Adventures in Couponing

I have two friends who are so into couponing that I’ve been inspired to become better at it. I have always clipped coupons but when I get to the store, I forget to use them or I don’t feel like digging through them at the cashier’s register. Also, I don’t think I was leveraging them properly. Plus, I don’t want to end up spending money on things I don’t need just to use a coupon. Anyway, as I spend more time listening to my girlfriend Maria and reading about Cindy’s quest and adventures in couponing, I’ve started to learn more and more. The internet is filled with such valuable information. I found that some people really do their homework when it comes to combining sales circulars with coupons and they share that information with others.

So, I decided to pay CVS a visit yesterday. Thank goodness Maria’s ride home crossed with mine at the exact same time and she stopped into CVS because she really helped me get through what could have been a crazy ordeal. We went through the aisles picking up the good deals. They had Pantene on sale at 3 bottles for $12. I picked up 6 bottles and used two coupons in conjunction for a total of $8 off. Then, I picked up two tubes of paste that I used with two coupons for a total of $1.75 off. I found a box of pantiliners on sale for .99 cents so I picked that up as well. I got to the cashier and presented her with a $4 online coupon from CVS (which I got for updating my profile with my email address). She rang up all my items and took my coupons and my total was $16.97.

As I am walking out with Maria, I can’t but feel like I didn’t really get a good deal. I spent $17 and only received $2 back in extra bucks. As we look at the receipt, we realize that we didn’t receive the extra bucks for the paste so back to the register we go. I had mistakenly gotten the wrong size tube so we had to do a refund. Oh no. What a mess. She refunded the two tubes but needed to put it on my card and my card’s swipe wouldn’t work. Then another cashier came to help and couldn’t get it to work. Before you know it, the manager is involved and I’m starting to sweat. Thank God Maria was there. They finally decide to put the credit back onto a gift card but tell me that I’ll loose my $1.75 in coupons. Why? That doesn’t make sense to me. But I only said this to myself so Maria steps up and demands to know why. The manager never really explained it but says she’s going to apply the discount for us. What a mess.

This morning, I went back to CVS and picked up a box of pantiliners. They weren’t on sale and I didn’t have a coupon but there was a promotion running where you would receive 3.84 back in extra bucks. How can I loose? As I sit down and look over my receipts and calculate spenditures, coupons, and extra bucks I realize that I spent a total of $21.14. I used $13.75 worth of coupons and received 12.50 back in extra bucks that I can use on future purchases. Wow, maybe this couponing really does work. I was so inspired that I bought a newspaper subscription and I can’t wait to start analyzing the sales ads and the coupons. Thanks Cindy and Maria for getting me on track!