$5 Charity Challenge: CVS 9/7 - 9/13

CVS is running a secret plot to get me out of the house on Sundays, so I am posting my deals for next week early so I can make my run on Sunday morning. It's a good week for free stuff after printable coupons. If you have the coupons, there are a lot of possibilities this week, so I would definitely recommend anyone who's been wanting to try their hand out at CVS to jump on the bandwagon this week. There's even a few free-after-printables:

• Excedrin: $1.99 with $2/1 printable
• Chex Mix: $1.00 with $1/1 printable
• Malt-O-Meal Cereal: $1.00 with $1/1 printable

They are no-limits (as far as I could tell), so if you have access to an unlimited amount of computers (maybe a computer lab?), you could stock up your medicine cabinet and pantry quite a bit. Or, you could make a charity very happy.

Technically, if you had access to 4 different computers, you could print up 8 of the Chex Mix or Malt-O-Meal coupons, get 8 of them and a $2 filler item (milk, maybe?). Use the $2/$10 coupon, and you should get your filler item for free. All you would pay is the tax.

I haven't tried this out, and don't plan to, because I love my CVS and they've been very accepting with all of my coupons...but somehow I have a feeling that would change if I handed them 9 printables in one transaction. But hey, if you have the ability and the willingness to try it out, I would love to hear if it really works. I don't see why not, but then again there could be technicalities.

If you shuffle things around, you should be able to spend a lot less OOP than my transactions below, but I had to use up two $5 ECBs that expire next week. My first couple attempts ended
up with me paying under $3 OOP, and I actually had to work to increase
my OOP so I can use those expiring ECBs.


Transaction #1
Buy 1 Soft & Dri: $2.99
Buy 1 Chex mix: $1.00
Buy 1 Excedrin: $1.99
Buy 1 CVS brand cotton swab: $0.99
Buy 1 Revlon Nail Enamel: $3.99
Buy 2 Trident Xtra Care gum (2/$2): $2.00
Subtotal: $12.96
Use $2/$10 CVS coupon (-$2.00)
Use $1/1 Chex Mix coupon (-$1.00)
Use $2/1 Excedrin coupon (-$2.00)
Use free cotton swab CVS coupon (-$0.99)
Use $0.75/1 Soft & Dri (-$0.75)
Use 2 $0.75/1 Trident coupon from All You (-$1.50)
Grand Total: $4.72 (use $5.00 ECB adjusted down)
OOP expense: tax
ECBs returned: $2.00 (Soft & Dri) + $3.00 (Revlon) = $5.00

Transaction #2
Buy 1 L'Oreal Age Perfect, Revitalift, or Skin Genesis: $5.99
Buy 1 Excedrin: $1.99
Buy 1 Right Guard Sport: $2.99
Subtotal: $10.97
Use $2/$10 CVS coupon (-$2.00)
Use $2/1 Excedrin coupon (-$2.00)
Use $1/1 Right Guard coupon (-$1.00)
Grand Total: $5.97 (use $5.00 ECB)
OOP expense: $0.97 + tax
ECBs returned: $5.99 (L'Oreal) + $2.00 (Right Guard) = $7.99

Merchandise total: $23.93
Total OOP: $0.97 + tax (used $10 ECBs)
ECBs left for next time: $12.99

It's not a bad run, but it can definately be better without much effort. I just had to use up those two $5 ECBs that expire on 9/11 and 9/13. I don't know how I ended up with so many $5 ECBs! Looking back though, I see that it really can't be helped, because they were from the candy and baby products deal last month. If an ECB deal has a limit of higher than 1, I never buy them in the same transaction. The lower the ECB value, the more use they are. Remember, you can always combine two ECBs, but you can't split them apart.