but got back a total of 3.67 in ECB. I did use 0.61 from a gift card that I received several weeks ago for purchasing $30 before coupons. After looking at my receipt, I realized that this was actually the tax! I still have 1.75 on the gift card. Stay tuned to see if I can shop for free again next Sunday!

Shopping Success

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Sheila

I have been shopping several times in the last week. On Thursday, aka payday, we hit Aldi and Costco. I was actually very pleased that we managed to spend only $150 between the two stores and grabbed items that keep us on track with no eating out this week.

However the best shopping trip this week by far was on Sunday to CVS. I was totally out of cans of Diet Coke, which I take to work with me. I did have a free 12 pack coupon but was still not liking the idea of using it alone for only one weeks worth of sodas. The red machine at CVS this week is giving out some awesome coupons so I was able to do 2 separate transaction, spending $13.21 and saving $47.88 or 78%. The best part of all is that I ended up with 3 -12 packs of Diet Coke in addition to 4 bottles of nail polish, 2 sticks of deodorant, 2 boxes of Cheerios and 2 travel size bottles of shampoo. I started with $10 ECB and ended up with $12! The soda cost were 0.86 a case or 0.07 a can. CVS is still my favorite place to coupon!

Grocery Store Challenge Update 8/2/2012

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Sheila

What is my challenge? Spend as close to $20 a week at Food Lion over the next 4 weeks while purchasing items we need or to add to the stockpile based on sales. I am also going to give myself $10 a week to spend at CVS to keep rolling ECB. So that is a total of $30 a week for the next 4 weeks to feed our family of 6.

Week One Shopping: I stopped at Food Lion after work on Wednesday. I purchased Coffee Filters (a need), 2 12 pack rolls of toilet paper, 1 6 pack of paper towels and 3# of ground beef. I used the 5/25 and 2 $0.75 coupons on the toilet paper. Total spent $20.15, saved 12.50. I also got a Catalina coupon for $2 off $10 of the house brand products. My plan is to save this for next week to use to increase my saving.
CVS- After looking at the ad on Thursday and Friday, I decided that their were really only one deal that started on Sunday that I would be interested in. So Friday night, Matt and I headed to CVS to use his card for another Twizzlers deal , free candy and an I-Tunes card. I was surprised to learn that I could not use ECB for the purchase of an I-Tunes card. I ended up spending $12.01 with a total of 7 ECB for the next couple of weeks!
Total Spent- $32.01

Week Two- Matt and I went to Food Lion on Wednesday night. I had a list of four items that we were completely out of. So I purchased Olive Oil, Sour Cream, Freezer Bags, Sandwich Bags, 4 2L Sodas and a pack of gum. Total Spent $19.00. I did receive another Catalina coupon for $1.50 off 10 of the house brands. Fast forward to last Saturday, stops at both CVS and Food Lion. CVS, I scan my card and received a free Children’s Gummy Vitamin. So I purchased a total of 4 AMP energy drinks and the vitamins total spent $1 with 6 ECB earned. You can read the highlights of the Food Lion trip, we spent $64.24. Definitely, failure. Total Spent– $84.24

Week 3- This week started off much better. I stopped at CVS on Wednesday to complete the Suave deal. Purchased 2 bottles of Kid’s Shampoo and 4 bottles of Body Wash. Total Spent $5.84 with 4 ECB earned. After looking over the Food Lion ad and realizing that we were completely out of milk and cheese, I decide that this week would also be a fail. We had to have the car serviced in Winston so I planned at stop at Target and Costco. Target was awesome, I purchased a swim top for me, dress for Lily, school supplies and cups and napkins for the party for $43. In the spirit of the challenge, I only purchased items at Costco that we were out of. I spent $150.00 Part of the rationale for my decision was that if I stuck to the challenge and purchased milk and cheese at Food Lion, I would have spent the $20 this week in addition to another $150 or more in 2 weeks when the challenge is over. In addition, I am on vacation next week so I want to have options to eat at home without the urge to spend money out on meals.

