Sunday, March 28, 2010

Couponing for Charity: 3/28 - 4/3 & Update #3--REVISED


I'm a little embarrassed to admit my confusion on this, but surely I'm not the only one. I just realized that the Walgreen's register rewards are an even better deal than I thought. I believed you had to use a $5RR for ONE item that cost at least $5--not so. You can buy as many things as you can adding up to $5 and use your RR like store credit. Boy, would this have saved me some bucks the past few months. At least I know it now that I have $11 in RR in my wallet. That said, I would have gone for the Dulcolax deal; so you might give that a try. Hip2Save has a good break-down of how to get a LOT for just $6 at Walgreens this week.

It's spring break this week--which means I'll have all three kids all the time. I'm not brave or insane enough to shop with all of them; so I snuck away today to Kroger, Walgreen's and CVS. Therefore, I decided to make just one post on my recommendations and my finds for charity.

If you're going to pick one place this week, choose Walgreen's. For all the Walgreen's match-ups go here and for Coupon Katie's picks, go here. The two best deals in my opinion are the Dove and Simply Saline products because both are money makers. Dove shampoos, conditioners, and styling products are $4, get $4RR. You can use a $2 printable to make each a $2 money maker, but you must buy them in separate transactions. For whatever reason, this deal is currently "rolling," which means you can use your $4RR from one transaction to buy the same product in another transaction and still earn the $4RR (not the case for most Walgreen's deals).

So in one transaction, I bought a Dove shampoo, paid only $2 since I used a coupon and received a $4RR. In the next transaction, I bought a Dove conditioner and a newspaper, used another $2 coupon and the $4RR, paid only $.37 and got another $4RR. It's tempting to keep doing this as long as you have coupons (check today's inserts), but I didn't want to be greedy. So in the end, I got both for free and made four bucks. I was going to keep both for our stock, but my husband gave me the look: "More shampoo--seriously?!" So charity wins out.

I was hoping the Simply Saline would be the regular kind we use for the kids, but the deal is only good for the Allergy and Sinus variety: $7, get $7RR. Since I had a $5RR from last week and a $1 coupon, I only spent $1 on this and got $7RR to use another time. But for "accounting purposes," we'll just call this a $1MM.

For all the CVS match-ups, go here and for Coupon Katie's picks, go here. The Oral B toothbrush deal was already gone at the CVS I visited, and I'm not one to chase all over town for a toothbrush. If you need Huggies, CVS has a good deal, and Listerine is only $.99 with a $1 printable. I was also impressed that they carry a line of 100% recycled paper towels; 8 rolls for just $5 (which I got for free from my Huggies ECB). And if you still need Easter candy, you can use this $2/3 printable for 3 bags of Reese's cups and pay only $1.33 a bag (deal good through Tuesday). So no charity deals here but deals can be found. And since Kroger didn't have any freebies that I noticed, here are my totals:

Total products to donate this week: 1 shampoo, 1 conditioner, 1 nasal spray
Total value of products to donate: $15 ($4 each for Dove products & $7 for Simply Saline)
Total spent: -$5

Total products to donate to date: 3 tubes toothpaste, 1 deodorant, 2 bars of soap, 1 shampoo, 1 conditioner, 1 nasal spray
Total value of products to date: $31.20
Total spent to date: -$8

How did you do?

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