More Info on How I Scored Big Deals at CVS (and More on Couponing)

I posted on Facebook Sunday that I'd done really well at CVS by combining their sales and coupons and it was a really popular post, so I thought I'd give a little more detail about what I did and how I figured it out.

Coupon blogs are a great source of information. These women make a living by doing this, so I figure why reinvent the wheel? They'll tell you what's going on sale, where to find coupons to combine with the sale prices and how to maximize your trip to spend as little out-of-pocket as possible.

Before I go into too much detail, I want to preface this by saying I'm not some crazy "extreme" couponer like you see on TV. We do have a small stockpile of stuff (mostly body wash, hairspray, shampoo/conditioner and razors) but I don't have 300 of them tucked into every corner of the house. In fact, I tend to stock up and then not go for those types of items for a while just because I don't want them coming out every corner of every cabinet.

This is the blog I love for CVS deals - Southern Savers. She typically posts CVS deals Wednesday or Thursday and sales start Sunday. She'll tell you what coupons to print or where they were in your weekly paper to get the most bang for your buck. She even formats the posts as an easy-to-print shopping list, which I really like.

Also, if you shop at CVS and aren't on their email list, then sign up right now. The reason I suggest this is because every week they send you some type of money off deal. This week it was $3 off a $15 purchase. They always use that coupon first, so you can really clean up when you have these. They also let you elect to send them directly to your ExtraCare card, so you don't even have to print them!

So now on to the CVS trip. Here's what I picked up:

• Diet Coke - on sale 5 for $15 plus you get $5 Extra Care Bucks (also known as ECB)
• Zyrtec - on sale for $5.99 plus you get $5.99 in Extra Care Bucks (keep reading to see how I actually made $2 by taking this off their hands)
• Pedia Care Liquid Drops - on sale for $5.99 plus you get $5 in Extra Care Bucks
• Milk - on sale for $1.99 - they consistently have the best prices on milk lately 

The key in doing this so you don't have a bunch of the ECB left at the end is to split it into different transactions. The staff at my CVS is great, and they've never given me difficulties over doing this. If there's a long line, I may let people get in front of me so I don't hold everyone up.

• Transaction #1 - Diet Coke:  I had $3 off $15 that CVS had emailed to me earlier in the week, plus  the Southern Savers site actually alerted me to CVS coupons for Diet Coke, so I had an extra $2 off. That brought this down to 5 for $10 plus $5 back. 
• Transaction #2 - Pedia Care: I used the $5 ECB from the Coke to purchase this and received $5 back in ECB due to the sale.
• Transaction #3 - Zyrtec and Milk: I used the $5 ECB from the Pedia Care, and I had a $2 coupon for the Zyrtec. And since the Zyrtec was free after ECB, I technically made $2 by walking out of the store with this product. 

And I have $5.99 in ECB to redeem for my next visit! 

Hope this makes sense. Happy shopping!