Month: April 2008

I know that I am responsibe for getting Lisanne and Lynn hooked on CVS, and with good reason: awesome deals! With just a little effort and planning and coupon cutting you can save a lot of money. I, personally, did not do a tremendous amount of “CVS’ing” this month. I had a couple OK runs, but there were a lot of deals I did not take full advantage of because I feel like I never had the time to run down there. I will totally be making the effort in May though because it looks like a great month for their Extra Care deals. I thought I’d give you a heads up on some of the best deals that I saw coming up next month.

Here are the freebies:

Aquafresh Toothpaste (Advanced Whitening 6 oz or Extreme Clean 5.6 oz): 2.99 Limit 3

Adidas Action3 Anti Perspirant 2.8 oz: 4.99 Limit 3

Orapik Traveler Twin Pack: 2.79 Limit 3

Tums Quik Pak 24 ct: 4.69 Limit 2

Freestyle Lite or Freedom Lite Blood Glucose Monitor: 10.00 Limit 2 (You can donate these if you don’t have a use for them!)

CVS Allergy Relief 5 ct (Compare to Claritin): 3.79 Limit 3

Colgate 360 Clean or Deep Clean Tooth Brush: 3.99 Limit 3

I know there are coupons out for several of these items so they have the potential to be money makers. I have been slack in getting the newspaper the last couple weeks, I might be out of luck 🙁 But free is good too! One of the things I like about stockpiling free goods from CVS is that it allows me to donate extras. Several times a year I hear about collections for various shelters and having things like toothpaste, soap, and deoderant at the ready makes charitable giving really easy. Many churches have collection boxes too.

Other good deals of note:

CVS/Pharmacy brand items: Buy 2, get 1 free

CVS/Pharmacy Indoor/Outdoor Allergy Relief 60-100 count: Get $5 ECB Limit 5

Chapstick 100% Naturals: Get $1 ECB Limit 5

Green & Black’s Organic Chocolate: Get $1 ECB Limit 5

Buy 2 Ass’t Drinks (Lipton tea, Sobe Life Water, Aquafina): Get $1 ECB Limit 5

Celestial Seasonings Teas: Get $1 ECB Limit 5

Betty Crocker 18.3 Fudge Brownie Mix: Get $1 ECB Limit 5

There is so much more in the May book, but these are the deals I am most interested in. And this is just the monthly deals. Don’t forget to check the weekly circular for weekly sales!

Earlier this week in an e-mail, Lisanne had asked me about cash register tape coupons (often referred to as CRTs). She recieved a coupon for $10/$50 purchase and a few coupons for a certain amount off of a certain specific item. She wanted to know if she could use all those coupons in one transaction. The answer is: YES (provided you buy the items and spend the designated amount of money, of course). Store product coupons and $/$$ coupons are not viewed as the same type of coupon. “Stacking” would be using say a $10/$50 and a $4/$20 in the same transaction. This practice is generally frowned on because some stores see it as coupon abuse. Unfortunately there is a lot of that. Sure you can find a lot of CVS $/$$ coupons online to print (because CVS has an offer where if you update your e-mail address, you will be sent a coupon), but personally I think it’s wrong to use coupons that weren’t sent to you specifically. Other people feel different, and that’s fine but I do what I personally feel is ethical. I don’t want to be blacklisted from CVS! I think I would cry!

Speaking of e-mail coupons, though… Yesterday I received a coupon for $4/$20 health and beauty products. So check your e-mail – you might have received one too! I have heard rumors that CVS is starting to associate certain coupons with certain card numbers, so be wise and don’t cheat the system!

I hope this gives anyone who is interested a jump start on their planning for next month! (Don’t forget to clip those coupons from the Sunday paper! That way you save even more!)

Lately, a lot of blogs I’ve been reading have mentioned Dave Ramsey in one way or another. I’d heard the name before so one night I decided to tune into his show. I am all for being frugal and saving money, so I found some of the stuff interesting. Luckily, the only debt we have is our mortgage payment and one small car payment, so a lot of what he was talking about was not really relevant to our situation. However, one caller asked him about life insurance. He had been researching term life insurance quotes and wanted Mr. Ramsey’s advice on what to do. Now, I was always under the impression that whole life insurance is perferable to term, but in his opinion, the return you get on whole life insurance just isn’t worth the investment. I haven’t had the chance to research it further, but I probably will because I’d never heard that before. I just found that interesting.

Today was Jake’s first official tee-ball game! Both teams played great and the kids are all so cute. The coach is amazing — so patient and really good with the kids. You can tell he enjoys it. Jake is working on focussing but I think all in all he does pretty well for a kid who has never played a team sport. Today was a little crazy because there was the opening day parade and all the teams had photos, so everything was a little late and the kids were pretty tired by the time they were able to play. But still so fun. And I enjoyed meeting some of the other parents. There are a few kids from his nursery school (from last year) so I caught up with their moms. Good stuff!