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Super Savings: CVS, Kroger, Wal-Mart
March 28th, 2008 | 
Author: I had a delightful surprise in my mailbox on Thursday! Apparently, without my knowledge, I did a CVS Hershey’s deal that earned me a $5 CVS gift card! I have no idea when the deal was from or what I even bought to make the deal, but I’m still delighted with my $5 gift card!
Also at CVS this week, I took advantage of the great price and the ECBs on the Clear Care contact solution. I love this stuff and it is hardly ever on sale anywhere. I did, however, mess up on my transaction. The Clear Care was $7.99 and earned $3 ECB. I paid with $5 ECB and $3 cash. I should have used a $2 ECB and earned a dollar rather than lose $2 by using the $5 ECB. Oh well. I’m wiser for next time. Later in the week I went back and used my mother-in-law’s card to buy another Clear Care since it was limit 1 per card. For the 2nd transaction I told my husband he could get whatever (e.g. candy) since nothing great was on sale and I wanted to use the $3 ECB right away since the ECBs wouldn’t work later with my card. Wouldn’t you know that he picked up a Dove candy bar that gave a $1 ECB? Three transactions later, we were done. The store we were in is notorious for never marking the deals on the shelves. (I have a strong suspicion that this was the store that I did the Hershey deal at and didn’t know it.)
My mother, who lives in Pennsylvania, also uses Clear Care and happened to need some this week, so I sent her a detailed e-mail on how to use her ECBs to buy another bottle. She has a CVS card but didn’t understand the ECB concept. She proudly emailed me back to tell me that she spent $12.99 for 2 bottles and successfully used her $3 ECB to help pay for the 2nd bottle. Go Mom!!!
If you read my Frugal Friday post here, I mention finally finding a particular kind of dog food. For months, I’ve had a $3 coupon for Purina’s Naturally Complete dog food (in fact, the coupon expires next month). At one point, this dog food was on sale at Krogers for $3.99/bag, but none of our Krogers carried it. I also checked PetSmart thinking surely they would have it. Nope. Our local Wal-Mart didn’t carry it either. Neither did a local farm supply store that carries every type of dog food imaginable. I had pretty much given up hope of ever using the $3 coupon (much to my distress) and a different $2 coupon (gasp – $5 of coupons I couldn’t use!). By what I am sure was almost a miracle, I spotted the bag in a strange Wal-Mart this week (by strange, I mean one we have never been to before). The bags were partially tucked behind a display, but they were the right ones! Each bag was $4.19, so my $5 in coupons gave us a free bag plus 75 cents off the other bag! Woo-hoo! Gotta love free dog food. Now, if I could only find free cat food, preferably in large quantities…
Our Kroger trip wasn’t horribly interesting this week. We saved 38 percent, and I bought some items I don’t typically buy, because I couldn’t bear not using some $1 coupons that were getting ready to expire. Thankfully most of the items I had $1 coupons for were on sale. I had been holding onto a couple of coupons for Quaker Simple Harvest oatmeal and granola bars hoping they would go on sale, but after 2-3 months of waiting and with the coupons expiring in 2 weeks, I gave in and used the coupons. Now, for all of you who have also been holding your coupons, the oatmeal should be on sale next week…Murphy’s Law.
I’m hoping the sales will be better next week…
Also at CVS this week, I took advantage of the great price and the ECBs on the Clear Care contact solution. I love this stuff and it is hardly ever on sale anywhere. I did, however, mess up on my transaction. The Clear Care was $7.99 and earned $3 ECB. I paid with $5 ECB and $3 cash. I should have used a $2 ECB and earned a dollar rather than lose $2 by using the $5 ECB. Oh well. I’m wiser for next time. Later in the week I went back and used my mother-in-law’s card to buy another Clear Care since it was limit 1 per card. For the 2nd transaction I told my husband he could get whatever (e.g. candy) since nothing great was on sale and I wanted to use the $3 ECB right away since the ECBs wouldn’t work later with my card. Wouldn’t you know that he picked up a Dove candy bar that gave a $1 ECB? Three transactions later, we were done. The store we were in is notorious for never marking the deals on the shelves. (I have a strong suspicion that this was the store that I did the Hershey deal at and didn’t know it.)
My mother, who lives in Pennsylvania, also uses Clear Care and happened to need some this week, so I sent her a detailed e-mail on how to use her ECBs to buy another bottle. She has a CVS card but didn’t understand the ECB concept. She proudly emailed me back to tell me that she spent $12.99 for 2 bottles and successfully used her $3 ECB to help pay for the 2nd bottle. Go Mom!!!
If you read my Frugal Friday post here, I mention finally finding a particular kind of dog food. For months, I’ve had a $3 coupon for Purina’s Naturally Complete dog food (in fact, the coupon expires next month). At one point, this dog food was on sale at Krogers for $3.99/bag, but none of our Krogers carried it. I also checked PetSmart thinking surely they would have it. Nope. Our local Wal-Mart didn’t carry it either. Neither did a local farm supply store that carries every type of dog food imaginable. I had pretty much given up hope of ever using the $3 coupon (much to my distress) and a different $2 coupon (gasp – $5 of coupons I couldn’t use!). By what I am sure was almost a miracle, I spotted the bag in a strange Wal-Mart this week (by strange, I mean one we have never been to before). The bags were partially tucked behind a display, but they were the right ones! Each bag was $4.19, so my $5 in coupons gave us a free bag plus 75 cents off the other bag! Woo-hoo! Gotta love free dog food. Now, if I could only find free cat food, preferably in large quantities…
Our Kroger trip wasn’t horribly interesting this week. We saved 38 percent, and I bought some items I don’t typically buy, because I couldn’t bear not using some $1 coupons that were getting ready to expire. Thankfully most of the items I had $1 coupons for were on sale. I had been holding onto a couple of coupons for Quaker Simple Harvest oatmeal and granola bars hoping they would go on sale, but after 2-3 months of waiting and with the coupons expiring in 2 weeks, I gave in and used the coupons. Now, for all of you who have also been holding your coupons, the oatmeal should be on sale next week…Murphy’s Law.
I’m hoping the sales will be better next week…
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Kara, I love the CVS EB program! I’ve made an initial transation of about $30 from which I received $19.95 in EB and I’ve not spent but one penny since and I’ve used the EB twice over and now have 2o.95. I’m only buying things that I get exactly the same amount back in EB’s. So, from $30 spent, we’ve gotten $70 of product with an ongoing rollover of the EB’s. I LOVE IT!!! Even though I’m buying some weird things sometimes the cheapskate in me is doing cartwheels. If it’s free it’s for me and I’ll take three!