CVS: Starting from Scratch

Let me preface this post by saying, as I noted in my Intro to CVS post, some CVS coupons are personalized so you may or may not be able to reproduce what I did. I am writing this so you can get an idea of what is possible and look at what you can do with the hand that you are dealt. I am also very open to helping you work out a deal with the coupons that you have.

Honestly, I had not set foot inside a CVS for several months prior to last Thursday. Last week I got sucked back into couponing with some Walgreens deals so I decided to play around on the CVS app and website to see what was available. Next thing I know, CVS sent me a surprise ECB for $5, good one day only on 12/9/21. Ummm... free money! That was enough to lure me in the store.

I knew that if I rolled the ECB by purchasing something that produced another ECB, then the new ECB would be good for another 30 days, thus buying me some more time to find some deals.

So, I found this...

It was a good deal hence the display was pretty bare

Poparrazi nail polish. Buy 2 for $5, Get a $5 ECB back. Free nail polish.

I decided it would make a nice stocking stuffer for my 10 year old niece so I bought 2.

I used my $5 surprise ECB and got everything for free, plus I got a new $5 ECB.

I then noticed the limit on the deal was 2, meaning you could do it twice, so I did it again.

This time I did it at self-checkout and for some reason my new ECB would not scan. The cashier came over and manually entered it as a CVS coupon so I ended up paying tax.

My family also fills some of their prescriptions at CVS. You get a $2 ECB for every 4 prescriptions filled. There have been times over the last year that I saw this ECB in my account and then let it go to waste because it was too much trouble to go in the store and find something. This time though, I saw that I had another $2 ECB in my account that expires on 12/16/21 so now I had $7 in fake CVS money to play with.

If you have absolutely no ECBs in your account and want to start with some, a way to get a "free" $10 ECB is by signing up for Care Pass. Care Pass is their home delivery program. It costs $5 a month or $48 a year, however you also get a $10 ECB to use every month and the first month is free. You can sign up for the free month and cancel if you want. I haven't done this yet but might sometime in the future if needed. The service itself sounds like a good deal because you get free shipping on many of items.

"First Day" Summary 

I ended up with 4 bottles of nail polish

$5 ECB for nail polish

$2 ECB for prescriptions

Spent $0.35

This week I started out by doing the Crest Toothpaste and Scope mouthwash deal (details HERE).

12/12/21 Summary  

1 liter bottle of Crest Scope mouthwah

2 tubes Crest toothpaste

$3 ECB for toothpaste

$3 ECB for mouthwash

Spent $2.38

I also noticed that the $5 ECB that I had tried to spend on 12/9 for the nail polish was still showing up as active in my account. I no longer had the physical coupon so I sent the digital one to my card to see if it would stick.

12/13/21 Summary  

As I said in my Intro to CVS post, sometimes you have to buy stuff you don't need to get the stuff you really need. When I checked out on 12/12 I got a CRT for $6 off a $30 purchase. So now I'm holding (2) $3 ECBs, a $2 ECB, and possibly a $5 ECB. This week's ad also shows a Buy $20, Get $5 ECB promotion that includes paper towels. I need paper towels

If I bought (2) rolls of Scott paper towels that would get me over $20 ($10.49 x 2 = $20.98), qualifying me for the $5 ECB.

Unrelated to CVS but deal related, I also had a Venmo offer that I have been meaning to use.

Venmo will give you $10 back on your first CVS purchase of over $20. You pay with your Venmo QR code at the register.

I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to use this.

I also wanted to leverage the $6 off $30 CRT to earn more ECBs so I decided to take advantage of this offer...

There are promotional cosmetic gift sets that are either $4.99 or $9.99. The $4.99 one will print out a $4 ECB and the $9.99 one will print out an $8 ECB. I also had a $3 off $10 cosmetic purchase in my account and saw online and in my app that it would attach to a $9.99 purchase.

So, original plan was this...

Buy (2) Scott paper towels and (1) $9.99 gift set = $30.97

Use: $6 off $30 total purchase, $3 off $10 cosmetic, and the $2 ECB that was going to expire 12/16.

30.97 - 6 - 3 - 2 = 19.97 + tax = 21.37

The Venmo offer was for any amount over $20 so my pre-tax total didn't matter. I would get back a $5 ECB for the paper towels and an $8 ECB for the cosmetic set so I would be paying $11.37 out of pocket but get back $13 in ECBs.

However, in store at the register, the $3 off $10 cosmetic physical CRT wouldn't take because I was a penny short. The cashier canceled the transaction and told me I could send the coupon to my card so it would come off digitally but then the reception was bad in the store and my app wouldn't load. I told the cashier not to worry about it and had her try the $5 ECB that was still in my account. The $5 came off so my net price was still the same. Fetch Rewards also gave me 635 points (0.63) for the Scott paper towels and the overall purchase.

Now though I still had the $2 ECB that was going to expire on 12/16. I decided the best thing to do was cash it out with Ibotta and Fetch. Both apps have an offer for RIND snacks. Ibotta will give $4 back and Fetch will give 2000 points ($2). This is actually a great double dip because one purchase will count for both programs.

Ibotta offer

Fetch offer

The snacks are $4.99 regular price. I had a 35% off one regular price item that I used along with my $2 ECB so I paid $1.94 out of pocket, therefore "earning" $4.06 through Ibotta and Fetch.

Ibotta redemption

Fetch redemption

In summary, I started a week ago with a "gift" of a $5 ECB and a $2 ECB.

I ended up with: (4) bottles of nail polish, (2) tubes of Crest Toothpaste, (1) liter bottle of Scope, (2) 12-roll mega packs of Scott paper towels, (1) cosmetic gift set, and (1) RIND snack bag.

Scope has already been given away

Taking into account my Venmo rebate and Ibotta cash, I paid $12.04 out of pocket.

I earned just under $3 in Fetch points for bonus scans and receipts.

