Mommin' It Up!

February 2, 2008February 2, 2008

Is it WRONG to buy Candy for the Cashier?? :)

This week I had what might be my best CVS run to date! It was oh-so-fun and I left giggling like a little girl. I got all this:

For 88 cents out-of-pocket and I didn’t use ANY ECBs!! NONE! And I got back FIFTEEN ECBs!! Not pictured are the two king-sized Twix bars I had to buy so that my total would not be negative. When my total after coupons came up negative, I asked the cashier, who is one of my favorites, a nice high-school kid, “Do I need to throw in a couple of candy bars or something?” He was like, “Yeah that will work.” Well, thanks to CVS, we have enough chocolate in our house to sink a ship, so I really didin’t want to bring home more candy. So I said, “Well, what’s your favorite candy bar?” He got a big smile on his face and said that he liked Twix, so I tossed a couple of King sized Twix bars on the counter and they pulled my total up to 88 cents! The cashier was thrilled and giddily showed his shift supervisor, who didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it. So, everybody was happy! And hopefully this will make sure he is always happy to see me and my coupons!

(I would like to note: I always plan my trips – the main reason my total came up negative was that the Johnson’s baby bonus packs rang up half off!! Normally $5.99, they rang up at $2.99 and STILL gave me 2 ECBs! Wow! So, I had expected my total to be around $60 before coupons, and to be about $3-$5 after coupons).

Anyways, here’s how I worked this transaction. The total before coupons came to $55 and change. I used:
$10/$50 CVS coupon I got in my email
$10/$50 cash register tape coupon (CRT) that printed on my receipt previously
$5/$30 CVS coupon
two $5 off Zantac coupons
two 50 cents off Hellman’s coupons
four 40 cent off Skippy coupons
four $2 off Advil PM coupons
one $2 off Advil coupon
$1 off Advil CRT that printed on my receipt previously
two $1 off Johnson’s baby care coupons
three $3 off Infusium shampoo/conditioner coupons (the Infusium was on clearance for $1.87, the coupons were adjusted down to $1.87! FREE INFUSIUM!!)

Then, since my total was a couple bucks negative, I threw in the Twix and 88 cents and walked out with 15 ECBs! Woohoo!! I was so excited I could hardly stand it!

Another good deal I scored at CVS this week was toilet paper. They had 20-count packages of Cottonelle, previously $9.99 (giving back 2 ECBs) marked down to $4.99 and still giving back the 2 ECBs! I had $1 off coupons for these so I got 4 packages. That’s right – we now have 80 rolls of toilet paper! So we will be good for awhile there!

This week I also got to show another mom friend the beauty of CVS…always a lot of fun for me, even when I don’t buy anything! So welcome to the CVS club Amelia!

My final good score of the week was at Kohl’s. Emily and I had a little dinner-and-shopping date Wednesday night and I was thrilled to find three nice pairs of corduroy adjustable-waist pants for Joshua for $3.60 each! He has always been tall and then had a growth spurt this fall so he needed new pants, but he is such a skinny boy, he can only wear adjustable-waist in the sizes that are long enough for him. So I was really happy with that find. If only they had had some jeans!

Well that’s it for me this week. I also picked up some free-after-rebate items at Walgreen’s and Rite-Aid, but nothing too exciting (well for anyone other than me that is)! Check out all the other great savings at Super Savings Saturday over at Money Saving Mom! To get on the road to saving TONS of money on your grocery and household items, check out her Supermarket Savings 101 course here! You’ll be so glad you did!

January 26, 2008January 26, 2008

Free Milk, Freebates of Course FREE-VS!

I had a great week at Kroger, Rite-Aid and CVS this week! I have taken to calling CVS “FREE-VS”. It’s so great getting everything we need for next-to-nothing! I started out my week there. I went in to get diapers for a baby gift, and to see if my store would let me stack a $10 off $50 cash register tape (CRT) coupon that had printed at the bottom of my receipt last week with the $$ off CVS coupons. Well, they did, and this is what I ended up with:

3 Pampers Swaddlers size 1 (for a gift) $8.99 each
1 Cottonelle wipes tub $5.98
2 Glade Scented oil candles $6.99 each (Come on, now! I NEEDED another one to send the rebate in for my Grandma!)
2 mennen deodorants (FREE after ECBs!) $3.99 each
My total was $58 something.
I used $10/$50 coupon
$10/$50 coupon that printed on my receipt last time I was there
$5/$30
$4/$20
B1G1 Free mennen deodorant coupon (thanks Karen!)
B1G1 Free Glade candle coupon
$4 off Glade candle coupon
50 cents of cottonelle
3 $2 off Pampers coupons
Used $5 ECBs and paid $1.51 cash and I got $15.98 ECBs back!!

Unfortunately, this must’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back, because the next time I went into this store, they would no longer let me stack $$ off CVS coupons! 🙁 So, I won’t be going there anymore unless I have a small transaction. It’s too bad because it is the one closest to my house. Oh well…there are still a couple of others that DO let me stack.

Next I was off to Rite-Aid for Freebies and Freebates! This week Rite-Aid had Lansinoh wipes for $3.99 but they had a $3.99 off coupon in their ad, making them FREE! They also had these DiaperMate diaper disposal bags free after rebate, and I love these things! Finally, this Citre Shine hair stuff was $3.99 and also free after rebate, and I had $1 off coupon, so they paid me to take this out the door!