Thoughts?

Saturday Shopping Success = Grocery Challenge Failure

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Sheila

We decided to make a shopping loop through town on Saturday morning, with a stop by my parents to play with their new puppy first. The local Aldi advertised a food dehydrator for $19.99, we actually bought some apples and bananas to try out the dehydrator. Next stop CVS, I scan my card and received a free Children’s Gummy Vitamin. So I purchased a total of 4 AMP energy drinks and the vitamins total spent $1 with 6 ECB earned. Finally stop was Food Lion, the reason to purchase party supplies for Kendall and Zach’s party next Sunday. Matt and I both scanned our MVP cards, which produces some very interesting and useful coupons. Ground Beef is currently on sale for $1.99 a pound, one of the coupons was $5 off $45 Butcher’s Beef. Combining sales and coupons we purchased: 4 bags of Cool Ranch Doritos, 10 Food Lion brand Sodas, 3 Pespi Next Soda (sale 0.79 with one coupon 0.55/1 and a second 1.00/2) Gallon of Bleach, 5 cans of veggies (sale 0.33 each), 2lbs of Ground chuck reduced to $5.09 and 21 pounds of Ground Beef. Our total was 64.24!!! Total saving was 49% or 60.59. I am so excited because of the amount of meat this trip included.

Now if you have been following the Grocery Store Challenge you realize that is is definitely over my $30 but as I have said before we eat food and so this deal was too good to pass up!

Grocery Shopping Challenge

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Sheila

I love a good challenge. After several years of reading blogs and even writing. I have seen a lot different various on grocery challenges such as “feeding a family of four for $100 a week.” or “Eating from pantry.” This is my own version, the first of which I have attempted and shared from day one! Feel free to leave a comment and join me!

How I decided on this: I have slowly been adding to the stockpile since the first of the year, currently most of the cabinets are full. I received in the mail last week 4 coupons for $5 off $25 at Food Lion each one good for one week. I have already spent $312 on groceries this month and really need to take a big chunk out of the grocery budget to help pay some auto expenses. School starts in 4 weeks and prior to that I will have to restock on snacks and other lunch items. I definitely want to use the $5/25 coupons from Food Lion especially since I pass 2 on the way to work and historically they don’t have a good coupon policy. I also realize that I could never do an eat out of the pantry challenge something always seems to come up and we need “x”. So after thinking and deliberation I decided on the $35 a week Grocery challenge for the next 4 weeks starting today!

What is my challenge? Spend as close to $20 a week at Food Lion over the next 4 weeks while purchasing items we need or to add to the stockpile based on sales. I am also going to give myself $10 a week to spend at CVS to keep rolling ECB. So that is a total of $35 a week for the next 4 weeks to feed our family of 6.

I am going to make 2 exceptions or rule bending items up front. First, I will not be counting my final trip to Costco and/or produce stand to purchase last minute items for Kendall and Zach’s Birthday Party. I have already purchased most of the paper product but plan to purchase watermelons and sweet items along with Pizza and drinks to serve. Second, the rumored Harris Teeter Triple event, if this occurs I will use the CVS budget to purchase items is there are too good of deals to pass up!

Shopping This Week Including Renovations

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Sheila

Sunday, our local Big Lots offered 20% off everything. My mom grabbed a coupon for me and then both Kendall and Zach stay at their house while we shopped. I was hoping to grab several things for the renovation. We purchased 2 bedding sets one for Haley and one for Lily, in addition we found a coordinating blanket for Kendall’s bed. My current plan is to use the extra pillow shams as topper for windows. Matt has scraped and painted the ceiling and started working on the walls. It will take at least 2 coats of paint so no new pictures for a week or so!

Updated Spending Totals for Renovations

Budget information:$1000
Total spent $470 with $530 remaining.

Big Lots spent $55. for new bedding. Lowes- Spent 70. for blinds, wood for Lily’s bed and miscellaneous. Total for the week $125

Total spent $595 with $405 left, we are half way with our budget. Hopefully the majority of the rest will be spent on new furniture at IKEA.

