Kroger and Walgreens Trip

I try not to make too many “special” couponing trips unless I am able to go to multiple stores. Sunday night I had my sister convince me it was acceptable to take our 13 mpg Tundra to Defiance to go shopping. Figuring I spent about 6.00 on gas to get there and back, I think my trip justifies the gas expenditure.  If you don't agree, please don't tell me.  Let me live in my own little world of justification.  Thanks.

I had multiple free item coupons that I had gotten in the mail, and they were all expiring on the 17th (which is why I chose Sunday evening to go!). I don’t know how or why I received these coupons, as I just have the typical shopper’s card.

My free items included:

• 7 up two liter
• 16 oz Hidden Valley Ranch dressing
• Loaf of Private Selection bread (multigrain fancy kind)
• Nabisco Wheat Thins
• Dole Bagged Salad
• One dozen eggs
• One pound mini carrots
• Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa

I also wanted to get some asparagus, which was on sale for 1.88/lb. Of course this was gone, but I did get a rain check. I picked up a few other stockpiling items and ended up spending 6.16. My savings rate after coupons and the free item coupons was 84%!

Walgreens came next. Even though I love to coupon, I will NOT give up Diet Pepsi. I try to buy it when it is on sale, but if I need it, I will pay full price. One of my vices…not too concerned. Walgreens has a special this week, through Saturday, on select Pepsi purchases. WYB 20.00, you receive a 10.00 RR, which right off the bat gives you 50% off. Register Rewards (RR) are like cash, but can only be used at Walgreens.

I love it when people say “But I will never go back to use my RR”. Boo hoo. Don’t believe it. As you are shopping for your Pepsi items, fill your cart with 10.00 worth of other items that you could use for your stockpile, bathroom or pantry. Ideally, these would be items on sale, at great prices. Check out the flyer.  Check out with your Pepsi items, pay 20.00 or so, receive the RR, and then check out again and use your 10.00 RR to pay for the other items. If you know you won’t go back to use them, use them right away!

Remember, you cannot use your 10 Pepsi RR to buy more Pepsi products. It will not roll to give you the second set.

Here is how I did my Pepsi transaction.

5 Diet Pepsi 12 packs at 3/15.00 (not an awful price by itself)
Tostitos Scoops 2.50
Tostitos Queso Dip 2.50
Total: 20.00

Used:
1.00 Tostitos coupon
7 RR (already had these)
Paid 12.98 OOP
Got 10 RR back!

Gettin' Around

This week I've been gettin' around! I've hit sales at Kroger, Rite Aid, and Walgreen's! Here's a recap of some of my shopping.

Rite Aid
4 Coppertone Sunscreen at 7.50 each
5/25 coupon
4 3.00 Coppertone coupons
Total OOP: 14.95
Will get back 2 5.00 SCR for the Coppertone. With tax, that's 1.23 each!

Aveeno Sunscreen B1G1 50% off
10.99, 5.49 and 9.99, 4.49
4 1.50 Aveeno Sunscreen coupons
5/25 coupon
Total OOP 22.50
Will get back 10.00 J&J SCR, 5.00 Aveeno Rebate, plus I will get a tote with samples and coupons worth 40.00! That's 1.87 per bottle of Aveeno!

Walgreen's
Walgreen's had some serious money makers this week. I went in and walked out 18.00 richer! I hope to get back to Walgreen's tomorrow to shop some more! FYI the Register Rewards can be used like cash at Walgreen's. A lot of times they can be tricky to roll, so Walgreen's is NOT my favorite store.

Ecotrin Aspirin 2.00
2.00 Ecotrin coupon
Total OOP: 0.14 (tax)
Received 2 Register Rewards (did this four times!)

Bayer Breeze Glucose Meter 10.00
Bayer coupon up to 30.00 off
Total OOP: tax only
Received 10 Register Rewards

Kroger
RASPBERRIES! 10/10! I LOVE raspberries and so do the kids, so I bought a ton!

2 Country Time Lemonade 1.99 each
1.50/2 coupon
Received 1.00 Catalina
Net Cost: 0.74 each

Oscar Mayer Beef Hot Dogs 4.49
Used FREE Oscar Mayer coupon

Capri Sunrise 1.77
1.00 Capri Sunrise coupon
Final Cost: 0.77

Ball Park Angus Beef Franks 4.89 BOGO
Used 1.00/2 coupon
Final Cost: 1.94 each

The End is Coming...