I love Rite-Aid’s Single Check Rebate program because you can enter your receipts online – you don’t have to mail anything in or fill out any forms!

Next I hit up Kroger’s for our grocery shopping. On my first trip, I took advantage of two specials Kroger was running. One was a promotion to buy 9 items of Kraft/Pepsi products, and get $6 off your total order. So I bought 9 Kraft items that I had coupons for (total was $9.96 for these items) and that we will use, and got $6 off the rest of my order! I also got FREE MILK because Kroger’s other promotion was if you buy 3 General Mills Cereals (on sale for $2.49) you got a free gallon of milk. I bought 3 boxes, all of which I had $1 off coupons for, and got the free milk. Then after I paid for my order , I got a coupon on my receipt for $1.50 off 4 General Mills cereals. So I thought, “Hmm, I think I need to do this FREE MILK things again!” I came back to Kroger the next evening and got 4 of the sale General Mills cereals, used 4 coupons that were either $1 off or doubled to $1 off, got the FREE MILK and got an additoinal $1.50 off with that register receipt coupon! I also got 8 jars of Ragu pasta sauce on this order (on sale for $1 each, I had 4 $1 off 2 coupons) and paid a total of $8.85 for all of this!

I can’t wait for this week’s deals! To see what great deals other bloggers scored, check out Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom! And if you haven’t purchased her Supermarket Savings 101 course, DO IT!! You will be so happy you did! You can check it out or purchase it here!

January 19, 2008

I Paid My Babysitter in CVS Merchandise!

Before you read my Super Savings Saturday post, will you PLEASE take a second to go vote for my poem here at Rocks in my Dryer’s contest?? It’s the third one down, and it’s about COUPONS!!! It says “By Jenni” (she spelled my name wrong but who cares? I’ll be Jenni with an “i” if I have the chance to win the cool MP3 player she is giving away!!) So please go VOTE FOR ME NOW! Thank you SO MUCH!!

Ok, now back to Super Savings Saturday!

It’s official: CVS is my new BFF. Not only do they pay me to shop there, but yesterday, I paid my babysittter by taking her shopping there!! It sounds crazy but it’s TRUE! Thanks to Karen, who sent me her coupons from like the last 8 weeks or so, I had a huge mountain of coupons I could not handle by myself. So I called Lucy, my beautiful, sweet, 19-year-old babysitter, to come help me clip coupons/corral the children while I clipped. We clipped coupons yesterday for…wait for it…THREE HOURS! And the sad part is, I only have HALF OF THEM FILED!! Here’s what the un-filed half looked like when I finally had to give up and take Lucy home:

Mind you, this is ONLY HALF OF WHAT KAREN SENT ME!! Thank you Karen!!

Anyhoo, before I took Lucy home, I said, “Lucy, you have a choice. I can either pay you $10 cash or I can take you to CVS and you can pick out a bunch of stuff.” After spending all day clipping coupons with me and listening to me extol the values of CVS, Lucy chose CVS. So before we took her home we went to CVS. She picked out the twin-pack of Dove shampoo that is on ECBs right now, two Cover Girl lipsticks, a Revlon mascara and a Revlon eyeliner. I also got a gallon of milk. I tried to convince her to get more stuff but she kept saying, “Jenny, no, I feel so bad!” (I had also sent her home with a bag of goodies from what I now call “Jenny’s freestore” – you know, Glade candles, toothpaste, dish soap…) I said, “Well after you see what this is actually going to COST me, you will say, ‘DANGIT! I should’ve gotten more!'” With tax, the total came to $34 & change. My store lets me stack coupons, so I used a CVS $5/$30, $4/$20, and $3/$15. I had a B1G1 free coupon and a $1 off coupon for the Cover Girl, and a $1 off coupon for each of the Revlon items (which were B1G1 50% off anyways!) Also the Revlon eyeliner had a $1 peelie on it which I didn’t even notice but my cashier did fortunately! I used a $9.99 ECB and paid $1.88 out of pocket. I also got $3 ECBs for the Dove shampoo. Woohoo! Lucy was very happy with her haul and I was happy to have spent less than two bucks for her three hours of work she did for me! (I do pay her more than $10 for 3 hours of watching my kids, just to let you know. I’m not THAT cheap.) I told her that whenever she babysat, she could always choose between cash and CVS merchandise as a form of payment.

The great CVS deal I got this week is this great office chair, which we REALLY needed! (the cute little boy we already had).

We had been using one of our dining room chairs as our office chair, and the back-and-forth on that was getting a little old. It was on sale at CVS Sunday & Monday only for $29.99 plus you got $5 ECBs for it. I bought the chair, a bonus pack of Keri lotion, and two canisters of Glade air freshener. I once again stacked CVS coupons, and I had a $5 coupon for the Keri lotion and a B1G1 free coupon for the glade. I used $20 ECBs and my grand total was….66 CENTS!! AND I got back $7 ECBs! Not bad for such a nice office chair!!

I can’t wait until next week’s deals at CVS, especially since they have put out NEW $ off coupons! You can find those here at Money Saving Mom, where you can also find more great Super Savings Saturday posts from other bloggers. And I know I sound like a broken record, but if you havenâ€™t purchased her Supermarket Savings 101 class yet, you gotta! It’ll help you save a bundle!! You can check it out or purchase it here!