Getting Our House In Order

My name is Meg and I live in Buffalo NY with my husband Andrew and our cat Jake.
We are working on getting our house in order by saving money, getting organized, and simplifying things.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

CVS and the danger of impulse purchases




I went to CVS today. I had $13 in Extra Care Bucks expiring tomorrow, so I needed to use them. I put together a plan for very little out of pocket (oop) expense. I went in knowing that typically at CVS I need to be flexible, since they are often out of sale items. Not the case today. However…I got caught in the IMPULSE PURCHASE TRAP!!! Boo! One of the potential hazards of this “hobby”


Here’s how it went.

I stopped first at the coupon machine and scanned my card. (most CVS’s have these. It is the price scanner that now gives you CVS coupons…before you shop…excellent!)

I got $1.00 off any CVS skin care item (excludes trial sizes) and $1.00 off CVS facial tissues. Big fat stink... But then I decided to go see if they had a good price on facial wipes (as I stated in a previous post, I love these things! They are great to travel with because they can go in a carry-on bag and are neither a liquid nor a gel. They are also great for those nights when you are just too tired to wash your face. Sleeping in makeup is BAD. With these it’s just swipe/swipe sleep. They were on sale buy 1 get 1 half off. OK, I figure, I’ll grab these in case they don’t have the things on my list cause I need at least $13 pre tax at the end to use up my ecb’s. The 2nd thing I decided to get was the Venus razor. I had a P&G coupon for a free Olay body wash (which I DO NOT NEED!!) with purchase, plus a $2 coupon off the razor. OK good deal. Into the cart. THEN I attacked my list…



4 boxes of Cheerios (BOGO)

4 boxes of Kleenex (BOGO) (2 are not pictured. They went to the office!)

1 Gillette Razor ($4 ECB with purchase

I used these coupons:

2 x$1.25 off chocolate cheerios (yes. I know…but Andrew likes both chocolate and cheerios, so I am taking a chance!)

2x .75 off any cheerios

$1 off 4 Kleenex



The aforementioned impulse purchases

1 Venus Razor

1 Olay Ribbons

2 CVS Anti-aging face wipes (not just wipes..ANTI-AGING wipes! I need all the help I can get!!)

I used these coupons :

Free Olay Ribbons w/purchase of Venus razor (7.49)

$2 off Venus razor

$1 off CVS skin care



Then I used $13.00 in ECB for a grand total of $17.13 Boo!!

I mean according to my receipt I saved $50.65 and it is a lot of stuff, but pretty much what I paid was the total of my impulse purchases and I really didn’t need any of it. My stockpile on these items is pretty good.

Ah Well…Live and Learn.

From now on it needs to be list first, then other stuff if list stuff isn’t available. Yes. I will do that. I promise!! I’ll try anyway.



As a side note…between this purchase and my rite aid yesterday, I already have enough P&G purchases to send in for the $100 in coupons. This deal will be in the paper on 2/21 (you’re gonna start getting the Sunday paper…right??) but you can send in receipts dated after 2/1. Awesome.

Details about this, as well as some good scenarios for the P and G $35 gift card at Rite Aid can be found at www.hip2save.com. I recently discovered this site and so far I am very impressed.

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