moved…

If you’ve found your way to this site.. it has moved to FamilyMakesCents.com

I love to share frugal tips and ideas daily.. Please come by and visit

Walgreens- A Great Resource for Saving Money

Walgreens, like CVS, is a great place to find deals on anything from the expected drug store medications and vitamins to personal care products, household products and even food.

To start with, Walgreen’s always has store coupons in their advertisements that you can pick up in the store. These are often referred to as IVC or Instant Value Coupons on message boards. You can always use a manufacturer along with a store coupon if you have one available. This is called stacking and should be allowed at any store.

Walgreens also offers coupons and rebates in a small catalog that they put out each month that you can find in the front of the store with the current weeks ads. This catalog is called the EasySaver Catalog and again you can use these coupons in combination with any coupon that says manufacturer on it for the same product.

Rebates are also found in the EasySaver Catalog and there are often free after rebate items offered in the catalog. The catalog is put out monthly and should only be submitted once online or through the mail per month. If you chose to reload one of their gift cards instead of having a check sent you gain an extra 10% back on your card with your rebate.

Another great thing that Walgreens offers on a regular basis is something called a register reward (RR), sometimes also called a catalina. RR’s are coupons triggered by a purchase at the register. Sometimes they are coupons for a $ off of an item, other times they are good for cash off of your next purchase.

Sales with RR’s are often advertised, but at times are a surprise. They are often triggered by purchasing a certain number of a particular product. If you know what triggered a $ off of your next transaction and wish to do the order again, keep in mind if you used the RR you received for purchasing the items won’t be triggered if you use it on the same deal again.

For example… say a $2 RR is offered if you buy 3 Crest toothpaste or Scope products.
You buy 3 toothpaste and receiver your $2 RR
-If you use the $2 RR and purchase 3 more toothpaste or Scope you won’t receive another RR.
-If you pay with cash and don’t use the $2 RR you will receive another $2 RR.
It’s best in this situation to pay with cash each time and use the RR on a different brand item that is offering a rebate or a good buy on something else you need.

Some have reported that their stores have allowed them to use RR to purchase or reload a gift card and then they make another RR purchase and are able to “roll” their RR this way. Some stores allow this and some don’t- YMMV (your mileage may vary). I have never done this as there always seems to be something I can use my RR on before they expire.

Those working at the cosmetics counter often have coupons and samples to share just for the asking and are very willing to help you. They love to have you come to their registers to check out and receive bonuses for having certain numbers of customers. If you are a regular at any Walgreens try to use the cosmetics counter when you can and you will most likely be rewarded with a nice familiar smile and help with coupons if they have any for the products you are purchasing.

If you combine sales, Walgreens coupons, manufacturer coupons, register rewards, and rebates you can often spend just pennies on the dollar for your purchases or even come out ahead.

Formula for pennies…

I didn’t use much formula with my child because I chose to breastfeed my little guy. We did have to supplement with a little formula when he got older and I was working and couldn’t keep up the supply. I remember signing up for all the new baby deals and getting lots of coupons and a few samples. I did use the formula coupons a few times, but wasn’t on the coupon scene fully at that point so I never found where the best savings were for formulas.

You can sign up to be on mailing lists for Enfamil, Similac and Good Start and they all send out coupons if you’re on their list. I do remember getting bombarded with coupons!

Stacey at Frugal, Faith & Family has a good blog explaining where to get the best buys on formula these days. If you’re at this point in life and formula is a necessity, please check out her post. It could save you bundles. Thanks Stacey!

CVS- How to

CVS is a wonderful place to save $! If you had told me that several years ago I would have laughed at you, but I’ve found so many awesome deals there that it truly has become one of my favorite places to shop.

At CVS the first thing you need to do is get an ExtraCare card. This is a store rewards card that gives you access to sale prices and also the coupons that some of their promotions print out at the register. Without this little red card, the deals just aren’t there.

You can get a card for each person in you household but it doesn’t benefit you much to do so. Typically the deals are per household and having multiple cards makes it more difficult to keep up with what you have as far as ECBs to spend.

To get an ExtraCare card you have two options… sign up online and wait for the card to come to you, or just simply ask for one at the register when you go in to shop. I prefer the later because it’s in hand instantly and you can do the deals right away.