I still hold $24 in ECBS, all of which now expire in January.

Usually around January CVS runs a Spend $30 promotion where you actually get a $10 cash card (which functions as a gift card) back instead of ECBs. If that happens I will try to roll my ECBs to that so I don't have to worry about them expiring. Otherwise, I will keep rolling to get things I need but eventually try to find a way to "cash out" so I end up with no money out of pocket.

Now going back to buying stuff you don't need to get the things that you want.

I wanted paper towels.

If I had straight up bought paper towels I would have spent $20.98 + tax and gotten back a $5 ECB.

If I had used the $7 in ECBs I started with that would have been $13.98 out of pocket and I'd be left with a $5 ECB for my next deal.

If you don't want to go through juggling deals that's perfectly fine.

I find this fun so that's why I do this. For all my "trouble" I spent $12.04 out of pocket vs. $14.96 ($13.98 + tax). I ended up with $24 in ECBs vs $5. Plus I got a bunch of other stuff in addition to the paper towels, most of which will be gifted or donated.

If you want to get in on this too, one of the best ways to "practice" is to play around on the website putting things into your shopping cart to see what coupons attach and what ECB offers are available. Let me know if you have any questions or want me to work any deal scenarios with you. 

Intro to CVS Couponing

There are several stores which I have a love hate relationship with and CVS is one of them.

To be blunt, I think that if you do not use coupons CVS is one of the highest priced retailers around.

However, if you play the drug store game with them, it is also one of the best stores to keep getting stuff for free. What is problematic is that the stuff isn't necessarily the stuff you need, and many times you need to get stuff to get stuff.

Tonight I obtained a 1L bottle of Crest Scope mouthwash for the purposes of this post.

The regular price at CVS is $5.49-$5.59 (depending on the store).

Same bottle is $3.92 at Walmart, $4.09 at Meijer.

Using coupons though, CVS ended up paying me to buy their overpriced mouthwash.

Couponing at CVS is complicated. For starters, not everyone gets the same coupons.

Their free rewards program is called Extra Care. After you sign up you can either use your Extra Care card or your phone number to access your account. You can scan your card or enter your phone number at one of their red coupon machines in store to get your weekly coupons or see them in your account online. 

If you are doing things purely digitally then you will need to add the CVS coupons you want to use to your account. You will also see manufacturer coupons that you can add digitally to your account. Manufacturer coupons will not print out at the coupon printer so everyone has to add the ones they want digitally to their account. Everyone has access to the same manufacturer coupons and a select number of CVS coupons every week. After that, the other CVS coupons in your account are personalized to your spending habits based on an algorithm. For example, if you want shampoo coupons you may need to buy some shampoo first before you start getting shampoo coupons in your account.

CVS coupons that print out at the red coupon machine are called Cash Register Tape (CRT) coupons. They are called this because if you don't scan your card when you first enter the store then the coupons will print out on your cash register receipt after you make a purchase.

CRT coupons come in a couple different varieties.

There are spend threshold coupons, such as $5 off a $20 purchase, or $4 off a $12 cosmetic purchase.

There are percent off coupons, such as 30% off a single item, or 20% off all cosmetics. Percent off coupons can only be used on non-sale items. When using multiple coupons, the percent off will always come off after all your other discounts. For example, if you have a $10 item and you use a $2 manufacturer coupon and a 30% off coupon, the 30% will come off of $8, not $10.

There are straight dollar off coupons.

Technically, you can use one manufacturer coupon per item purchased. Sometimes though, if you have a coupon that is $x off y items (like $5 off 3), the coupon will only attach to one of those items and if you have another coupon for the item that will attach too. You can use as many CVS coupons as applicable in a transaction. This can make the register math very complicated. I tend to do many small separate transactions because of this. When your transaction gets too big some coupons do not play well with others and if something doesn't go as planned it's harder to catch.

One of the keys to shopping for free or nearly free at CVS is Extra Care Bucks (ECBs). This is what I call fake CVS money. You earn ECBs by purchasing items in a promotion. Most ECBs expire a month after they are earned so you will need to either spend them to earn more ECBs or have a good exit plan on using them before they expire.

I thought the best way to further explain CVS was to give a real life example. One of the nice things about the CVS website and their app is that you can practice what you're going to buy before you actually set foot in a store so you can play around with all the possible coupon combinations and see what will work and what won't. So, without further adieu...

This is a page from this week's ad. I'm going to do the Crest toothpaste deal and the Scope deal online first.

After you are logged in, when you click on the items you plan to purchase you will also see all the coupons that apply to the item as well as the promotion it is eligible for.

The $5 off 3 Crest coupon, $2 off 1 Crest coupon, and the $1 Scope coupon are manufacturer coupons available to everyone. The $2 Oral Care coupon is a personalized coupon in my account so you may or may not have it.

I put 2 Crest toothpaste and 1 Crest Scope mouthwash in my cart to see which coupons would attach.

I can now see that my total for the 3 items at regular price was $13.07

The $10.30 in savings includes the sale price of the items plus I see that the $5 off 3 Crest, the $1 off Scope, and the $2 off Oral Care all attached, giving me a pre-tax total of $2.77.

I will then earn a $3 ECB for the toothpaste and a $3 ECB for the mouthwash, thus "earning" $3.23 ($6 ECBs - $2.77 spent). In real life it will be a bit less than this due to tax.

I then went to the store and did the same transaction.

The only difference in store was that the $2 Scope coupon attached instead of the $1 Crest toothpaste coupon, making my pre-tax total $1.77. Total spent out of pocket was $2.38 and I now own (2) $3 ECBs so I came out $3.62 plus 2 tubes of toothpaste and a liter of mouthwash ahead.

I will pocket the ECBs to get some things I need later this week. The rest will be given away.

Plus, I got a $6 off $30 CRT print. I can use that! Stay tuned.

