More Than a Little

Two weeks ago, the three of us went shopping in Lexington, which is a little less than an hour away.  We had such a wonderful time that we felt the urge to do it again today. Naturally, it didn’t work out to be quite as much fun as the original–you can just never recreate those days, at least not so soon.  However, because we had been to most of the stores we wanted to go to recently, I finangled a side trip to a new-to-me CVS while M took the baby with him to Woodcraft. M is really supportive of my coupon hobby but he hates having to be along with me while I’m doing it, so it worked out well for me to do my thing while he did his for this little stop. I wasn’t too heartbroken to miss out on the woodworking store, either.  (Incidentally, the baby loved it there. She also loves going to the basement and garage with M, which is where he keeps his tools. I think that she will grow up into a woodworker too!)

Purchased
2 Tresemme hair spray, 3.33
2 Tresemme mousse, 3.33
2 Tresemme weightless creme, 3.34
1 Edge shaving gel, 2.89
1 Bayer crystal, 2.00

Coupons Used
4.00 $4/$20 on any beauty product (expires today so no link)
-1.00 Tresemme  24 Hour Body Product
-1.00 Tresemme  24 Hour Body Product
-1.00 Tresemme  24 Hour Body Product
-1.00 Tresemme  24 Hour Body Product
-1.00 Tresemme  24 Hour Body Product
-1.00 Tresemme  24 Hour Body Product
-1.50 Bayer (thought it was supposed to be $1, actually, but it scanned for $1.50)

The Math
I paid $0.45 out of pocket, having used $13.49 in ECBs. (One of them adjusted downwards by ten cents, which isn’t the end of the world but she didn’t ask me if it was okay. They always ask at my CVS.)  That brings this to a total spent of $13.94. I received $14.89 in ECBs.

$13.94 – $14.89 = $0.94 profit!

What Do You Do With This Stuff?
Eh… I think most of this will be yard sale or donation stuff.  I might use some of the hair stuff, if the whim strikes me.

You know what the best part is, though? Unless I find something else on sale this week that I can’t live without, I have the CVS run out of the way for the week!  It’s a pain for me to go to CVS but I can’t quite keep myself away from free stuff, either. :)

Want to see more CVS savings? Visit the “Cents”ible Sawyer’s CVS Superstars!

Caregivers Marketplace is a rebate program that gives cash back for anyone who gives, gets or needs care, whether it’s for yourself, for a child or for an elderly person.  You can receive cash back for eligible products that are not typically covered by insurance or Medicare – no matter where you buy them. The program is free and confidential. You don’t even have to sign up in advance, though it’s faster if you do (click Enroll at the top of the page.)

It works like this.  You print their form, fill it out according to which products you qualify for, add all relevant receipts, circling the product name and the date on the receipt, and send it in.  Wait a few weeks, and you’ll get a check in the mail.  There’s no catch.  I sent in one set last year and I’m getting ready to send in another batch soon (thanks mostly to the Huggies deal at Walgreens last month!)  You can send in any number of receipts and items per envelope as long as there are at least five.

I typically consider it selling my receipt for cash.   If I have a qualifying product, I place it in an envelope and just wait for a few more to accumulate.  (This is also another good reason to save all your receipts! You never know when you might need them for something like this. When I got ready to send in the last batch, I noticed a product I had purchased for free after rebate at Walgreens six months earlier and dug through my receipts until I found it–profit!)  Keep in mind that you should always make sure you don’t need the receipt for something else–if there are other types of rebate items on your transaction, then ring them up separately.

Free money, and all they want is your old receipts! You can’t really go wrong.

Read more about the program, and sign up, at Caregivers Marketplace.

I don’t normally do much coupon shopping on the weekends because I’d generally rather spend time with M while he’s home.  However, today he’s been outside burning our tree debris since about noon.  It’s now 11:55.  He’s pretty much just waiting for it all to die down right now but I can’t believe how much work he’s done!  I was out for about an hour, helping, while Evelyn was napping, and I’m still tired from it. I can’t imagine how he’s doing.  So, after her nap, we took off to Walgeens and Wal-Mart to kill a little time.  I wanted to pick up a green pepper and a red onion for the pasta salad I made for dinner. It was so hot that I knew he would appreciate something cold.  He’s funny about food when he’s working.

