Freebies 101

I was determined to do it myself this week. And by that, I mean, look at the CVS flyer by myself and make up my own scenarios. Yes, I did study Southern Savers so I knew what was out there and where to find my coupons, but the rest I did by myself.

I started off with roughly $11 in CVS money. For those of you who don't know my husband, he drinks diet coke and diet pepsi like water. A 12 pack lasts him maybe 1 day. But that's a story for another time. Needless to say, we were out of our vast stock of Diet Coke's from our big Bi-Lo stock up purchase and it was time for some more. CVS had them 4/$12 with $3 ECB. That would make them 4/$9, being $2.25 for a 12 pack, a good price. But I couldn't just leave CVS with sodas. I had to at least try to use some bucks and get some back. There were a bunch of promos for buy $15 worth of product and get $5 back. But I didn't have the right coupons, blah, blah, blah. But, I made it work.

Here's the gist:

I bought:

4 Diet Pepsi 12 packs ($12)

1 Accu Aviva Glucose Meter (on sale for $10, retail $19.99)

I used:

$10 off Accu Aviva Glucose Meter (made it free)

$4 off $20 CVS coupon

$7.98 of my CVS bucks

Total w/ tax: $.78

Savings: $41.53

I got back in ECBS's: $3

So, you might be wondering, why by a glucose meter if you don't need it. Well, I might need it one day because diabetes runs in my family. I was going to give it to my dad, but he already has 2, and BECAUSE IT WAS FREE!! Plus, it got me to $20 so I could use $4 off coupon on the rest of my product. I actually made $4 by buying a free item.

Okay, I'll be the first to admit when I don't do something right in this couponing thing. I was attempting to buy $15 worth of Advil/Thermacare products to get $5 bucks back. Alex only likes Advil and I do like Thermacare, and I had coupons for both. However, my total came to $14.49 so I bought some pens for $1. But my ECB's didn't print on my receipt. Lo and behold, I didn't purchase $15 of participating products. I needed to buy $.51 more of an advil/chapstick/thermacare item. So, I look it over again today, just to make sure my purchases weren't in vain. And yes, I could buy some chapstick for $2.99 and get my $5 ECB's.

So, on the way to dropping my son off at preschool, I ran into CVS, found the chapstick and shelled out $3.21. No ECB's printed out but I was in an hurry and didn't want James to be late for day 1 of school. So, I realized that the NIVEA chapstick wasn't part of this particular savings, I needed the Chapstick brand. I was not going to let this overtake me!! I was going to get my $5 bucks back! So, I went back, returned the Nivea and spent $3.21 to get the real chapstick and get my $5 rewards. So, now I have $8 ECB's for my next trip.

My 2nd transaction:

I bought:

1 Accu Aviva Glucose meter ($10)

1 Advil Gelcaps ($7.5)

1 Thermacare neck ($6.99)

1 8 Ct pens ($.99)

I used:

$10 off glucose meter

$2.98 in ECB's

$4 off $20 CVS coupon

$3 off thermacare and advil coupon

I paid: $7.11

I saved: $32.96

Plus $3.21 chapstick

I earned another $5 ECB's

Total for CVS: $11.21

Savings for this trip: $74.49

ECB's: $8

The moral of this story, is use the free items to hit a higher price to use more coupons.