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

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%.