How I Coupon

 This post will explain my personal couponing philosophy. I call it "Real Life Couponing" as opposed to "Extreme Couponing" because, as I've said in the past, you can't live on toothpaste. Couponers coupon for different reasons. I coupon to primarily reduce my overall cost of living. I have on rare occasion resold items but that is not my main goal. Once you understand how to coupon though you can scale it to do whatever you want. This is how I personally coupon but there are no hard and fast rules.

My cardinal rule: Don't Buy Anything You Won't Use!

The only exception to this rule is if you are getting paid to buy something.

In that case I will buy an item and either donate or give it away.

I can't tell you the number of people that have started couponing and quit because they realized they were spending MORE money rather than SAVING money. This happens when you are enticed to buy things just because it's a great deal. That cereal you never eat might be 80% off but if you buy it and never eat it you are just wasting your money.

Couponers are organized hoarders because one of the key tenets is stockpiling. Here's how it works...

Every household has stuff they NEED all the time or use on a regular basis. Examples include things like toilet paper, paper towels, trash bags, shampoo, or pantry staples like canned foods or pasta. So, let's say trash bags are on sale this week for $2 (normally $3) but this week you can get it for $1 using a coupon. Instead of buying just one box, you buy a 6 month supply - so let's say 6 boxes. That way, when you finish your box of trash bags next month, you don't HAVE to buy another box at the regular price. As you stockpile more and more items, there will be less stuff you HAVE to buy at the regular price. Instead of spending money on stuff you have to buy, you can focus on buying just what's on sale.

This is how it saves you money. Going back to the trash bag example, you just bought 6 boxes of trash bags for $6 - that's $2 sale price minus $1 coupon for each box. Regular price is $3. $3 X 6 = $18, but you only spent $6 so you saved $12. Repeat this process with lots of other items and the dollars add up.

When you are starting out the easiest things to stockpile are nonperishable household goods and health and beauty aids. We're talking paper products, toothpaste, shampoo, laundry detergent, feminine products, etc. If you are not brand loyal you can get most of these things for free.

Take a moment and figure out how much stuff - detergent, paper products, shampoo, etc - your household uses in a month. Then, next time one of these products go on sale buy a 6 month supply. The way sales cycles work those products will most likely go on sale again within that time. I also recommend a 6 month supply because, if those products go on sale for even lower during that time, this leaves you room to buy more at the lower cost. This is called dollar cost averaging. When I first started out I actually kept a notebook to keep track of what I paid for stuff so that when a sale occurred I could figure out whether it was a good deal or not.

Everyone's list will be different. For instance, my husband has sensitive skin and for some reason he can ONLY tolerate Arm & Hammer laundry detergent therefore that's the only detergent I buy. I used to get it for $1 a jug. Now my "buy" price is $2.50 or less. Toothpaste on the other hand, I'm not brand loyal, and will use anything. Toothpaste is always free.

So how do you buy things that you need that don't go on sale or offer coupons? Overage.

Back in the paper coupon days overage was a term used when the value of your coupon exceeded the value of the item you were buying and the store gave you back the difference, essentially "paying" you to buy something. Well, the stores caught wise to this and now a days you can't get back cold hard cash but there are other ways...

Some store will have their own form of "fake money" that can only be used in that store. We're talking Extra Care Bucks (ECBs) at CVS, Walgreens Cash (WC) at Walgreens, etc. You can spend their fake currency in store on anything. You earn it by buying certain advertised products every week. If you can figure out how to buy the advertised products for little to no money then you will "make" money in the form of the store's currency to buy other things that you need.

Here is an extreme example...

This week CVS has a promotion where you buy $30 total on certain products and you get back $10 in ECBs, and Airwick products are included in the promotion.

There are coupons available for a free Airwick warmer.

So, if you had 12 of these coupons, you could buy 12 of these in separate transactions.

Separate transactions because you do NOT want a second one to ring up half price.

ECB offers at CVS are cumulative so they do not need to be in one transaction.

Total cost pre-tax would be $31.08 (12 x 2.59), thus qualifying you for the $10 ECB.

Manufacturer coupons are considered a form of payment so you get credit for spending $31.08.

Use the coupon to get your item for free. In Indiana you end up paying $2.18 for tax for all 12 and get back a $10 ECB, thus "making" $7.82.

And yes, there are ways to get 12 of the same coupon but that will be covered later.

This is an "extreme" example because, really, who needs 12 Airwick warmers? 

But you get my point. This is how you game the system.

I will be going in depth on each of the drugstore programs in another post.

Another way to "make" money is via rewards apps. Ones I use are Ibotta, Shopkick, Fetch, Checkout51, Swagbucks, and Coupons.com. These apps will give you money or points back for buying certain products. You send them a picture of your store receipt to get your money/points. The beauty of this is that sometimes multiple apps will have offers on the same product so buy one item and get money back from several different programs, resulting in a profit.

Fetch Rewards is covered HERE. I will be writing about the other programs in a future post.

I'm gonna stop a moment here and ask a favor. All the knowledge I share here is always free and I have no affiliate links in this blog, meaning I don't make any money off the blog. As I start posting about the day to day deals that I do I will be referencing these apps. If you don't already use these and want to sign up I would appreciate it if you could use my referral codes so I can get a little something back for sharing. 

Ibotta: nshhsjp, you get $10 with your first receipt and I get $10

Fetch: 51JURA, you get 2000 points with your first receipt and I get 2000 points

Shopkick: NICE762443, you get 250 points when you earn 10 points in 7 days and I get 250 points

I hope this is a good intro to understanding the basics. Let me know if you have any questions. Lots more to come but I'm trying to break this up into bite size pieces.

Fetch Rewards

Fetch Rewards is an app based reward program I joined this week and I've been really pleased with how easy it's been to earn points.

How to Earn Points 

Super easy! Just snap a photo of your receipt - ANY receipt and you'll get points!

