CVS check-in

So I said a little over a month ago that I was going to give CVSing another try. Well I've tried and I'm hooked. Moneysavingmom.com recommends giving yourself at least 3 months to see if it saves you enough money to make it worth it. I have spent a total of $18.07 for $97.78 worth of stuff, and I have $10 in Extra Care Bucks to continue spending--it's like Monopoly money! And yes, it's all stuff that we actually need and will use. That is savings enough in my book! In the last month I've learned a few things:

1) It is time consuming. But now I do take extra time so that I can guard against the problems I had with CVS before. I also come up with back-up plans because CVS is usually out of at least one thing I plan on buying. And I am sometimes willing to take the extra time to go around town to another CVS if they might have what I'm looking for. I'm also still a newbie.

2) They'll give you rain checks for all of those things that they're out of!

3) Because it sometimes takes them awhile to re-stock items that have been sold out, they will re-issue Extra Care Bucks that are about to expire.

I'll check in again at months 2 and 3 to see how the savings continue stacking up.

CVS

As many of you know, I love a good deal. Coupons+sales are my friends. I get an adrenaline high off of a sweet deal. Especially ones like today when Kroger paid me to buy two bottles of body wash for Scott.

I have tried to play the CVS game 3 or 4 times over the last few years. The first time I gave up because the store was always sold out of the items I wanted by the time I got there. The second time I tried I decided to do my CVS shopping earlier in the week to try and get there before the other crazy coupon ladies of Lawrenceville cleared the shelves. However I gave up again after a few weeks because the workers at "my" CVS store were not very knowledgeable about coupons in general or their coupon policy, so my transactions were not working as I hoped they would. The third time I tried was when we were living on Lookout Mountain. Whereas the store had awesome workers and usually had the items I wanted, it was all the way down the mountain, and I didn't usually have time to go there plus any other errands I needed to run all within the time frame I had before getting Micaiah back up the mountain for his next nap.

I decided last week to try again. Now I may be bragging a little bit, but how can I NOT give CVS another try? Given that I got all of the above pictured items for a mere $6. Especially when you consider that the price of the diapers alone is $8.99 (on sale!). It still baffles me how it works, but their Extra Care Bucks system, when used strategically, really is like their own little land of Monopoly money.

God is so good. I was just thinking recently how our stock of toothbrushes was getting low and how I needed another pack of diapers for Micaiah for a trip we're taking this weekend. And then low and behold what did He provide for me this week at a STEAL of a price?

Thrifty Thursday

So I thought I might join the ranks of other bloggers and chronicle my grocery savings and deals each week. This week I went to Kroger and Publix and bought everything you see in the picture for $16.00.

3 boxes of Kashi cereal

Pampers wipes 3 refill pack

Febreeze Air Effects

Dawn dish soap

Organic kiwi

Zucchini

Broccoli
Avocados

3 packs of muffins

2 Old Spice deodorants

Swiss cheese

Fiber One yogurt

Oatmeal

Now obviously these are not the only items that make up our food for the week. I shop differently than a lot of people in that I shop using the 'stockpiling' or 'buy ahead' priniciple. Maybe I'll write a post about that sometime soon. :)