I recommend that you register your card online and often time when you do they send you a good coupon for signing up. These coupons used to be something you could share with your friends, but are now coded for your use only. These are coupons most of us would love to have in abundance and are usually $4 off of a $20 purchase. It’s easy to get to $20 in CVS, but when you coupon, it’s easy to get your total back down to next to nothing if you spend a little time on it.

At CVS they often have deals that make items free or close to free when you purchase them and get the coupon back for $ off your next order. If you have a coupon for any of those items it makes for an even better deal. Just don’t lose the coupons because they no longer replace them.

You can use as many of these simple $ off coupons (we’ll call them ECB’s) as you want in a transaction but they aren’t supposed to work for tax. If your coupons total more than your items cost plan on losing the extra value or adding something else to your purchase.

Some stores will take expired ECB’s and some will not. This usually depends on management, although there is a store I visit where the manager will take them but one of the cashiers will not.

CVS will from time to time have coupons our that are $3 off of any $10 purchase, etc. You can only use one of these per transaction unless they are different coupons. If you have 2 of them and want to use them together you have to meet the total purchase on both together to use them together. For example, if you have a $3 off $10 and a $10 off $50 you have to buy $60 worth of products (not counting tax) to get $13 off. Some stores don’t allow combining anymore so your mileage may vary (YMMV).

The best way to use a $3 off $10 is to purchase items as close to $10 or just above as you can (especially if you have acquired more of them- you can use them on multiple orders to better your savings).

It is better to give your coupons in a specific order which I will talk about in a moment. Occasionally you will get a cashier that will rearrange your coupons and put them through differently. Doesn’t make a big difference, but the manufacturer coupons will sometimes help cover tax if you use this order.

When at the register give the $3 off coupon first, then any other ECB’s that you want to use, minus manufacturer coupons you have for products purchased. Pay your remaining and wait for the newly earned ECB’s to print on your receipt.

Your purchase might look like this...
product total $10.25
-$3 off $10 coupon
-$5 in ECB’s previously earned
-$2 in manufacturer coupons =.25 +taxes on entire order
Then you may get, for example a 1.99 ECB, and a $5 ECB.

The idea is to use your previously earned ECB’s to purchase more ECB giving products to maximize your savings. And the cycle begins.

If for some reason you don’t get the ECB’s you expect, check the bottom of your receipt to see if the items counted as qualifying and let the cashier know before you leave the store. Once you leave the store they assume you got what was expected and you can no longer call corporate to get it fixed.

Another important bit of information. You don’t always have to buy all of the products at once to get the qualifying ECB. For instance, say they have a deal on a certain brand of diapers and if you buy $20 worth you get a $5 ECB. You can purchase $11 in one transaction and then purchase the remaining $9 worth on another transaction. You won’t get the ECB until you meet the criteria on the second visit, but it will show on the bottom of you receipt how much you need to qualify for the deal if you didn’t make it in the first transaction. This is great when you have some of those $ off $$ coupons I was talking about because you can break up the deals and save more money altogether. Using the diaper deal as an example…if you do 2 orders of $10 and have 2 coupons for $3 off $10 without any other coupons you spent $14 and got a $5 ECB.

You will also get other coupons at CVS. Many of the stores now have a red machine where you can price check items. This machine also gives out coupons sometimes when you scan your ExtraCare Card. If you don’t scan your card at the machine you will often get coupons on you receipt. These coupons are often for their store branded products and sometimes products the manufacturers are promoting in the store. I would suggest that even if you don’t think you will use these coupons, hold onto them until they expire. Don’t throw them away! I can tell you that I threw out several that I would’ve been able to use before I realized this. They may be for products you won’t use, but they can come in handy if you have one of those $ off $$ coupons. They can help you meet the $$ when you can’t find anything else that will work for you.

If you have a coupon from CVS you can always use a manufacturer coupon with it. You can actually do this with any store coupons so long as they don’t both say manufacturer coupons. This is called stacking coupons.

If you don’t want to start with much money I suggest you buy a free after ECB product or two and start rolling your ECB’s from there. When you have coupons for those “free” products your ECBs will start to grow as long as you’re not buying other items with them. Unless you are using a $/$$ coupon, you can do as many or few items in a transaction as you like… just be aware of the other shoppers and don’t make them wait if you are wanting to do several orders. Be coupon friendly!