For anyone who shops at Walgreen's, I am reading rumors that they are doing away with their monthly program and the Easy Saver Catalog. Although I have a love/hate relationship with Walgreen's, I am sad to see this program go.

Just because I was curious, I added up my rebate earnings since I started shopping there in September. My total rebate earnings with the monthly program has been 196.80 to date. 17.91 of this rebate money is a 10% bonus given when you request your payment via a Walgreen's gift card. This total doesn't include Register Reward earnings or the weekly flier coupons that I use.

I hate to see this go, but I am hopeful Walgreen's will come up with something to replace the Easy Saver Catalog. I guess I'll wait and see...

OH NO! Expiring Register Rewards!

Today I had a 10.00 RR expiring, and another expiring in a couple days. I ran to Bryan quick after plotting out my sinister plan. Hehehehe... I stopped at CVS for Diet Pepsi, and then to Walgreen's to spend my RR.

At CVS I used more ECB's(Extra Care Bucks) than I got back, but that's OK. I got some good sale items anyway.

I bought:
2 Post Trail Mix Cereal B1G1 4.79
Crest Pro Health Enamel 3.49
2 Skippy Peanut Butter B1G1 3.29
3 Diet Pepsi 12 pks 3/11.00

Coupons used:
2 2.00 Post Trail Mix Printable
1.00 Crest expiring 3-31 from P&G
2 0.40 Skippy
B2G1 Diet Pepsi Printable
12.97 ECB's

Total OOP 0.24 on my Gift Card!

ECB's Earned:
3.49 Crest
2.00 Pepsi

Walgreen's was actually fun! I used my expiring Huggie's RR to buy a lot of items that have a monthly rebate attached to them. There is a lot of "couponing" going on here so I will try my best to explain.

I bought:
2 Scrubbing Bubbles Natural Cleaner 2/6.00
Pledge and Multi Surface Pledge 2/7.00
Tums Dual Action 7.99
Right Guard Professional Deodorant 5.99
Walgreen's Headache Relief 2.99
2 Sambucol 12.99 each
3 bags of Easter candy 6.50 total

Coupons used:
2 1.00 Natural Cleaner
3.00 Pledge Aerosol Printable
2.00 Multi Surface Printable
3.00 Tums Printable
2 4.00 Sambucol Printable
1.50 off 3 Hershey's Easter Candy
10.00 Walgreen's coupon in the monthly booklet (took off 20.00)
1.50 Walgreen's Hershey's coupon in the monthly booklet (took off 0.50 per bag)

Will submit for Easy Saver Rebate (Monthly program)
2 1.00 Natural Cleaner
2 1.00 Pledge Products
5.00 Right Guard
2.99 Walgreen's Headache Relief

Register Rewards
Earned 3.00 for the Tums

I'll try to summarize it here. My subtotal was 62.45. After coupons at the register I owed 21.45. I then used 20.00 in RR which took my total OOP to 5.37 with tax. Not bad, not bad, but it gets better. Keep in mind I earned 3.00 RR for the Tums, and I will submit for another 11.99 in the monthly program! Including my extra 10% gift card bonus, that's a profit of 10.81 for the night!

Oh, I almost forgot! I also picked up a mail in rebate peelie for Crest Pro Health! I'll probably send that in too for another 3.25! That means I got reimbursed the cost of the toothpaste from CVS plus another 4.25 for the coupon and rebate! Thanks go out to everybody involved!

Huge Huggies Coupons!!!

Check out www.coupons.com for two Huggies coupons. These were up last week, and were reset. There is one for 5.00 off any gentle care diaper product, and one for 3.00 off any natural fit diaper product. I am assuming these can be used on wipes as well, which would result in some BIG packages for free or very cheap. When printing, hit your back browser button three times to print them again. I have found them on the last page of the website when going back for the second print. Print them and have your families print them too! Coupons of this value don't come around often!

Walgreens is having a promotion starting tomorrow March 8th. Through the 15th, Huggies will be on sale for 10.00 a pack. When you by 25.00 worth you will receive 10 Register Rewards (RR) which can be used like cash in the store. Remember though, you can't roll your Huggies RR into another Huggies purchase. Consider using the RR to buy free after rebate items for the month or other RR producing deals.

Try this transaction.
Buy 3 pkgs Huggies at 10.00 each
Use 3 5.00 coupons.
Receive 10 RR to use on future purchases.