I also shopped at CVS on Sunday, I came away really disappointed because I spent $4 more than I should have because I forgot to use my ECB on my first transaction. I ended up spending $16 overall. I was able to purchase 4 bottles of Head and Shoulders shampoo, 1 bottle of sunscreen, 1 candy bar, 5 2Liter Sodas, and 3 bags of Twizzlers candy. Not really a bad trip just one I screwed up and it took about 10 minute for me to rethink and fix the problems.

I also stopped at Food Lion today, but more details regarding this trip and my 4 week grocery challenge will be up tomorrow.

CVS-My Way

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Sheila

Typically, when you read most blogs about the best way to shop CVS, it includes rolling ECBs for each purchase. I don’t follow this on most occasions. I use ECB as coupons on things that we need to purchase to lower our overall spending. Today, I ended up make 2 separate trips to CVS but am very pleased with the results.

First trip- Entire family was with me. I purchased 6 boxes of Pop tarts ($2.00 each with 2 $1/3 coupons), 3 boxes of Kellogg’s cereal ($2.50 each with $1/3 coupon) and 1 Hershey’s candy ($0.67). My thoughts were that this would trigger my 5 ECB for groceries and the $0.67 ECB for candy. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a coupon for $5 off 15, the only downside it expired on Wednesday. I decided to use this coupon later in the week after I could decide the best use. I spent $17 out of pocket for this trip.

Second Trip- As I was making Rotel to freeze, I realized that I need more freezer bags so I decided to go back to CVS tonight to use my coupon for these. Haley drove me this trip. I ended up purchasing 1 2L Dr Pepper (Haley’s request), 1 bag of twirlers candy (Matt’s request), 1 box of Pop tarts, 3 boxes of Kellogg’s cereal ($2.50 each with $1/3 coupon) and 2 CVS brand freezer bags ($2.99 for one and $1.49 for second). Total out of pocket $7.76 and earned another 5 ECB for groceries.

In reality, had I just ran out to a grocery store or Walmart, I would have spent the same $8 on 2 boxes of freezer bags. So by using ECBs as coupons and the extra coupon they gave me I was able to stock up on Pop Tarts and Cereal as well as purchase the freezer bags that I needed tonight. I will hold on to my ECBs to see what is on sale or what we need in the next couple of weeks

CVS 4 Days in a Row WHY?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Sheila

Diet Coke of course!

One of the principles that I use to build and keep a stockpile is that I am not very brand conscience. I will usually try anything well except one thing. I have only been drinking Diet Coke for the past ummm 20 something years. On occasion, I do drink other Diet soda but NEVER diet Pepsi!!! So this week when I saw the deal at CVS for Diet Cokes for 0.79 each, I knew I would be visiting often. The normal price for these 2L are $1.80, I only purchase when they are $1.00 or less, but I have not seen these less than 0.99 in almost a year. This is the reason that I did make a trip all four days of the sale. My store manager did ask me that I only do one transaction per card per day. I have 2 cards so that was a total of 12 drinks each day. I now have enough Diet Cokes for probably 2-3 month plus I was nice and purchased some others for Matt and the kids to share. In addition to the 48 bottles of soda, I purchased 4 bottles of Dawn dish detergent, 4 bottles of Tide, 2 bottles of shampoo, 2 make up items and 2 physician formula facial care for dark circles under my eyes. My store offered both American Express and CVS gift cards instead of the gas cards as advertised. I counted both of these in my total saved because I treated these as ECBs. I am excited to be able to stock up on items that we use by playing the drug store game.

Just the numbers: Spent $45.62 on $215 worth of products for a savings of 79%.

My Harris Teeter Secrets

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Sheila

I had an awesome trip to Harris Teeter on Thursday. Here is what I purchased: 5 12packs Diet Coke, 1 Scotts Bath Tissue, 1 pack of Scott Paper Towels and 6 boxes of Suddenly Salads. Total cost $8.00 plus $2.00 catalina earned.