I received 2000 points for my first receipt after I signed up through a referral link.

You will get a minimum of 25 points for any receipt.

I actually snapped photos of every receipt I could get my hands on and I got 600 points for my next receipt, then 400, 100, and 150 points for subsequent receipts, before it started tracking at 25 points.

None of these receipts had any special offers on them. They were mainly receipts from my Walgreens purchases this week, plus receipts from Target, Kohl's, Aldi, Meijer and the gas station. Like I said, it's ANY receipt; ANY retailer!

Looks like you can get credit for receipts as far back as 14 days. Once I snapped a photo of a receipt that was outside this time window I got a notification that more or less said they would accept the receipt this time, but it was really too old to accept.

You can submit a total of 35 receipts in any rolling 7 day period.

You can also hit the DISCOVER tab on the bottom of the app and it will show you a list of items that offer bonuses. If one of those items is on your receipt you will get extra points.

One of the things I like about this rewards program is that you don't have to pick and add which bonuses you want to redeem like some of the other programs. It's all automatic. If you have a qualifying item on your receipt you will automatically get the points, no activation required.

You can also get credit for online purchases at most of the online retailers. 

For Amazon you will need to log into your account through the app but your account information is only saved locally on your phone, not in the cloud. Once I connected my Amazon account I got credit for every purchase I had made in the last 30 days. Sweet!

There is an extensive list of other online retailers on the app including the likes of Target, Walmart, Shipt, Bath and Body Works, Best Buy, DoorDash, etc. I haven't been able to take advantage of this yet because you need to provide your email and on an iOS device it only supports Gmail, AOL, Outlook or Yahoo domains; on an Android device it only supports Gmail domains. I also am not sure if I want the app looking through my email either so I'm not sure I'd enable this feature if I could.

Redeeming Points 

1000 points equals $1.00 in redemption value for most redemptions.

Redemptions start at 3000 points but it looks like most of the gift cards start at 10,000 points.

10,000 points gets you a $10 gift card at a large number of retailers.

There is also a VISA gift card option if you want more of a cash equivalent but those are more expensive, with a $10 gift card starting at 11,500 points.

The one downside to this program is that they do not have an option of cashing out your points for real cash via Paypal or a bank transfer.

Personal Experience 

Like I said, I joined this week. I immediately earned almost 8000 points by snapping photos of every receipt I had laying around. I then looked at the point boosters. The Cafe Caps and the Blue Diamond almonds caught my eye.

This is the time of year I splurge on frivolous food items. They make fun gifts, stocking stuffers... or maybe a gift for myself 😁 When a new product hits the market there are often lots of offers available and that was the case for the Cafe Caps.

The hot cocoa option goes for $8.99 and the coffehouse creation option goes for $9.99 at Meijer. Both contain 6 capsules that you dump into a cup before adding either hot milk or coffee. I seriously would never pay that much real money for these items. HOWEVER... Meijer currently has an mPerk coupon for $3 off each one. The Ibotta app also has an offer for $3 back on each one. Using both of those effectively lowers the cost to $2.99 and $3.99, respectively. Fetch Rewards then offers bonuses of 2500 points, so $2.50 in points, for each one. That doesn't make them free but it was compelling enough for me to buy them to give them a try.

For the Blue Diamond almonds, I love these 6oz cans and stock up whenever someone has them on sale for $2 or less. This week Kroger has them for $1.47 if you load a digital coupon and Fetch will give you a 750 point bonus when you buy 2 cans.

I easily earned over 10,000 points in 2 days. I will probably continue to accumulate points until one of the retailers on their gift card redemption list has a sale, then redeem my points for a free gift card to use at the sale. Case in point, I saw somewhere online one of the couponers that redeemed for $100 in Bath and Body Works gift cards for their sales this month. That would be a great double or triple dip as the items are on sale, you can use the retailer's coupons for the sale, and you pay with a free gift card.

Referral 

If you don't already use Fetch Rewards, I would love it if you would try it out by signing up with my referral code 51JURA.

You will get 2000 points with your first receipt when using my referral code.

I will get 2000 points when you snap your first receipt.

Hope you found this information helpful!

How to Build a Toothpaste Fort

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently started couponing again and hanging out in my old forums. One of the first things I noticed was that everybody seemed to have a lot of toothpaste. I mean a WHOLE LOTTA LOT of toothpaste. I'm not joking when I said people were talking about building forts out of toothpaste. Toothpaste has always been one of those items that was always free to couponers but I haven't seen this much toothpaste stockpiled since back in the double and triple coupon days. Back then the extreme couponers on TV would go wipe out a store and brag about how much they got for free, even though what they got for free was a 100 boxes of toothpaste - totally impractical couponing; I mean, you can't live on toothpaste...

And then I figured out why everybody had toothpaste.

CVS and Walgreens have always been known for doing something called "early activation." What that means is that the prices and deals for the following week will go active in their system sometime on Saturday evening. Well, it seems that now the magic hour systemwide is 11pm on Saturday night for Walgreens.

I noticed sometime during the pandemic that many stores kept the same sales from week to week rather than switching them every week like they used to do.

Somewheres along the way somebody figured out that if Walgreens runs the exact same deal for two consecutive weeks, then from 11pm on Saturday night to 12am on Sunday morning the deals overlap and whatever you buy during that time period will count for both weeks, and in the deals that give Walgreens Cash you will get double your cash. Whoa!

Everybody has toothpaste because one of the most common consecutive week deals is this:

Buy 2 Colgate, Get $4 Walgreens Cash (WC)

Colgate is $3.99

Every week there is a coupon for $4 off 2 Colgate that you can load into your account.

So, Buy 2 Colgate for $7.98, pay $3.98 after coupon and get $4 WC.

BUT... if you do this between 11pm and midnight on Saturday night you will get $8 instead of $4.

