Another Awesome Week at CVS

I am such a Diet Coke addict it's not even funny. I know it pickles your brain and makes you fat but I can't help it. I just have to have it. I even stopped drinking it, and everything caffeinated, for several weeks last year when I was on my caffeine fast for the Napa Marathon but I had to have some as soon as it was over. Granted, I've cut back... some. I'm trying. But I'm still buying it.

So... I'm enrolled in My Coke Rewards. It's the rewards program run by the Coca-Cola company where you punch in their cap codes and package codes to accumulate points for stuff from their rewards catalog. Every December several items go on sale in the rewards catalog. In previous years I have spent my points on gift cards as well as free 12-pack coupons. This year they really did not offer any great gift cards so, instead, I got a bunch of free 12-pack coupons at a huge discount. They were 30 points a piece. To put things in perspective, they are normally 275 points. A cap code is worth 3 points. The code from a 12-pack is worth 10 points.

Anyhoos, CVS has a deal this week where if you spend $30 on select products, including Diet Coke 12-packs, you earn a $10 ECB. 12-packs are on sale 3/$10. I had 6 free 12-pack coupons plus my $5 and $2 ECBs from last week.

As far as free item coupons, the retailer (cashier) usually has the choice of either punching in the maximum allowed for the coupon, which for the free Coke 12-packs is $4.99, or the actual selling price if it is less. You can only use 4 of the free 12-pack coupons at a time (as stated on the coupon) so I had to break it up into two trips. This is how it played out...


Trip #1
4 Lady Speedstick deodorants @ $3.00 each (sale price)
3 12-packs Diet Coke @ 3/$10 sale price
Total $22.00
Used 2 (buy 1 get 1 free Speedstick coupons), 3 (free 12-pack Coke product coupons), $5 ECB from last week's Angel Soft deal
Paid $1.03 + $1.54 tax = $2.57
Got back a $6 ECB for the Speedstick

The cashier initially put in $4.99 for the free coupons which brought my total down to $2.xx without using the $5 ECB. I had my credit card IN the reader when she suddenly got nervous about completing the transaction and wanted the manager to OK the use of the free coupons. Her manager told her it was OK but that she should put in the sale price of $3.33 instead of $4.99 so we re-rang the transaction and I threw in the $5 ECB at the end since re-ringing the free coupons at a lower price brought my pre-tax total to over $5.

Trip #2
6 12-packs Diet Coke @ 3/$10 sale price
Total $20.00
Used 3 (free 12-pack Coke product coupons), $2 ECB from last week's Kotex deal, $6 ECB from Speedstick
Paid $0.35 + $1.40 tax = $1.75

This was at the CVS down the street. I fully expected the cashier to put in $3.33 for my free coupons and then I'd use the $8 in ECBs. However, this cashier decided to enter $4.99 for the first coupon. If she rang them all that way my pre-tax total would be too low to use all my ECBs and I didn't want to be hanging on to all these ECBs because they expire a month from printing and I don't see anymore huge deals coming up in the next few weeks so I wanted to spend them now! I told her, "I think you need to put in $3.33 for that." (And I can't believe that actually came out of my mouth but it did.) She studied the coupon. Then she said she'd leave the first one as is but rang the other two as $3.33. Cha-ching!! That couldn't have worked out any better if I had planned it. Pre-tax total was $8.35 so I spent all my ECBs and was out the door for $1.75.

Paid $4.32 for everything in the photo

Have $10 in ECBs to use in the next month

 

So there you have it. Stocked up for the next few weeks and deal shopping is done this week. Now to focus on my runs and continue cleaning!