First some basic information about the way I shop Harris Teeter:

Harris Teeter has an online shopping that is called Express Lane. I have been using this service for the past year. I LOVE using it even with the problems that it sometimes has. Basically, you go online and place your order, designate a time to pick up (must be at least 4 hours in advance).

The normal charge is $4.95 per order. Often I receive coupons or other special promotions to offset this cost. Currently all summer long all Express Lane orders are $1.95. In addition, I have received a coupon for basically $10 off $75 plus they waive the fee. I did not use this offer on this order. They also offer unlimited monthly shopping for around $16.00 a month but I have never used this because I usually only pick up at most 3 times a month.
Sale prices are the same online as they are in store EXCEPT you don’t have to buy 5 to take advantage of Buy 2 Get 3 Free, the price for a single item indicates that you are buying the five. In addition BOGO show up at half price as well. Sale prices change around 8pm on Tuesday night for the new sales that start on Wednesday. If I am ordering for a Wednesday, I usually shop on line around 8:30pm.
Coupons are accepted but in the same way as ECB or RR. The coupons that you turn in today are used on your next order. This sound confusing but really this is how I was able to do the above purchase.

During Super Doubles or Triple Events, things get interesting.

The coupons that are currently on file (from a previous trip) will automatically qualify for the event. Last Wednesday was the first day of Super Doubles so I had prepared an order of items that were excellent deals. I had previous left $9 in coupons, when I picked up my order they Super Doubled to $20.
In addition the coupons you are leaving during the event will also qualify even after the event is over. Last Wednesday I left $40 in coupons. I always ask they write on the enevelope the name of the event.

Because the trip to Harris Teeter is around 60 miles round trip, I usually only shop during a special event such as Super Doubles or Triples. However, if we are planning to be in Winston and I can find some decent deals or coupons that can be used then it is not out of the way. This Thursday,we had an entire day planned so no extra gas was needed.

Now to the transaction I completed. I was running low on Diet Coke, the price on sale was $3.89 a 12 pack. Suddenly Salad was on an awesome sale 10 for $10. I had 2 coupons 0.55 each and 2 (0.50 off 2). We also needed toliet paper and Paper Towels, neither of these items were on sale but I had $1.00 off coupons for each. My total online prices was $48.10, with the use of $40 in coupons from last week total out of pocket was $8.00. I left the $2.00 catalina and $6.20 in coupons for my next trip.

Sunday Shopping

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Sheila

My favorite time to shop is on Sunday afternoons during nap time. This usually is the most stress free time for me plus the local CVS ad does not change till Sunday mornings so they usually have most items in stock still. Lily is growing up, in fact she is becoming so grown up that unless we have been our way late (9pm) several nights in a row, she doesn’t need a nap during the day. So I invited her to go along with me today.
Lily said that her favorite part was pushing the buggy at CVS. My goal at CVS was to purchase 8 boxes of cereal at my stock up price of less than $2. While reading blogs to plan ahead for my trip, I realized that the CVS ads were very different. I decided to check out mine prior to going. In addition to most of the items I had been reading about VO5 shampoo and conditioners were on sale for $0.66. The red machine gave Lily several coupons and I ended up purchasing 8 boxes of cereal, 3 bottles of shampoo, 2 bottles of conditioner, 2 boxes of eye patches and 2 bottles of body wash for $20, a saving of 73%. I also obtained a rain check for the shampoo and conditioners since they only had 4 in stock.
Our next stop was Food Lion, a friend had told me of some interesting deals. I usually hate shopping at Food Lion simply because they are not coupon friendly and the prices are usually much higher. I was able to save 50% today using only coupons that were printed from their “red box” I am really pleased.
Overall I spent $41, saved 72 or 73%. The best part of the day was coming home, the little kids were so excited that we had sugary cereal, they all wanted cereal as snack! I even got a huge “thank you” from Zach for cereal!

Teens Tots and Everything In Between

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