AH Coupons! I love them and so should you, no REALLY you should!

So today is as good a day as any to talk about my coupon shopping.  I post pictures all the time on facebook about the good deals that I get with coupons. It's really not that hard and you CAN do it too!

Now I have done coupons for years, I mean years... since I was 18 years old.. so a long time... and for 3 years I did a program called Coupon Sense, it is a great program. They do match ups for you, there is a database of all the coupons, you can print your shopping list and you get discounted papers and they link you to internet coupons. But....

I ran across this blog... http://www.thecentsableshoppin.com/  not sure how I came across it but I did and I have to tell you Sheryl is the bomb! Since finding her a few weeks back, I've decided to cancel Coupon Sense... that is how good she is!!

So follow her especially if you live in AZ as she is in AZ too.

One of my favorite places to get free items (YES FREE) is CVS.  They offer sales and also provide what they call Extra Care Bucks - further referred to as ECB's.  So they are essentially paying you to buy products! LOVE IT!!

Today for example Colgate Max... pay $2.99 and get back $2.99 in ECB's. So free... to make the deal even sweeter... there are many coupons available for the Colgate. (sadly, I forgot mine today... lol)  So I could've been paid to buy the Colgate had I not forgot my coupons... now I don't need toothpaste, it is coming out of our ears... but it's free.. I pay tax on it... whatever... and I donate it. I donate lots of things - food, household items, personal care items... I get them for free, we can't possibly use them all and other people could use them. Win win situation!!

Now today's deal was cool not an ECB deal though... reading Sheryl's blog I knew that Purex was going to be on sale at CVS starting today. For $3.99 for each one (normally $7.99 there)... also in today's paper was a $3.00 off coupon. Since I got wind of this a week ago - I went on ebay and purchased 20 Purex coupons for $7.00... now I know you may think that is crazy, but hear me out. :)   I bought the coupons off ebay via ebates.. I will come back to ebates in a minute... it was a buy it now auction... I paid for the coupons via a balance I had in my account from a recent deposit from ebates and immediately listed 10 of the coupons on ebay. Those 10 coupons sold for $5.01. So I paid $1.99 for 10 coupons.

Ebates... Get paid to shop by Ebates.com  yes... you do in fact get paid to shop ebates... it can range from 1% of your purchases on up... eBay is a listed store... so for those $7.00 coupons I was paid back .18c so now those coupons I had left essentially cost me $1.83 or .18c a coupon... so $1.17 for each Purex I bought today... I had a CVS coupon that they had emailed me for $5.00 off $30.00. So before coupons those 11 Boxes of Purex covered that $30.00!  So that was about 4 1/2 boxes for free. Well worth the $1.83 I paid for those 10 coupons!

More on ebates... when you sign up they give you $5.00. If you shop online, you just go to ebates and search for the store you want to buy from. You hit the link taking you to that store and you will earn back whatever % they are offering for that store on your purchases. There are over 1200 stores listed with them. I shop a lot on ebay and really glad they are one of the stores. They pay you out quarterly and you have to have a minimum of $15.00 in rebates to be paid. It goes to my paypal account. Takes me an extra 30 seconds to go to ebates to link me to ebay and earn money back on something I was going to buy anyway! Trick with ebay is bid on your auction, and if you win, then go to ebates first before paying for your auction... unless it's buy it now then you want to go to ebates first :)

Another good blog to watch for CVS deals is www.iheartcvs.com  she actually has the scan ads a week or two ahead of time... so you can prepare for what is going to be free or cheap.

So today I got the 11 boxes of Purex, a bag of Jelly Beans and Cadbury Eggs, (will be used for Reiley's Easter Basket) 4 snickers bars, 2 tubes of Colgate Toothpaste, and an EOS lip balm... I paid out of pocket after applying coupons and ECB's I had to roll, $7.31 and received back $9.98 in ECB's.  The idea with the ECB's is to roll them week to week or every couple of weeks as some weeks there are really no good items for ECB earnings... the ECB's I received today don't expire until 3.22.11 so that gives me plenty of opportunity to 'roll' them.  So for next Sunday looking at I heart CVS I can see there are a couple of freebies... The freebies out of pocket will cost $9.58... I need to buy a filler for .40c to use my $9.98 in ECB's... I will only pay tax and then I will get back $9.58 in ECB's to roll. Ya, I lost .40c whoopie! LOL!!  I buy whatever there are ECB's for that costs me nothing but tax... even if I don't need it - as again I donate it if I don't need and/or really want it.

So sign up for CVS Extra Care Card, use the red machine to scan your card each time you go into CVS as coupons print out that are CVS coupons (so often you have CVS coupons and manufacture coupons to stack) and get those free items!  Oh and for those candy bars... I'm putting away all the free candy I'm getting to hand out at Halloween! Why not? It lasts forever and it is free, and I think the kids would rather have full size candy!