Fun and Frugal

I haven’t been in CVS in a while, but we needed Kleenexes and they have them on sale, so I made a quick trip.  I didn’t pay a cent for 3 boxes of Kleenexes and a tube of Crest Pro-Health toothpaste.  Here’s what I did:

• We filled two new prescriptions for one of my kids this week at CVS.  I presented a K-Mart coupon (from a recent Sunday paper ad) for a free $10 gift card with any new or transferred prescription.  (CVS and K-Mart each accept competitor prescription coupons for gift cards.)  Fortunately, the prescriptions only cost $5/ea after our health insurance, so I paid $10 for the meds and got back a $10 CVS gift card for FREE with my coupon.
• Today, I bought a tube of Crest Pro-Health toothpaste.  It’s on sale for $2.99 with $2.00 back in Extra Care Bucks (ECB’s).  I had a $1 coupon I got from my dental hygenist this week when I had my teeth cleaned, which made the toothpaste free after coupon and ECB’s.  My total was $2.28 and put it on my $10 gift card I got a few days ago.
• After I paid for the toothpaste, I asked the cashier to ring up my Kleenexes separately and I bought 3 boxes of Kleenexes on sale for $.96/ea (limit 4) and used a $.50/3 coupon from the 8/2/09 Smart Source insert.  I redeemed my $2 ECB I just earned from my prior toothpaste transaction and owed $.66, which I put on my gift card.
• In the end, I got 3 boxes of Kleenexes and a tube of Crest Pro-Health toothpaste for no out-of-pocket cost and I have $7.06 left on my gift card.

If you learn the ropes at CVS, you can learn how to use coupons and ECB’s to get things for free.  You’ll never pay for toothpaste again!  Southern Savers has great resources on CVS Getting Started Guide for beginners here and you can check out her deal match-ups for this week, ending Sept. 26 here.

Tip: Start saving extra stockpile items now (such as toothpaste) for Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes!

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