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The other day I wrote about our CVS shopping for last week where we earned almost $67 in ECBs! By buying OTC medicine using our Flexible Spending Account, we were able to bank some Extra Care Bucks to use for this week (and future trips)!
Here is a list of what we purchased – all shown in the two pictures above (except for the cookies ):
2 Boxes of South Beach bars
18 Snicker bars (we had amazing coupons that were expiring)
4 Glade Plugins
2 Glade Sense & Spray
2 Bottles of Listerine Zero
4 Packs of CVS Hands & Face Washcloths
5 Bottles of Garnier Fructis Shampoo/Conditioner
3 Bottles of John Freda Root Awakening
1 Box of Cortizone-10
1 Jar of Vicks VapoRub
2 Bottles of Vo5 Shampoo
2 Sticks of Mitchum for Women Deodorant
2 Boxes of Wheat Thins
1 Stick of Old Spice Deodorant
2 Packs of Mentos Gum
1 Bag of Checkers Cookies – not pictured (my wife likes the strangest things – they were disgusting, by the way)
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Every item on this list was either on sale, or we had a coupon for it (and in many cases, both)! Actually, we try very hard to only purchase items that are on sale AND for which we have coupons! That is why using the Coupon Database is so important!
Here are the totals of how much we paid, saved, coupons used and tax paid 
:
Total Value – $199.39
Savings from weekly deals – $62.47
Manufacturer & CVS coupons – $51.35
Extra Care Bucks Spent – $58.98
Flexible Spending Account – $17.98
Total Savings – $190.78 (96%)
Subtotal – $3.11
Tax – $5.50
Total Paid – $8.61
So, although the total was higher than I’d like, we were able to purchase $199.39 worth of items and only paid $8.61.
We also earned $31 in ECBs, meaning that CVS paid us $22.39 to take these products off their hands!!!
So, what was this lesson that we learned? Well, if you’ve been following these CVS posts, you’ll know that $8.61 is a lot of money for us!
Well, what usually happens is after the weekly deals and the coupons are applied, I will pay as much of the balance as possible with ECBs. Unfortunately, you can’t use ECBs to cover sales tax .
So, you have to find the best combination of ECBs to bring your pre-tax total (subtotal) down to zero. However, I did not do that this time, and it cost me a couple of bucks.
Now I make sure that I hand them over from largest to smallest, and I actually pay attention to the subtotal. It has now become a game that the cashiers love playing with me!
Have you made any great savings recently? Be sure to share them below.
Do you have any questions on how to get paid to shop? Any tips?
© 2010, Khaleef Crumbley. All rights reserved.
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