If you count WC as a cash equivalent you are getting 2 Colgate and "earning" around $4 (before tax).

As long as you buy in multiples of 2 you will get $8 in WC for every 2 Colgate purchased during this time.

The coupon can only be used once per account so you're never going to "make" more than $4 but you can end up with however much toothpaste you want for free as long as it's in stock.

People buy more than 2 for a variety of reasons.

Most stores close at 11pm so you have to order it for curbside/online pickup and the minimum order is $10. You will need to buy 4 Colgate to meet this threshold and make the offer work.

Sometimes you get other "booster" offers in your account where you get X amount for spending Y amount - like the one I got last week for $3 when I spent $10.

For most boosters you need to spend $20+... so people are buying $20+ of toothpaste to get the extra WC because they know they will essentially get all the money that they pay for the toothpaste "back" as WC too. Follow?

Well, I don't need a whole lot more toothpaste but I had to try this out for myself. On Saturday night I placed an order for 4 Colgate. I used the $4 off 2 coupon. Total after tax came to $13.08. I had $10 in WC already in my account for the deals I did last week so I used that, then paid $3.08 out of pocket.

Holy crap! It worked! 😃😃😃

Doing the math, I started with $10 in WC and now have $16 in WC. I paid $3.08 out of pocket so I essentially "made" $2.92 (darn that tax!), plus I now own 4 more tubes of toothpaste. 😂

I certainly won't be doing this for more toothpaste any time soon but I also heard that a similar deal was active last night for Palmolive dish soap. Now I might need dish soap...

Chocolate, Toothpaste and Omicron

I was in high school when the Coca-Cola company decided to introduce New Coke. It was awful. I can't put a finger on what exactly made it awful but I didn't like it. No one liked it. It lasted 79 days before the "old Coke"(renamed Coca Cola Classic) was brought back. But again, it wasn't the same. It was during this time that high fructose corn syrup came to replace cane sugar in soft drinks. It was never going to be the same again. I became a Diet Coke drinker during this time.

We all crave familiarity. It's been 539 days since I felt like the world was "normal." I chose 539 days because in my mind that was the last day before covid shut down my world. My husband and I went to see IU play in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament that day. College basketball was canceled for the rest of the year after that game. The NBA canceled their season that night. Air travel came to a halt a couple days later. The entire world seemingly shut down.

Now, 539 days later, I hear of people adjusting to the "new normal" all the time. My brain resisted. I don't want a "new" normal. I was holding out for normal. Since that time, I've been vaccinated 3 times, I've been back to basketball games, football games, indoor concerts and flown in planes but it's still not normal. Maybe next year? said the voice in my head... and then Omicron reared its ugly head. No, it's never going to be the same again. At least not anytime soon. And soon is such a relative term.

 A switch turned in me this week and I started doing something I hadn't done in almost 2 years. I went couponing... and it was fun. I think I've reached that stage of acceptance. I don't want a new normal but for better or worse the world is moving on...

Obviously, all couponing stopped at the start of the pandemic. You couldn't make a bazillion trips to the store during a stay-at-home order, then there was limited product to buy and couponers by nature are organized hoarders (at least that's what my husband says) so really, couponing was not feasible or, well, moral. But after almost 2 years I got the itch again. I started hanging out in all my deal forums in November, mainly for the Black Friday deals... but then peeked at what was going on in the grocery store and drug store world with the people that can make forts out of toothpaste boxes and all... and got lured in headfirst by chocolate this week.

I'm a sucker for sweets. I went to go play at Walgreens...

Part 2 - Skip this if you don't care about couponing!

Walgreens Facts (because I needed a refresher too)  

Register Rewards (RR) is fake Walgreens money that usually expires in 2 weeks

Walgreens Cash (WC) is also fake Walgreens money that lives in your digital rewards account for up to a year

Instant Value Coupons (IVC) are Walgreens store coupons that are in a booklet at the front of the store or you can load them digitally into your account. If you have a physical booklet you can use the coupons an unlimited number of times. If you load it digitally it will disappear after you use it once.

So here's the deal...

Godiva currently has a Catalina out (Register Reward at Walgreens) where you can get a coupon for $1 off your next purchase with the purchase of 1 item, $2.50 for 2 items, and $4 for 3+ items. The boxes of Godiva domes are included in the offer. Walgreens has them advertised as 2 for $7 and there is a $2 off 2 IVC. In reality, the boxes ring up $3.50 each as long as you buy 2 or more, and the coupon will take $1 off each box. So, buy 3 for $7.50 total after coupon and get a $4 RR.

Also at Walgreens, there is a Crest toothpaste deal where you get a $5 RR when you buy 3 Crest Toothpaste. The Crest is on sale for $3. There are digital manufacturer coupons available for $2 off 1, $3 off 2, $5 off 3, and $6 off 4 that you can load to your Walgreens account. These are single use coupons.

So...

Walgreens Trip #1

3 Crest @ 3.00      = 9.00

3 Godiva @ 3.50 = 10.50 

                                19.50

-$5 off 3 Crest

-$3 off for 3 Godiva 

$11.50 + tax = $12.87

I had an offer in my Walgreens account for $3 WC when I spent $12. They count the total BEFORE manufacturer coupons but AFTER Walgreens store coupons (IVCs) so I got credit for $14.50 spend and earned $3 WC, as well as a $5 RR for the Crest and $4 RR for the Godiva.

Walgreens Trip #2 

I should note here that now I am "rolling" my RR by using them to get more RR. Rule of thumb for this is that the register will NOT print out another RR for the one you use, even if you satisfy the purchase requirement. For example, if you buy more Crest and use your Crest RR to pay for it, the register will not print out another Crest RR. However, if you use the Godiva RR (or other brand RR) then you can get another Crest RR as long as you satisfy the buy requirement.

