The Stockpile

I love free, free is for me, and I'll admit it, I'm slightly addicted to TLC's Extreme Couponing.  The fact that these people are getting all this stuff for mere pennies astounds me.  Now I know I'll never be at their level, and I can honestly say I really don't want to be, but I'm kind of excited about mini-extreme couponing. The hubby and I started this a few weeks ago and have already accumulated a tiny stockpile.  We've decided to just start with the stores we frequent most (Target and CVS) and on a few products we use the most.  It's kind of addicting.

A few weeks ago, CVS had Glade air fresheners on sale for $.99 each.  Their website also had a coupon for $2 off 2 Glade products.  We were able to print 10 coupons in total (using various home and work computers) and bam! 10 free air-fresheners.  I don't think I'll ever have to buy them again.  The only "work" required here was looking at that week's circular and comparing it with the coupons found at CVS.com.  Easy peasy.

The key to CVS shopping is to use rewards dollars for all your purchases so you never have to pay anything out of pocket.  Rewards dollars are attached to specific items and if you buy that item that week, money is added to your account and can be used on a future purchase.  That being said, you will have to do an initial shopping trip to earn the rewards dollars in the first place and that will require you to spend a bit of money.  The savings you will get in the long-run, though, will far outweigh that initial cost.

The hubby did this a few weeks ago.  He did some research using just the CVS weekly ad and saw what products that week were offering rewards.  In the end, he spent about $30 (on all things we use frequently) and received $16.27 in rewards dollars.  The next week, he got a 4th quarter rewards bonus (a perk for frequenting the store) that added $12.50 in rewards to his account.  His total rewards were $28.77. 

Now that this was all set, the key was to then buy products that one, you have a coupon for and two, will also give back rewards dollars.  This makes it so your reserve rewards dollars are never depleted and you "buy" everything only with rewards.  On his next trip, he bought 3 boxes of Special K Cereal (a staple in our household), Nivea Body wash, 3 Nivea lip care products, Colgate toothpaste, and Special K cereal bars, all for...drum-roll please...3 cents!  The total price was $28.45, he used $6 in coupons and $22.45 in extra rewards.  The 3 cents must have been for tax...we think.

The Special K cereal bars (not pictured) were the only thing he bought that he didn't have a coupon for or didn't give back rewards dollars.  It is something we always have on hand and we were out, so it was our splurge!  All the coupons were found either in the Sunday newspaper or simply by Googling that brand's printable coupons.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but well worth the few minutes it takes to find the deals.

That same week, Target was running a deal for a $5 gift card when you purchased 5 Glade Products.  MyPoints was also running a Glade promotion where you could print multiple $1.50 off of two Glade Product coupons.  We bought four Glade Candles and one air freshener at $2.50 each totaling $12.50.  We then used two $1.50 off of two Glade product coupons and one .55 cent off one Glade air freshener, taking $3.55 off our total.  We then received a $5 Target Gift Card  We split our transactions into two and I was able to use the $5 gift card on the second one for other stuff I was buying.  If you add the total of the gift card to the savings, we spent $3.95 for 5 Glade Products.  Not our best savings, but savings nonetheless.

If you're a frequent Target shopper, check out their online coupons.  They have a TON on their website and they can be combined with manufacturer coupons.  I saved $4 on a sweater there the other day (that was already on clearance!). 

Here is how our little stockpile is shaping up!

The small lotion in front was a Facebook promotion.  If you liked the company's page, you could print a coupon for a free sample of their new lotion at CVS.  The Johnson and Johnson's first aid kit was also free.  They were on sale for $.97 at Wal-Mart just before Christmas and there was a coupon in the Sunday paper for $1.00 off one J&J product.  I actually made $.03 on this and it was applied to the rest of my purchase!

Call us materialistic, call us hoarders, call us whatever you want, but if we can get it for free, you can bet your last penny we're going to.

Be well,