Sunday, March 1, 2009

Shopping trip #2

Today, I attempted to use my new coupon skills to pick up a few items at CVS. This was much trickier than the grocery store, because CVS gives you "extra care bucks" (ECB) on certain purchases. Basically, these extra care bucks are equivalent to cash at CVS. Experts at this game keep a rolling number of these bucks on hand, and often make several trips to CVS ... or possible several transactions in one trip.

Today, I went to CVS twice. Here is how it worked.

1st trip, I bought:
Carnation Instant Breakfast Mix - $4.99; receive $4.99 in ECBs - basically free
Playskool wipes - on sale for $2.50, minus $2 coupon = .50
Total price about $6; but I brought home $4.99 in ECBs

2nd trip; I bought:
Playskool wipes, - on sale for $2.50, minus $2 coupon = .50
Always pads - $2.99
Viatamin D - $2.99, receive $2.99 in ECBs - basically free
total - used my ECBs from earlier in the day plus an extra dollar, plus brought home more ECBs

These things take a while to build up, plus I didn't have coupons for as much as I would have liked. But generally, I thought this was great. I think it was fantastic that I basically got Carnation Instant Breakfast Mix for free. This is something we almost always keep on hand, thomas really likes it. Plus I got two packs of wipes at just 50 cents each!

I don't think I have this whole thing anywhere near downpat; but its been an interesting start.

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