4 Crest @ 3.00 = 12.00

- $6 off 4 Crest 

- $4 RR from Godiva  

$2.00 + tax = $2.84

I got another $5 Crest RR and I also had another offer in my Walgreens account for $7 WC when I made 2 purchases of over $10 this month. This counted as my second purchase because both the Crest coupon and the Godiva RR were manufacturer's coupons so I got another $7 WC.

I also want to note that when the cashier tried to scan my $4 RR from Godiva it did not want to scan and she finally ended up putting it in manually. I then figured out that the $6 off 4 Crest coupon must have attached to all 4 items therefore the register thought I didn't have enough items to accept another coupon. When you use a $x.xx off y item coupon sometimes the register will attach it to only one of those items but sometimes it will attach it to all of those items - I just know this from prior experience but hadn't thought about it until it happened. The cashier didn't have a clue on why it wasn't scanning.

Walgreens Trip #3  

So here is where I started thinking about my exit strategy. (Everything in life needs an exit strategy)

RR usually expire in 2 weeks so if you don't have a plan on how you're going to use your fake money it will go to waste. You can buy things with your RR to try and convert its value to either WC that has a longer expiration date, or "cash." I decided to use Ibotta to "cash out" my fake money.

Ibotta is an app where you get cash back for buying certain things and scanning your receipt. Sometimes they have free offers or offers you can combine with coupons to get things free.

3 Godiva @ 3.50 = 10.50

2 Core Bars @ 2.99 = 5.98 

                            $16.48

- $3 off for 3 Godiva

- $5 RR from Crest 

$8.48 + tax = $9.28

I had an offer from Ibotta for $2.99 back for each Core Bar plus $0.20 and $0.25 for simply scanning a receipt so I got $6.43 back in cash in my account plus another $4 RR from Godiva

Walgreens Trip #4 

3 Crest @ 3.00 = 9.00

1 package of Ramen noodles 0.49  

                                      $9.49

- $3 off 2 Crest

- $2 off 1 Crest

- $4 RR from Godiva 

$0.49 + tax = $1.12

I bought the Ramen noodles because I remembered from Trip #2 that I needed 4 items for all my coupons to scan. Got back another $5 RR from Crest.

Final Tally 

6 Godiva

10 Crest

2 Core Bars

1 Ramen

$26.11 out of pocket spend

Earned: $10 Walgreens Cash

              $6.43 Ibotta (that I will cash out)

            (2) $5 Register Rewards that I will use for next week's deals

In summary, I still have $26.43 in cash equivalents from spending $26.11 out of pocket so all the stuff I bought this week is essentially free.

This game is not for everyone. I enjoy the mental gymnastics. I have free toothpaste for the next couple months and some fun chocolate for the holidays. I did my deals on Wednesday and Thursday so it's not like I went to the store on Sunday morning and cleared the shelves either.

Another step towards normalcy for me.

Travel Hacking Ventana Big Sur

 

This is the trip I had been looking forward to all year. Ventana Big Sur had been on my radar for a couple years. I considered going last fall but my husband was not yet comfortable traveling, plus a large portion of California near the resort was on fire so the air quality was poor. I consoled myself by booking a trip for this year. 

Ventana Big Sur is an all inclusive resort that is part of the Hyatt portfolio. It's a Category 7 hotel so the "cheap" rooms are 30,000 points while the suites are 48,000 - 60,000 points. I didn't care if I had a suite or not; I just wanted to go! The 30,000 point rooms are somewhat hard to come by though so I stalked the website daily until some rooms opened up. You have to search (I believe) a minimum of 3 nights for points available rooms to show. I finally scored our rooms on November 3, 2020 and booked 3 nights for October 12-15, 2021. Cash price was $8246.04. I spent 90,000 Hyatt points.

Getting There                                                                                                                                                                     We flew Southwest from Indianapolis to San Jose, then rented a car. I have a Companion Pass so my husband flies free on any flight I fly.

The outbound flight was booked with a Southwest voucher from a Covid cancelled free flight from 2020. The return flight was booked with 11,225 Southwest points.

I logged on to check in for my flight the morning of Sunday October 10th and discovered Southwest was in meltdown. 800 flights had been cancelled on Saturday and more than 1000 flights had already been cancelled on Sunday. We were flying out Monday morning. The plan had been to fly to San Jose, arrive shortly after 3 pm, then drive down to Monterey. We'd have dinner on Old Fisherman's Wharf and spend the night in Monterey before driving the rest of the way down to Big Sur on Tuesday.

Ugh!! Dread set in. What if our flight on Monday got cancelled? Time for a back up plan.

I checked for back up flights on Southwest for later on Monday or Tuesday and quickly discovered that there was absolutely NOTHING available  ANYWHERE until Wednesday. I started checking other airlines and all airports within a reasonable driving distance from both Indianapolis and San Jose. If I wanted to fly out on Monday on another airline it was going to cost us $1000+ a ticket. I found a Web special on American Airlines for Tuesday morning at 6am for 13,000 AA points a ticket. Being an award ticket, it was fully refundable. BOOM!! DONE! 

Let me just say, it's a darn good thing to have a handful of award points in your back pocket for situations like this.

Monday October 11, 2021         

My husband checked Flight Aware in the morning and found that the plane that was suppose to take us from Indy to Las Vegas (where we had a connecting flight) was suppose to originate in Jacksonville, fly to Atlanta, then Indy, and that flight was already showing as cancelled in Jacksonville. However, our flight in Indy was still showing as ON TIME.

Ugh. I ate a good breakfast and we made sure everything was in a carry on. It was going to be a long day.

We got to the airport an hour and a half before boarding in case it was a zoo. Surprisingly it was relatively quiet. We were suppose to fly out at 10:40 am. Shortly before 10am we saw the dreaded DELAYED sign. We were delayed 2 hours so this only gave us 30 minutes to make the connection in Vegas and I already knew that Las Vegas was a zoo. There were NO flights out a Las Vegas on any airline for Monday afternoon that would take us anywhere near San Jose. I looked up the drive time. 8 hours...

