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Tuesday, July 6, 2010

My $10 CVS shopping trip

My main purpose in posting these drugstore shopping trips is to inspire you and give you ideas about how you can save a bundle of money when you go to your local CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, etc.

So let me tell you what I bought this weekend at CVS and then show you what I actually PAID, and explain exactly how I did it:

50oz bottle of Tide Mountain Spring detergent (retail: $9.99)
8-pack of Bounty paper towels, regular size rolls (retail: $10.99)
9.5 oz bottle Dawn Hand Care dish detergent (retail: $1.99)
10.3 oz Dawn Ultra Anti-Bac dish detergent (retail: $1.99)
12-roll Charmin Basic toilet paper (retail: $7.99)
Maybelline Eye Studio Cream Eyeshadow Trio in Pedal to the Metal (retail: $6.99)
(Yay for one FUN item! Review to come...)

My total before tax was $39.99

But check out my receipt!

How funny that I had more coupons than I did items in my basket! Anyway, let me break it down:

Everything I purchased, with the exception of the Maybelline trio, was on sale (as indicated by the "SAVED" column on the far right).

Then, I had a $5 off a $25 purchase coupon that CVS emailed to me a few days ago (don't forget to register online or you'll miss out on these valuable coupons!).

Next, I had 3 Extra Bucks from previous purchases, which I applied to this purchase.

Then I had two $0.25 coupons for any size Dawn detergent that I got from last Sunday's paper. Usually I think, "25-cents is LAME for a coupon" but I remembered that the small bottles of Dawn often go on sale at the drugstores for 99-cents, which brings it down to just 75-cents a bottle. And of course I bought two papers last Sunday because of the good Cover Girl coupons, so I had two 25-cent Dawn coupons, which is why I bought two bottles. Each bottle: 75-cents.

Next, I had a $2 off any Maybelline Eye Studio Product coupon that I got from the CVS slot machine a while back. I paired that coupon with a $1 coupon I had from the Maybelline Salsa Sun Collection display (tear-pad). My price for the Maybelline trio: $3.99

I also had a $0.25 coupon from the newspaper for Charmin toilet paper. My price for 12-roll Charmin: $5.24

Next, I also had a $0.25 coupon for Bounty paper towels (also from the paper) and I ALSO had a $2 off Bounty paper towels coupon from the CVS slot machine, which was about to expire (so glad I found a good use for it!). My price for 8-pack Bounty: $4.74

Using all of these coupons brought my total down from $39.94 to $13.42 before tax.

BUT, what I forgot to mention is that THREE of the items I purchased all had Extra Bucks deals attached to them! This week, if you buy select products from Charmin, Bounty and Tide, you get 1 Extra Buck per item.

So THAT brings my grand total down from $13.42 to just $10.42.

And what's funny is that if I drive just a little bit past my normal CVS, I end up in another county where the sales tax goes down from 9.75% to 8.75%. Hey, every penny counts, right?

I hope this inspires some of you who are trying to save money to go out, get the newspaper, pay attention to drugstore sales and coupons, print coupons online and plan ahead a bit. Pairing store sales with store coupons and stacking them with manufacturer coupons is totally the way to go!
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7 comments

  1. I travel to many different locations for my job. So today I was out of town and I stopped at a CVS. Sure enough, they still had some 75% clearance makeup. I also got 2 HiP/Loreal dual shadows, BOGO 1/2 off, and I had a $1 coupon for that. Hee hee...finally, I had $2 in CVS bucks. How sweet!!!

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  2. I'm probably being a wet towel here, but I'll go ahead here anyway ...

    Aren't you double-counting the Extra Bucks you get? First you take off the $3 extra bucks you had from a previous purchase, which is fine. However you then take off the $3 extra bucks that you get from this purchase. Meaning you paid cash $13.42 and for $3 extra bucks.

    Now the next time you go to CVS and buy, say $5 worth of stuff, it will cost you $2 cash ($5 - $3).

    Now, let's see how much cash was spent: $13.42 + $2 = $15.42.

    NOT

    $10.42 + $2 = $12.42

    I hope that makes sense ... either case I think to be totally accurate you could only count the ECBs once, either at redemption or when you receive them, but not both times.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Having said all that, it was still a great deal though, and I LOVE hearing about deals like these (big fan of Iheartcvs iheartriteaid etc here).

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  4. I had a pretty good run-in with CVS + coupons today :) this was my first time doing the coupon thing as I am new to this stuff. Do you have any places on where to get started to get coupons etc?

    My Loot: one L'Oreal Studio Secrets Magic Perfecting Base with one H.I.P. duo in Electrified (based on your recs!). They were Buy One Get One 50% + I got a $2/2 L'Oreal products coupon from the coupon machine!

    i also got a box of tampons which I thought would be on sale 2/$6 but they weren't and i needed them so I just got them anyway :(

    I also used a $2.50 ECB that the machine just gave me today, and $4 ECB that I had from a previous purchase! So I saved $12.70 in coupons today. not bad right? :)

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  5. wow *dies* at the sales tax rate! haha

    ReplyDelete

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