30.00 (3 Huggies)
-15.00 (3 coupons)
=15.00 OOP
Receive 10 RR
Like paying 5.00 for three packs!

My other tip is to do this only once per transaction. RR won't print out multiple times for the same deal in the same transaction. Simply check out more than once if you have enough coupons!

Walgreens and CVS

I don't take the time to blog weekly about Walgreens and CVS. Mainly, because I don't have time, and because we don't have them here in town. If you want to shop these stores for their sales, check out a couple of great blogs.

http://www.thethriftymama.com/ and http://www.dealseekingmom.com/ both have weekly sales and deals posted. They also continually update if new deals pop up. They are a great resource for figuring out sales and deals! Some blogs give tutorials on how to work the ECB's and RR's also! Each store is different, and it can get quite confusing (see Walgreens post below!). Use these ladies and their wealth of info!

Walgreens 3/4/09

Walgreens tonight was kind of frustrating, but, in the end, turned out OK. They were out of most of the Register Reward (RR) items that I wanted, and don't get a truck in until Friday. Well, of course, I can't go again this week, but I am sure I will survive.

I couldn't quite figure out how to put this together, and I am sure I could have saved a bit more. I also screwed up my Vaseline deal by buying four bottles of lotion in one transaction. Instead of getting 8.00 in RR, I only got 2. It would have been a BIG moneymaker. I should have split them up into single transactions. Lesson learned: RR will only print for one item, not four. Buy one at a time. By the way, you can't use a RR to turn around and pay for the same item again.

Transaction #1
2 Colgate Total 4 oz. 3.49 each
Colgate MaxFresh 3.29
Gillette Fusion Gamer 10.49 (I thought this was on sale, with better RR. Guess not.)
6 Nabisco Ritz Crackers 2/1.99 (just little fellas, one sleeve each)

Coupons Used:
2.50 Colgate Total in the EasySaver Catalog (takes 2.50 off each tube)
4.00 Gillette Fusion
2-0.75 Colgate
1.50 Colgate
3-2.00 off 2 Ritz

Total OOP: 10.20 with tax
Used GC for 9.30
Paid 0.90 OOP

Earned 4.00 RR for Fusion Razor, 3.50 for Colgate MaxFresh (even though price is only 3.29)

Transaction #2 aka, the big screwup!
4 Vaseline Lotions at 2.69 each
2 Extra Gum 8 pk 2/2.49

Coupons Used:
3-1.50 Vaseline Lotion
0.55 Vaseline Lotion
In ad coupon for Extra
7.50 RR from Transaction #1

Total OOP 1.45

Earned 2.00 RR for Vaseline :( Should have been 8 RR had I thought it out a little better.

After I figured out that I screwed up, I went back to the pharmacy to redeem myself. I wanted to get the diaper coupons in the Pharmacy Savings Plan booklet. I did get a booklet, but without the diaper coupon. Then, I transferred a prescription, and got a 25.00 GC from the pharmacy for the transfer! That made me feel a little better. All in all, not a bad night. 7.35 OOP for 48.84 worth of products and a prescription. Plus, I came home with the 25.00 GC!

Starting Off My Week the RIGHT Way!

Tonight I had to get out of the house, so I went to Bryan all by myself! The kids have been home WAY too long! I went to CVS and Walgreen's, hoping that by going at the beginning of the week the stores wouldn't be out of everything. I had pretty decent luck...

Walgreen's is a little harder to understand. They have a monthly rebate program, weekly sales with in-ad coupons, and a register reward program (RR). I have learned how to combine the three to maximize my savings.

For my first transaction I purchased items that generated RR. I used some of the RR on the second transaction.

4 Boxes Frosted Flakes 4/10.00
4 Flintstone Gummies 4/20.00
7 Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil 20 sq feet 1.69 each

Coupons
4-1.00 Kellogg's
4-1.00 Flintstones
In ad coupon making foil 0.99 each
7-1.00 Reynolds Wrap

Total OOP 23.82 on Gift Card

Received 13.00 in RR
I was in search of a Walgreen's Pharmacy coupon for the Flintstones which would have saved me another 4.00, but to no avail. I thought 6.00 for 4 bottles was a great price anyway, considering we take these vitamins every day. Usually the price of one bottle is 5.99!

