$5.00 CVS Challenge - Week 1

As you can probably tell from my blog's name, I am always hunting for a good bargain. While perusing the internet for better ways to shop, coupon, etc. I came across a group of fellow frugal bloggers who join up every week to participate in the $5.00 CVS Challenge hosted by http://www.kingdomfirstmom.com/.

Here are the rules


RULES* Bloggers: Please make sure at least one scenario is $5 OOP or less

1. Come up with your best scenario/scenarios for the upcoming week at CVS using the current weekly ad, monthly deals, and coupons available. Your budget for Out of Pocket (OOP) expenses on the first transaction is only $5.00 (either cash OOP or ECBs on hand).

2. Using up to (3) scenarios (we don't want to overwhelm the newbies with too many transactions), offer up your best scenarios to "grow" that $5.00 into more ECBs to use in following weeks.

3. If you want to divide your $5.00 allowance over the three scenarios to make them work, that's fine!

4. Be sure to list coupons by inserts and/or with links to printables to make it easier for everyone to follow along.


Although I was never a fan of CVS, hate their pharmacy and thought that a lot of their prices were high, these women have taught me to see the light although I did fail the challenge with my first shopping trip by going way over the $5.00 out-of-pocket limit but in my defense I had no CVS Extra Bucks to use my first trip (and now I have three).

Here was my first trip:

Good Buys -
Irish Spring (8 bars) - 4.99 (saved $1 because it was on sale)
Venus Embrace Razor - 7.99 (saved $4 because it was on sale)
Colgate Sensative Toothpaste - $3.99 (saved $.90 because it was on sale)

Bad Buys (why I waste money when I go shopping) -
Goody Hair Accessories - 3.99
Diet Coke - 1.59
Bottle Deposit - .05

Total = $22.60
less $3.00 manufacturer coupon for razor and $1.95 for tax

Grand Total =$21.55 out of pocket

On the up side, I saved a total of $8.90, using a coupon and buying sale items and I received a total of $9.99 in CVS Extra Bucks!!!!!!!!

If you deduct my $9.99 in extra buck savings from my out of pocket my night of CVS shopping gave me $28.50 worth of merchandise for $19.60 less extra bucks earned $9.61 a total savings of $18.89.

So when all is said and done, I think I did pretty good sale wise and have almost $10.00 to use on next week's trip.

I will keep you posted on my CVS experiment.