Today, I ventured to CVS. I had $12.98 in ECBs to roll, and there were deals to be had.
Before I go too far, I have to say, while I only have one Extracare card, my mother has made her Extracare card available to me. When there is a limit of 1, like this week's baby deal, having a second card to use is wonderful. Today, I used Mom's Extracare card because I had earned ECBs on her card and they were due to expire later this week. I have ECBs from my card, but they don't expire until April. If you don't use them you lose them, and if I can't make it back to get a deal, or the deals are sold out, with my card's ECBs I still have time to roll those without losing them.
I decided to split my order up into two transactions. Doing so would allow me to immediately roll ECBs from the first order on to the second, reducing my out of pocket (OOP) and reducing the amount of ECBs I'll have to work to roll later on. I could have done a better job spliting it up had I thought about it.
For my first order, I got a pack of Tena. They're adult incontinence pads. I don't need them, but they're easily donateable. They're on sale for $9.99 with a $9.99 ECB. There's also a coupon on Tena's website for $2.50 off. Money maker!
I paid for the Tena using $7.99 in ECBs, the $2.50 coupon from their website, and 12 cents in cash. I got back $9.99 in ECB. I made $1.88 on the deal (the rest of the $2.50 from the coupon was absorbed by sales tax). I also still have $4.99 ECB that I walked in the door with.
In my second order I purchased 1 Enfamil Newborn powder tub and a 50 count Advil (which was oddly part of the baby deal, between those 2 I met the $25 threshold to earn ECBs), 1 Dulcolax Balance 14 count, 1 Dulcolax tablets 25 count, and (2) 150 count Dentek picks.
Both the Dulcolax are on sale this week for $4.99. CVS mailed me coupons a few weeks back, one was for $5 off Dulcolax Balance 14 count, and one was for $3 off any Dulcolax. $5 off a $4.99 product is my kind of deal, and for the price of sales tax I'm OK with adding it to my assortment of OTC medications for whenever we might need them in the future. But it gets better. Those coupons are both CVS coupons, which means I could stack a manufacturer's coupon on for greater savings. A little web searching later and I found $4 off any Dulcolax coupons printable online (most online printables are a limit of 2). So, I could get two Dulcolax, at least one of them being the Balance variety, for $9.98 - $8 in CVS coupons - $8 in manufacturer's coupons = $6.02 overage towards the rest of my order.
Dentek has an ECB deal, spend $5 get $2 ECB. I had 2 $1 off 1 Dentek over $2 coupons. My family likes and uses these products, they don't often go on sale or have coupons. I selected (2) 150 count Dentek picks priced at $3.49 each. Take off $1 each from my coupons, and they'll give me back $2 in ECB. Not a bad deal.
I need formula. Enfamil is what my baby prefers, and all this effort for money makers and overage was really a blatant attempt to get the cost of the formula down. CVS's sale this week on Enfamil is really good, but with a little strategy I knew I could make it better. The Advil was the low price, name brand item I could buy to hit the $25 that I also had a coupon for. $22 for the Enfamil, with a $2 off coupon and a $5 formula check, $4.50 for the Advil with a $2 coupon, and hitting the $25 mark I get $10 back in ECBs.
I give the cashier my 2 CVS Dulcolax coupons, $8 in total, the ECBs I brought in and just earned on the Tena, $14.98, $2 Enfamil coupon, $2 Advil coupon, (2) $1 Dentek coupons, (2) $4 Dulcolax coupons and a $5 Enfamil check.
My total: $3.58
My receipt prints $10 and $2 ECBs for the baby deal and the Dentek.
Let's do the math.
I walked in with $12.98 in ECBs. I paid them $3.70 ($3.58 + $0.12 from the Tena transaction) in real money. I walked out with $12 in ECBs and all that stuff.
$3.70 plus the 98 cents more in ECBs I spent than made, and if we say everything else was free, I just paid $4.68 for a large tub of Enfamil powder. Those things retail around $25 in most stores.
I could have done better, but my CVS was out of the free after ECB Theraflu singles that I found a $2 off coupon for. Maybe they'll have it later in the week. If not, I'll get a raincheck.
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