We landed in Las Vegas and found that our flight to San Jose was also delayed 2 hours. Umm, yay? We tried to get into the Centurion Lounge so we'd have a place to sit and eat a meal but it was an hour wait to get in and we didn't have that much time. We ended up with cold salads at the gate. I also canceled my flights with American for Tuesday morning. Interestingly, when I opened my AA app to cancel the flights I found an offer from American for $525 a seat if I would agree to take a later flight to San Jose  as they were oversold. I was too anxious and distracted at this point to consider the offer and quickly just cancelled our flights but I kinda wondered later... what if? Could I have taken the offer and then cancelled? Oh well, I guess I made someone happy they got a seat on Tuesday morning.

We finally, finally got to San Jose. Thankfully there were plenty of rental cars. We were both tired and hangry. We ended up at a brew pub in Watsonville, a little city on the way to Monterey, for dinner and pulled into our hotel around 9 pm - which is midnight Indy time. 

I had booked theHyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa using a Hyatt category 1-4 free night certificate. We were upgraded to a golf course view room (cash rate $248 a night) but I would have fallen asleep on a cot at this point as I passed out in bed as soon as I got to the room.

Tuesday October 12, 2021  

I first visited Monterey in 2016 when I ran the Big Sur Marathon. At that time I had come by myself, then met up with my running friends John and Abbie, but I had always wanted to return with my husband so we would eat out on Old Fisherman's Wharf and go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 

I was better in the morning. We had breakfast at the Sea Root restaurant. This was included in our stay with my Hyatt Globalist status. We then checked out and headed over to the aquarium.

When I was here before, I didn't have time to go to the aquarium so I was excited to go. Tickets were a hefty $50 each so we planned to look at everything and take our time. You have to buy your tickets online and select an entry time however once you get in, you can stay as long as you like and they will even stamp your arm if you want to leave and come back the same day. Starting November 1, 2021, you will need to show proof of full vaccination or a negative covid-19 test to enter.

I took SO many pictures! My favorite was the jellyfish exhibit. I think I could watch them undulate and float all day.

Purple Striped Jelly Fish

We found Nemo and Dory

Angelfish

After several hours at the aquarium, we walked over to Old Fisherman's Wharf for a late lunch. When I was here in 2016 I remember that all the restaurants had people out front giving clam chowder samples and this area is known for it's calamari. Well, no free samples now but I wanted clam chowder and calamari. We ended up at Crabby Jim's. We got a free fried calamari appetizer and I got a calamari sandwich with clam chowder and the BEST seasoned fries; so much food we couldn't finish it all. By now it was 4pm. It was another hour drive to Big Sur. We had dinner reservations at Ventana at 6:15pm. Time to go!

The Big Sur Marathon starts in Big Sur and goes north up Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, to end in Monterey. Along the way I saw some of the most breathtaking scenery I had ever seen. Again, I wanted to share this with my husband as we drove down the coast. We stopped just south of the Bixby Bridge for a photo. During the Big Sur Marathon there is a pianist that plays a grand piano on this bridge.

Bixby Bridge is in the background; it was really windy too!

We got to Ventana just before 6pm. Thankfully they were able to push our dinner reservation back to 7:30 pm. All meals are included but you have to reserve a time for dinner. Meals are served outside on a patio overlooking the Pacific ocean. I had originally scheduled ours between 6:15 - 6:30 pm as I wanted to eat at sunset.

Another unexpected surprise we got was when everyone from the guy at the gate to our server at dinner congratulated us for our anniversary. I must have put some comment in our reservation last year that it was our 25th anniversary this year but I sure don't remember it! 

Our room at Ventana was a King Bed with Fireplace (Unit 31). The room was plenty big for our needs. It had a little patio that overlooked a forest view and a kitchenette area with seating.

We had a drawer full of snacks and a refrigerator full of drinks that were all included too. We were told at check in that our rooms would not be serviced unless requested but if we needed any more snacks or drinks we could request more at any time. Same goes for firewood. We had 3 bags of wood - you just put the bag in the fireplace and set the whole thing on fire - but they would bring you more any time.

Dinner and breakfast are served at The Sur House. You have to walk a 0.3 mile trail through the woods to get there. You can also request a golf cart ride along the service road if you don't want to walk.

Dinner was nice but the problem was we were still too full from lunch to enjoy it; like so full I couldn't even finish my meal, never mind even thinking about dessert. I had Spring Chicory Salad and Garganelli Pasta while my husband had the Carrot Soup and Spring Chicory Salad; he was too full for a main course. He did comment that the Carrot Soup was fantastic.

After dinner there is a fire out in front of the Social House and there are s'mores kits to either take to your room or make at the fire pit. We ended up taking a kit to our room but were too full to make our s'mores. There is no way you will go hungry here!

Wednesday October 13, 2021

We decided we didn't want to put "real clothes" on to walk all the way over for breakfast in the morning and ordered in. Problem was, by the time we decided to order at 8:15 am, the earliest they could deliver it was 9:30 am. Oh well. We stayed in bed until breakfast came, then ate out on our patio.

After breakfast we decided to walk around the property to get our bearings. We walked over to the Meadow Pool and Infinity Hot Tub around 11am. There were only 2 people there and the Ocean Meadow, which is a large grassy area with views of the ocean, was empty. We then did the hike that goes around the property.

This was a picnic area called the Redwood Cathedral

You can order lunch out by the pool but after stuffing ourselves the day before, we wanted to be hungry for dinner so we ended up lounging in the room for the rest of the afternoon and grazing on our snacks.

Our snack drawer

What came in our fridge

For dinner, I ordered the asparagus salad as my appetizer and the dry aged NY strip for my meal. My husband got the Spanish octopus appetizer and the rack of lamb as his meal. I got the flourless chocolate torte for dessert and he got the lemon tart. The food was presented beautifully.