(Walgreens was pretty boring.. I bought a free-after-Register-Rewards bottle of Fiber Choice, and nine bubble mailers for fillers, and reloaded my gift card with my Register Rewards. I love doing that!  They were out of anything else I was interested in–hoping for clearanced Sunsilk, mainly. Now I just need to sell some stuff on eBay to warrant having so many of those envelopes.)

Total spent: $18.45.  Which is strange, because I really thought it was $15 until I just looked at my receipt. Oh, well, close enough.

Notes: I price-matched the bag of onions to Kroger’s price of $1.66. I mentioned that the ice cream rang up wrong and she fixed it but now I’m afraid it wasn’t wrong after all. ?  I wish she had sent someone to check so I didn’t have to worry about it. The V8 Fusion was $0.98 after a $2 coupon (Goji Rasberry or Passionfruit Tangerine flavors listed. It probably won’t beep on other flavors though. I got one of each.)

Coupon Overages: $1.06  Glucerna (1), $5.26 Pace (2), $8.04 Knox (3), $1.00 McCormick (4) = $15.36. It’s a great time for overages lately!  I am thinking that this is a decent amount of stuff for the price. The paper, juice and the three boxes of cereal should have cost more than that.

Strawberries and ice cream were a last-minute impulse purchase.  I figured if there was anyone who deserved a little treat tonight, it was M.   :)  Lucky for me, I got to join in on his reward, though!

What do you do with all this stuff? haha. :)  Eat it!  Also, print coupons on it, for the lone non-food package of paper.  The only thing I can’t foresee using is the Knox gelatin, but the overage is just too good to resist. I used my last coupon, though.  I am very sad about that.  I personally wouldn’t touch the Glucerna cereal, but the husband says that he’ll eat it and even if he doesn’t, Evelyn will eat the strawberries out of it. She ate the strawberries out of an entire box last week. ;)

Last week, I received a $20/$100 coupon from the magic scanner machine, and I have spent more time than I’d care to admit trying desperately to think up a plan for using it before it expires tomorrow.  I had reconciled myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to use the silly thing but on semi-impulse, I figured it out while doing my weekly CVS run this afternoon.  It’s not terribly exciting, and I wish I had done a few things differently, but it was fine.

Purchased
1 Scott 12 pack, 6.99
1 Airwick Freshmatic mini, 4.99
2 Colgate 360, 3.99/ea
3 Bayer Contour monitors, 14.99/ea
1 Ocean Nasal Spray, .48
3 Pepsi 12 packs, 3.66/ea
1 Diet Pepsi 12 packs, 0.00 (free when you buy three Pepsi)
4 Sobe Life Waters, 1.39/ea, B1G1
1 Depends, 1.44 (90% clearance)
2 Natural Dentist mouthwash, 6.99

Coupons
-.48 Ocean Nasal Spray (.55 peelie on clearance package! haha!)
-.75 Colgate toothbrush
-.75 Colgate toothbrush
-1.00 Scott toilet paper
-4.00 Airwick
-14.99 Bayer Contour
-14.99 Bayer Contour
-14.99 Bayer Contour
-2.00 Pepsi
-1.39 Life Water (B1G1)
-1.39 Life Water (B1G1)
-2.00 Natural Dentist
-2.00 Natural Dentist
-20.00 magic scanner coupon
-1.00 mystery coupon (I think she must have scanned the toilet paper one twice on accident? though I don’t know why it didn’t beep, in that case)

Received
$8 ECB for Natural Dentist
$7.98 ECB for Colgate 360 toothbrushes

ECBs used
0.

