Wrapping up deals to prepare for birth

I have a bunch of Extra Care Bucks at CVS expiring these past two weeks and have been trying to roll them into something else that would generate more ECB with a later expiration date. October would be ideal right now because it may take me until that long until I can get around again. During Labor Day weekend I went to CVS and got 5 Colgate toothpastes, 5 Adidas Deodorants , 2 Poise pantiliner, 1 Oral-B 3-pack replacement head, and 1 pack of Jumbo diapers for Ky-An for $33. I paid for it using my ECBs so no cash out of pocket and earned $36 back. I would have gotten more back but we need the toothbrush head replacement and those things are expensive! However, I was still mad when I checked the receipt because I forgot my total was about $1.50 under and I should've grab something to cover that amount since they don't give you money back on your ECB. The cashier just adjust my Extra Care Bucks to -1.50 so essentally I "lost" that amount. Dumb dumb.

I did almost same deal on my second card buying 5 Colgate toothpastes , 2 Adidas Deodorants, 1 Poise pantiliner, and 5 10-pk of Wriggly's gum. Strangely, the $5/$30 coupon I had was deducting $25 from my total!! How crazy is that? I didn't want my favorite cashier to get into trouble and she's not sure what to do herself. She was also trying to let me use all my coupons because she doesn't want me to miss out on it even though the $25 deduction already brought my total down to about $5. She was trying to figure out what to do so finally she called her manager and she said to just keep all my coupons since it's only suppose to ring up $5, not $25. That's fine with me because it's the store near my home and they are really nice so I don't want ruin it. I went home to calculate and they still miss out $1.80 from that whole deal. I only spent $9 ECB on this transaction and got back $24! Now that's my kind of deal.

This week (probably my last week of deal at CVS for a while), I got 2 Speedstick Deodorant, 2 Zantac, 1 pack of diaper, and 4 Excedrins for $2.46 OOP. I also paid with $12 in ECB and earn back $17. I don't need all these other junk but just look at it as I got a pack of diaper for $2.46 plus got $17 ECB for whatever I want in the future. That's how you play the CVS game.

I still had a bunch of ECBs expiring this past week and couldn't find anything that would generate more ECBs so I just got 4 packs of diapers for Ky-An, a toothpaste for him, and some wipes. I paid $2.46 cash for all of them. At least these are things we need and I can always create more ECBs later when I am able to do my deals again. Even with "wasting" almost $50 of ECBs on these things I still have $82 on one CVS card and $59 on the other. (Yes I have to brag!! ^_^)

Kroger had a purchase 15 tagged items and get $5 off so I got 3 Hamburger Helpers, 2 Spaghetti O's, 3 Kleenexes, 2 Fruit roll-ups, 5 Campbell's Chicken Noodle for $4.38.

I also have $10 Register Reward from Walgreens from the Revlon deal so I decide to try and roll it into their rebate to get a gift card. The perk of a gift card is that I don't have to worry about it expiring. I got 3 Robitussin, 2 J&J lotion, 2 Tylenol Children Plus cough (cold and flu season is coming up), and 1 Excedrin for $3.97 in cash and will get $13 back in rebates. Again I am irritated at the way Walgreens set up their register. It won't let me use the $2 off their J&J lotion because I don't have enough items to cover the coupon. There was a long line forming behind me so I didn't want to hold it up any longer and just paid. Still mad that I paid $2 more than I shouldn't have though!!! Ugh.