shopping but not spending

that's my goal lately....

i've been following money saving mom and her cvs tips for a couple of months now, and it really amazes me how many great deals can be had. i've impressed j a couple of times with some great deals (recently we got 4 2-liter bottles of coke, 1 2-liter bottle of dr. pepper and a 12 pack of coke for $.50...i loves me some coupons when they work like that!), but that is far from the norm for me. i do ok with coupons, but other than that one trip, i haven't really had anything where i've handed anybody $1 and walked away with half the store. baby steps.

today i ran two errands...i got some dog and cat food over at petsmart first. i had coupons, and i was gonna use 'em. i got a 5lb bag of nature's best dog food for clio, and a 3 1/2lb bag of iams digestive for the minouzer. i had $3 off coupons for both bags of pet food, which is why i bought those particular ones. i also had a buy one/get one free coupon for some cat food in a pouch. all told, $6.50 in coupons on what would have cost me $22.66. handed over my $16.16 gladly and skipped on over to cvs.

this month - or is it week? i never remember unless i'm looking at it :/ - if you buy $15 worth of certain dove products, you get $5 back in extra care bucks. i just got a *ton* of dove coupons in the mail, so i went to see what i could get into.

i bought 1 2pack of dove soap (2.50), 2 dove cream oil body washes (3.99 each), one dove cream oil lotion (6.99), and 2 lypsyl lip moisturizers (2.99 each)...i used one $5 off of $15 cvs coupon, one $3 off of $15 worth of beauty purchases coupon from cvs, 2 $2 off dove cream oil body wash coupons, 1 $1.50 off one dove cream oil lotion coupon, and 2 $1 off lypsyl tubes coupons. that took my total down from $23.45 to $8.88. *happy dance*

i also earned $10.98 in ECB's that i can use on a future purchase! (the lypsyl gave me $2.99 each in ECB's too) couple those with the $6 in ECB's that i already had and the $10 cvs gift card that i just got in the mail from redeeming some points on mypoints and i've got $26.98 to spend on toiletries and household stuffs...

i stumbled across this site today, and she has got the niftiest little cvs tracking spreadsheet that you can download to keep track of spending with your cvs card.

also, if you're new to couponing and want some tips on getting started with ecb's or with walgreen's and their rebate program, money saving mom is the place to go! her cvs beginner's tutorial and her walgreen's beginner's tutorial are both wonderful resources.