Ahem.  I was halfway home when it occured to me that I forgot to use my ECBs. To add insult to injury, I could have brought it down to just a few cents before tax because the ones I have on hand worked perfectly with my subtotal. Oh, well. No real loss–I wiped out my gift card and took the last few dollars from my new $500 gift card from my last online offer. I’ll use the ECBs later.

Math
$14.64 total paid – $15.98 ECBs received = Profit of $1.34

To make things even better, I’m going to send this receipt in to Natural Dentist for a $10 rebate.  I’d link to the form but it doesn’t seem to be working right now–I’m glad I had it saved already.  I paid $14 for those two mouthwashes, minus $4 in coupons, and received $8 in ECBs, so they only cost $2 in the first place.  Not too shabby to make $8 in profit from buying mouthwash!

Final Profit of $11.34

I bought the Depends on clearance, planning to submit the receipt to Caregivers Marketplace for an additional .75, but I forgot that I wouldn’t be able to send it in to both Natural Dentist and Caregivers Marketplace when doing a huge transaction like this. Oops!  No big deal. Even at $1.44 cost and not $11 profit, they’re cheap enough to put in the yard sale.

What Do You Do With All That Stuff?

I just mentioned the yard sale plan for the Depends.  The monitors, nasal spray and possibly the Airwick will end up there, too. The toothbrushes will get added to our growing collection, but said collection is not yet so large that I’m planning on selling any of it.  The Pepsi we shall drink, and the toilet paper we shall use. (I was getting worried as to what we would do when we ran out–PAY for TP?  That sounds terrible. I’m not sure about the mouthwash, but we won’t be keeping all of it, at least. As for the Life Water.. anyone thirsty? Anyone? I think I tried this once before when it was free and I didn’t care for it. We’ll see how it goes over this time.

Want to see more CVS savings? Visit the “Cents”ible Sawyer’s CVS Superstars!

Lowe’s is not necessarily “manly” but in my case, I have very little interest in these sorts of things beyond specific ongoing projects. I like to go pick out things when we’re working on home improvement projects, but that’s about it. My husband takes Evie with him to Lowe’s pretty often because I just don’t need to go look at tools and lumber as often as he feels the need to. (On the other hand, he recently said that he would cut off one of his feet before hanging out in a drugstore as long as I had, so I guess maybe some divergent interests are okay!)

Lowes Customer Appreciation days, 04/15-04/17

http://www.lowesforpros.com/sites/default/files/LFP_April_CAE.pdf
http://www.lowesforpros.com/hotsheets/bnw/090425_082.pdf

I am posting these in part for my dad, who reads my blog. (Hi, Daddy!)  I am hoping my husband won’t read this post and therefore will not feel inclined to spend money. One can hope.

The baby and I went out to Walgreens yesterday afternoon.  Is it obvious yet that Walgreens is my favorite of the three drugstores?  It has the deals, but it also has the friendliest staff, the cleanest stores, and my favorite location is close. I try to come up with reasons every week that I should just skip going to CVS or Rite Aid.

I don’t feel like going through a play by play of each item this time. Those posts take too long and I am behind on too many things, and besides, the math is really complicated and I am tired, so we’ll do a summary instead. I spent $53.39 out of pocket for all of this.  Well, actually, I put it all on a gift card, so I didn’t actually pay anything out of pocket.  After rebates and RR, the actual cost was $12.47. ($5.43 of that was in tax. Paying tax on the price before coupons stinks.)  However, that dark mass on the right side that blends into the background is actually four bottles of Axe body wash. I picked it up for my aunt, who will pay me back. ($11.20.) And the body wash puts me halfway to a free turkey or ham rebate when you spend $40 on Unilever products. I spent $10 towards that at Kroger last night so I’m almost there.