Spanish Octopus
blistered pepper, sunflower ajo blanco, madarin, aleppo vinaigrette

Asparagus Salad
asparagus, lentil salad, poached egg, aleppo pepper, vanilla bean vinaigrette

Flourless Chocolate Torte

After dinner we had a fire in our fireplace and made plans on where to hike the next day.

Thursday October 14, 2021

Having learned the day before, we put in our breakfast order the night before and got breakfast delivered to us at 8:30 am. I got French Toast and my husband got a Chia Seed Breakfast Bowl.

French Toast
macerated blueberries, basil, elderflower, creme fraiche, streusel

Chia Seed Breakfast Bowl
acai, seasonal fruits, pistachio, candied ginger, cardamom

We then drove out to do some hikes.

First stop was McWay Falls at Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park. It's an 80-foot waterfall that goes right into the ocean. You have to stay on the trail so this is as close as we could get.

Next stop was Parthington Cove. The trailhead is right off Highway 1 so we basically parked on the shoulder and walked the 1.1 mile trail down to the ocean. Here we spotted some sea otters but they looked like little black blobs when we tried to take pictures of them.

Here you could walk all the way down to the ocean.

We drove back to Ventana for lunch and ate at the Smokehouse which is a barbeque restaurant on the property. Quite honestly, save your calories.

I wanted to lay by the pool after lunch but then discovered that every lounge chair out by the Meadow Pool, Infinity Pool, and Ocean Meadow was full. I think it was because the pool was the only other place besides your room that you could get lunch. I ended up walking over to the Mountain Pool at the other end of the property and there were open lounge chairs there, but it was also buggy. After about an hour I walked back over to the other pool and just got in the Infinity Hot Tub since there was no one actually IN the hot tub or pool. I got in the pool after that, then saw that people were finally leaving and snagged a lounge chair up on the sun deck.

Finally snagged a lounge chair!
That is the ocean in the horizon

For our final dinner, I got the Spanish octopus appetizer and Roasted Halibut as my meal. My husband tried the Shrimp Salad and Fogline Farm Chicken. He thought the chicken was the best dinner he'd had here. My octopus was disappointingly over done and the halibut was soggy. I got a Stone Fruit Galette for dessert and my husband got Snickerdoodle Ice Cream.

Stone Fruit Galette
It was mostly crust :(

Sunset view at dinner

After dinner we wandered over to the firepit and made s'mores. We met a couple from Southern California and talked to them for awhile. They were on their honeymoon and also celebrating their 40th birthdays. They had just come down from Napa where they had had dinner at the French Laundry. It had been a 16 course meal. Goals. We then had another fire in our fireplace before going to bed.

Friday October 15, 2021

I decided to walk over to the Sur House in the morning for breakfast. There was only one other table there when I arrived at 8 am and it was nice to sit and watch the ocean. I enjoyed a latte and tried the Squash Frittata. Honestly, it wasn't exactly my favorite thing. It looked a lot better than it tasted... and I still have no idea what midnight moon is! I then got a cinnamon roll that was a little better and called it a meal.

Squash Frittata
roasted and pickled squash, garden greens, cider mustard vinaigrette, midnight moon

We checked out after that, took some final pictures, and hit the road to go hiking at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.

Ventana Big Sur

We got to Point Lobos around 11am and found that the parking lot was full. The park ranger directed us to park on the shoulder of the highway so we parked there and walked in. We hiked the Lace Lichen Trail to the South Shore Trail to go to Sea Lion Point. You could hear the sea lions even before you could see the ocean.

Sea Lion Point

The sea lions are on those rocks

We continued on the South Shore Trail until just south of Weston Beach where we took the Mound Meadow Trail back to the park entrance.

After our hike we stopped in Monterey for lunch and got pizza before driving on to San Jose.

We booked the Hampton Inn San Jose Airport for our final night as it was minutes away from the airport and we had a 6:30 am flight out. We found a local Greek restaurant for dinner.

Saturday October 16, 2021

Another long day, although not quite as long as our day coming out.

We got up at 4 am and got checked out by 4:30 am. Rental car got returned just before 5am and then on to our gate. Thankfully there were no delays and we left promptly at 6:30 am.

We had a 3 hour lay over in Denver. The Centurion lounge was very conveniently next to our gate with no wait this time. We had both breakfast and lunch in the lounge. Flight to Indy left on time and we got home at 5:30pm.  

Travel Hacking Summary, 6 days, 5 nights

Southwest flight IND-SJC x 2 : Free travel voucher/Companion Pass + $11.20 tax 

-cash value $228.59 x 2

Southwest flight SJC-IND x 2: 11,225 Southwest points/Companion Pass + $11.20 tax

-cash value $346.98 X 2

Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa, 1 night : Hyatt free night certificate

-cash value $248

Ventana Big Sur, 3 nights : 90,000 Hyatt points

-cash value $8246.04

Hampton Inn San Jose Airport, 1 night : $115.82

Hertz car rental, 5 days : $260 (my husband paid for this with a corporate rate)

Total out of pocket expense: $398.22

Total saved with points: $9645.18

I could have used 35,000 Hilton points for the Hampton Inn but the room rate was inexpensive enough that I decided to save my Hilton points and earn more Hilton points by paying cash. 

Using points allows us to vacation at places I would otherwise never pay cash for, plus it allows us to spend more on activities and restaurants while vacationing and not worry about our spend since we have already saved so much on flights and lodging. That being said, I think I'm checking Ventana Big Sur off my list. It was nice but not THAT nice. The food was beautiful but mediocre at best. There are SO many things to do around the resort but I felt obligated to eat my meals there since they were included so this made us schedule our activities around our meals. The area is absolutely beautiful and I definitely want to come back, but will stay somewhere else next time.