Retail Therapy

Retail therapy really can lift my spirits, as superficial as that sounds. It is especially effective when said retail therapy is a bargain shopping experience with an extremely low OOP (out of pocket cost). Take today for example. I went to CVS on my lunch break. – Our local market CVS stores accept competitor coupons and many also honor competitor ads, so that is part of what made the deal today so stellar.

I bought the following

$12.97 – three bottles Pert Plus 3.99 ea
$ 1.25 – twin pack of Butler Gum toothbrushes (supposed to be 3.99, but rang up 1.25)
$ 6.98 – two bags of Pink M&Ms (Breast Cancer Awareness)

$21.20 subtotal before coupons

-3.00 – CVS $3/15
-7.50 – (3) Walgreen’s easy saver coupons for Pert 2.50 ea
-4.50 – (3) MFR coupons Pert 1.50 ea
-1.00 – Walgreen’s coupon M&Ms $1/2
-1.00 – MFR M&M’s coupon $1/2
-0.75 – MFR butler Gum

The subtotal is 3.45. Somehow, I paid with 2 ECBs and just $0.42 cash OOP. I got back $11.99 in ECBs (5.00 on $10 or more of Pert/Sure, 3.99 on butler gum TB, and 3.00 on 2 Susan G. Komen M&M’s) – for a net profit of $9.57!!!

I can never again pay more than pennies for this kind of stuff, when I can often get it for free, or better yet, they pay me to buy it. It actually pained me to do a deal for diapers on Saturday where I paid $13.87 and got back 10 ECBs and I walked away with 2 packs of Huggies and 2 tubes of Desitin. I just thought I was paying more than I had in past deals, crazy as that may sound.