What Do You Do With All This Stuff? Much of this is destined for the yard sale.. the shaving gel, the toothpaste.  We’ll use the toothbrush and deodorant.  I’m not sure about the hair bands yet.  The gum is for my parents–I bought the coupons on eBay for them for $3.99. Twenty Mentos for the cost of buying the coupons works out to twenty cents a piece.  They should be in gum for a while.  I was pretty happy with the Dove, though. I like Dove the best, and I have looked for trial sized Doves at my store in the past. I had three $1 coupons and one $1.50/2, and the deodorants were only $0.99 to begin with.  So, I paid $1.44 and received a $6 RR, making it a $4.56 moneymaker on something I buy anyway.  Those are the best kinds. :)  The bubble envelopes were 3/$1, and so I bought a handful. They’re good to have on hand, and I used the last ones we had selling stuff on eBay last fall. The Hershey’s Bliss was on clearance for $2 each (Easter egg variety.) I had $4 worth of coupons, making it all $4, and I’m going to submit it for a $5 rebate on Hershey’s candy when you buy four.  It should work, but if it doesn’t, then each bag is just a dollar, and I really like Hershey’s Bliss anyway, so it’ll be okay. Not that I need it, though.

Speaking of Easter candy, I have got to stop eating these peanut butter eggs at some point…

I don’t have a BJ’s nearby, but I wish I did.  Right now, you can get a 60 day free trial membership.  You must activate your membership by 7/6/09.  Also, keep in mind that BJ’s is the only warehouse club that accepts coupons, and they apparently even accept multiple coupons when you buy a package that contains multiple items!  That could add up to some pretty good savings.

To find a location near you, click here.

(Thanks to Thrifty Mama for this tip!)

I meant to post this last night but I accidentally fell asleep instead.

Meal Plan for the week of 4/12

Monday:  ziti with roasted vegetables — Evelyn’s favorite meal
Tuesday: leftover turkey for husband. unknown for me–possibly quesadillas.
Wednesday: burgers–I found buns marked down at Kroger last night so I figured we might as well.  I’ll probably make some sort of vegetable to go with, and I just might saute some onions and mushrooms and make them with Swiss cheese.
Thursday: popcorn shrimp, baked potatoes. I bought the shrimp for $0.25 recently.  I was thinking of buying more for $0.50 with coupon, but if we haven’t even eaten the first batch, I’m not sure I should!
Friday: homemade pizza with pepperoni, green peppers, onions and mushrooms. And a ton of oregano on M’s half.

I seem to be feeling chatty today. Every day had a little commentary. :)

I usually use Photoshop when I am seriously working with photos, but I saw this on Slickdeals tonight and had to try it out and then share.

Download and install a free copy of Corel Paint Shop Pro!

This deal was originally meant for Lexar customers, but it seems to be working for anyone. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it but the price was so right.

I just saw two sets of coupons in a row that made me roll my eyes and think of all the other coupons that I have seen that I personally think are ridiculous in one way or another.

• SmartSource, 4/5/09: Land O Lakes Half & Half.  There are two coupons on the page.  One is for $1.00 off two quarts (32 oz).  The other is for $1.00 off one half gallon (64 oz.)  Math may not be my strongest suit but seriously?  That is the exact same amount of half & half.  Do you not think it would be more useful to actually make them different if you’re going to the trouble of  putting two in that aren’t the same?
• SmartSource, 4/5/09: Sea Breeze astringent.  Again, there are two coupons. You can either save $.55 cents on one or $1 on two.  I don’t know about you guys, but if I had a company, I would probably want to add additional encouragement to people to buy more than one at a time. Just a thought.
• More generic examples here, but I hate the coupons that are like this: Save $1 on 12!  That’s eight cents off each and you’re buying a dozen items.   I mean, sure, it’s better than nothing but what the heck?
• I also love the coupons put out by department stores or electronics stores that promise you 20% off anything in the store! And then you read the fine print and realize that you can’t think of a single item in the store that doesn’t fall under one of the exclusions listed.  I read one once that listed everyday value prices, sale prices and clearance prices as excluded.  I have no clue what could possibly fit under another category.

So I guess the point is that you always have to know that while coupons are great, sometimes they aren’t as good as they seem and sometimes they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on. The trick is figuring out which one is which. :)

What’s your favorite ridiculous coupon?