Brag of the Week: life is good when you actually make money off a shopping trip

It's so nice when stores actually pay you to shop.

My husband and I are in Omaha for the Sukkot holiday (Joshua has some work-stuff here). Denver is our home and we love it, but Omaha has two great things that Denver does not: CVS and Trader Joe's. I'm going to do my Trader Joe's run next week, but today, I had a rather stellar session at CVS.

Full disclosure: I shopped at a brand new CVS store that had put some really nice store coupons in our Omaha mailbox this weekend, which was part of the reason I was able to do so well with this shopping run. But the real reason, I was able to do well because CVS is running a gift card promotion this week:  purchase $30 worth of certain items, and you will receive a $10 gift card in return.

So, after all was said and done, the grand pre-coupon, pre-tax total  for all the items you see above was $33.93:

• 6 boxes of Puffs @ $1.50,
• 1 box of Kleenex with lotion @ $2.37
• 4 two-liter Diet Cokes @ $1.50 , 
• 1 CVS brand Maxis @ $2.99,  
• 1 trial-size Irish Spring deodorant @ $0.99, 
• 2 bottles of Advil 50-count @ $6.29 
• 2 bottles of Advil 25-count, @ $0.00 (bonus bottles) 

I applied these coupons:

• 3 $1 coupons off any Coke product (from  Recyclebank; sadly, no longer available) 
• 2 $0.25 coupons off 3 boxes of Puffs (P&G insert from 10/2/11)
• 2 $1 coupon off any Advil
• Free CVS store product coupons for CVS Maxis ($3), Irish Spring ($0.99), Kleenex with lotion ($2.37) and one bottle of Diet Coke ($1.50).

This particular CVS store had also given me a coupon for $5 off $15 and a funny voucher that asked me to introduce myself to the pharmacy staff and rewarded me with a $5 CVS gift card (that could be used immediately).  Also, the Advils were on sale...buy one, get one half off ($3.15) I also had a $0.50 Extra Care Buck from a prior purchase.  Coupon, ECB, and discount value total:  $27.00

My total out-of-pocket (pre-tax) was $6.92 + $1.20 tax =$8.12. My receipt is here.


BUT, I also got my $10 CVS gift card,  so I actually ended up making $1.88 off the deal.  Now that's a nice haul.