Transaction #2

Electrasol 3.49
2 Garnier Fructis Hairspray 2.99
2 Jars of Popcorn (per the husband's request) 2/3.00
6 Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar 4.89
6 Hershey's Special Dark Bar 4.65

Coupons (try to follow me here)
2.50 Electrasol
EasySaver Coupon for Garnier 4.00 (2.00 per bottle)
6 Hershey's B1G1 (took off 4.80)
In-ad coupon for Hershey's 2/1.00 (took off 3.54)
3.00 RR

Total on GC 4.83
Will submit for monthly ESR of 1.50

CVS
I have so many ECB's from the Christmas and Turkey Day sale! I decided to start using some of them up so I don't have to be responsible for so many!

I only did one transaction, and the cashier looked at me like I was CRAZY! She remembered me from the Christmas sale and my many, many, many transactions! Too funny...

2 Colgate Total 2/5.00
Garnier Fructis Hairspray 2.99
Kids Throat Coolers 4.99
Playtex Tampons 7.99

Coupons
2-1.50 Colgate printable
17.97 ECB

Total OOP 0.21
I decided not to use my GC for this one. Helps me to meet the criteria of a checking acct that I have.

Earned 8.99 in ECB's

Walgreens Wednesday

After the quick run in at CVS, we went to Walgreens, knowing we had at least one money making deal. Still out of stock on last weeks moneymaker, so onward we forge.

3 Dimetapp DM 3.99 each

Loreal Facial Towelettes 7.99
Rimmel Mineral Foundation 7.99, not pictured

Arm and Hammer Laundry Soap 2.99, not pictured

2 Lip Smackers 1.55 each

2 Caramels 1.50 each

Coupons used:

1.00 2 Caramels (Wags)

3 2.00 Dimetapp

1.00 Arm and Hammer

1.00 off 2 Lipsmackers

18.00 RR (expiring Saturday)

Total OOP 11.89 on Walgreens Gift Card from September Rebates

Earned 10 RR

Will get back:

7.99 Loreal

7.99 Rimmel

1.00 Arm and Hammer

This trip cost me 2.91 including RR usage! Not too bad! The combination of Dimetapp RR and coupons was a 4.03 moneymaker. Had I not bought the lip gloss, I would have come out with a profitable trip!

Saturday Shopping

Today, Bailey had a volleyball tourney in Bryan, which her team won! In between games I made Ryan go with me to Walgreens and CVS. He waited patiently in the car, so maybe next time I can get him to venture inside with me.

At CVS, the cashier had set back two boxes of the Always pads for me. I knew they would be out of stock when I went, so when she offered to set them back, I took her up on the offer!

2 - Always Infinity 4.98 each
Addidas Deodorant Raincheck 0.99
Nivea Bodywash Raincheck Free

Coupons Used

1.00 Adidas

9.96 in ECB's

Total 0.07 OOP

Earned 9.96 in ECB!

Walgreens was out of stock of my big money making items, but I did get rainchecks, so I will do these when they are back in stock. I did "buy"

Scrubbing Bubbles Megafoamer Shower Cleaner 3.99

2 Crest Toothpaste 1.99 each

Fantastick 2.50

Windex 2.50

Butterfinger Theater Box Candy (Filler) (long gone...)

Coupons used:

Crest IVC (Walgreens coupon) 1.00 x2

2.00 Scrubbing Bubbles

1.50 Fantastick

2.00 Windex

1.00 off two Crest

5.00 RR

Total 1.38 OOP

Will get back from Walgreens ESR 1.00 Windex, 1.00 Fantastick, and 1.00 Scrubbing bubbles.
So in all, I paid 3.38 for this including my RR useage.

Walgreens Profit 10/4/08

Saturday morning while the kids were still sleeping, I made a trip to Bryan with Nicole and Megan. At Walgreens, Nicole had some sweet deals, and combined with mine, my trip was profitable! I am realizing now that I tossed my receipts, but here is what I come up with off the top of my head.

My first transaction, I paid 17.06 OOP. I walked away with $18.50 in Register Rewards. My second transaction was 7.02, and I walked away with 4.50 RR. I have also submitted for October's monthly rebate (ESR) and will receive 5 dollars back from that as well. I don't like spending this much OOP, but I haven't received my gift card yet, which should be about 49.00. In summary, I spent 24.08 OOP, received 23.00 in RR, and 5.00 ESR for October! So yes, Walgreens paid my $3.92 to help take this stuff off of their hands! Watch out next Saturday Walgreens!!!