Let’s roll those ECB’s!!

Coupons 101

I told you we’d get to this! This is a subject that gets me excited! I can’t wait to start sharing deals and sales with you on a regular basis but have to give you the info to get started first… so here we go!

Be on the hunt for coupons! Coupons are a big help to gaining real savings while shopping for groceries and household supplies. When you get one you may think it’s only worth a few cents, but think again. If you combine that coupon with a sale on something you would be purchasing anyway, you’ve done even better with your money. If your store doubles or triples the value of a coupon you can do even better. The best way to find out how your store handles coupons is to look at the back page of the flier, oftentimes at the bottom of the page, or just ask about their coupon policy.

I have saved thousands in just the year and a half or so that I have been doing this!

I will soon begin sharing shopping tips and sales that correspond with coupons that have generally come in the newspaper. In the meantime be on the lookout for coupons and start collecting them… even the ones you don’t think you would ever use, they come in handy too.

Gotta Start Somewhere…

The first thing you have to do when considering your finances is to get into the mindset that you have to think about the future as well as what is going on in your life right now. How is what you do today or this weekend going to affect your financial future? It can in a lot of ways! They may seem minor on a daily basis, but can truly add up in the long run. Also, I’m not saying don’t go out and have any fun, on the contrary.

I think the hardest thing even for me being a saver is to not always get what you want right now. Time=money. We’ve all heard that, but let me suggest it in a new way.

If you think about it, how often do you think you just have to have something in the store and if you go home without it your realize maybe a week later that you never went back to purchase it and now it seems like a silly idea. Money not spent! How many times do we order a soft drink at the restaurant only to drink one glass and it cost us $2!!! Did we want a soda that bad? Was it that satisfying? Could we have waited until we got home and spend a $1 on a 2 liter that would satisfy 3-4 people? I used to tell my husband all the time that soda at a restaurant was outrageously priced… he’d buy it anyway and watch me drink water. Now that he’s begun to see that $2 as money towards another meal out or a movie or our sons college, he orders the water and waits until he gets home for the soda. Now if I order a soda on a rare occasion, he looks at me like I’m crazy. Funny how things change!

Another note about timing. I mentioned that I used to be the saver of the family. The best I knew to do was shop at Walmart and hope the things I needed that week were on sale. I would occasionally make it to another store if their milk or cheese was on a special sale, but otherwise stuck to one store for most of my shopping. This wasn’t a terrible plan, but little did I know what I should have been doing all those years. If I’d only known what I’d been missing I would have been watching for the sales on the items that I knew we used, and buying them only when they were on sale. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? It was a whole new concept for me!

Buy purchasing items only when they are on sale I mean purchase what you will need of that item for say 2-3 months. When you do that for everything your savings start to add up. It does take a little extra money up front to stock up on these items and still purchase what you need for the home that week so do it as you can financially, but over time you will find that a sale comes up when it’s about time to purchase toothpaste so you do so and all the while you don’t need the regular purchase of shaving cream this week- your cabinet is stocked and ready. This is called stockpiling which we will dig further into later… but in this case timing=money.

We also talk about adding coupons to the whole saving money equation at a later time… hope your in for some real rewards

By the way, for you Walmart fans, I’m not downing Walmart by any means. If you are a shopper that has no interest for shopping sales at any level it’s probably the store for you. You can even use their sales as a starter to help you get going on some savings like this. Walmart will price match also if you find the same product for a better price that week take the flyer in and they will match the price.

But, if you’re up for the challenge and fun, I’d recommend shopping around a little as you have time and are able. You’ll be surprised over time what a difference it can make and how much less stressful shopping is. I used to walk up to an item we had to have and cringe at the price and pray we could make it one more week without it. Those days are no more for me, and it can work for you too!

These ideas seem minimal and like pocket change, but I encourage you to try give these ideas a try and I think you’ll be pleased that you did. Start at your own pace and try don’t try and radically change your spending quickly or you will burn out and feel deprived. Give yourself and your family time to adjust to changes as you talk about them and choose what works for your family.

God Bless…