Several of you have sent me questions about all the money I save so thought I would use this post to answer them. Mega money saving has become a passion of mine and I'm always happy to help share the things that I have learned (and am still learning!)
Here are the steps I would take to get started-
1. Start getting the Sunday newspaper each week. Some weeks the coupons are so good that I actually buy 2 papers. For example, Gillette gives awesome $4 off coupons that make men's razors free with the right deal so I always make sure to get several papers on those weeks. Other weeks you might use none of the coupons but make sure you hang on to them until they expire because you might be able to pair them with deals in future weeks.
2. Sign up for a CVS Extra Care Card. It's free and simple and only takes a few minutes in the store. In addition, go online and sign up for their email list and you will receive awesome money-saving emails. I got a FREE $4 coupon on my birthday!
3. There are other drug stores that offer the same types of rewards system as CVS (Rite Aid, Walgreens) but in my personal opinion, it's best to get started with just one drug store. It can be overwhelming at first and when you're trying to juggle three different stores worth of deals, it can be a bit much. I did CVS only for my first year and about three months ago I threw Rite Aid into the mix.
4. Now, for the actual money saving part... As I alluded to earlier, CVS (and the other drug stores) have these amazing things called Extra Care Bucks. If you look in their ad each week, it will tell you the items that give you these wonderful treasures. (Slight exaggeration, maybe??) The goal is to buy items that give you ECB using ECB from other purchases. For example, this is what I did this week...
*I had 12 ECB left from last week (it might take a few weeks of actual out of pocket spending to gain ECB but that's to be expected) so I got my CVS ad and looked for items that would yield around the same amount of ECB.
*They were running a sale on Air Wick where you received $10 in ECB if you spent $20. I didn't need Air Wick items but I used the coupons in Sunday paper that brought my total down to $11. I then applied my ECB from last week, paid only a dollar for all of that stuff, and was then given $10 in ECB in return.
*I turned right around and used a Huggies $3 off coupon, a CVS email coupon that gave me $4 off of $20, along with my newly acquired ECB and then got a jumbo box of Huggies Diapers for $3. Oh yes, and I got 3 ECB after that.
*When it was all said and done, I walked out of CVS spending under $5 for diapers (which are always nice to stock pile!), along with other household items that I can put away for future uses. Such a great feeling!
5. Another thing to remember is that Buy One Get On Free (BOGO) sales combined with BOGO coupons= FREE! I always watch my BOGO coupons like a hawk and am eager to jump on any sales that I can use to get such items for free. This week I got $10 worth Of Stay Free products absolutely FREE because of this.
6. I consider myself to be a amateur in the coupon world. There are many bloggers out there that put my knowledge to shame! Use them to your advantage. My favorite sites include... MoneySavingMom.Com and ChaChingOnAShoeString.Com. These women will give you weekly scenarios for money saving (though I think it's more fun to come up with my own!), along with online deals, frugal recipes, etc..
I hope that this has answered some of your questions! It may seem daunting at first but once you get going and start saving massive amounts of money, you'll most likely be hooked like me! Don't hesitate to ask me more questions if I've confused you at all:-)
2 comments:
Do ECB have an expiration date?
They do but they're stated on the ECB. I believe they're good for a month but upon the rare occassion that I've let mine expire, they've always excepted them, regarldess. It's not a great practice to LET them expire but it's nice to know that if you do they'll still accept it if you do.
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