It’s been awhile since I posted about my couponing adventures so I thought it would be fun to catch you up some. I have some really great coupon binders where I organize all my coupons. I actually have two of them – one for food and one for beauty & home. We get two newspapers delivered each Sunday – the Newark Advocate and the Columbus Dispatch. I’m trying to get better about actually clipping my coupons on Sunday but they are usually done by atleast Wednesday.

I haven’t done much couponing as far as food goes yet. We shop at Carnival Foods, which is a local shop. They don’t double coupons but their prices are much lower than anywhere else. It’s a toss up in my mind on whether we should shop somewhere that will double our coupons even if it means spending a little more on items. I honestly don’t know the answer to that! Right now we pretty much just use a coupon on food items if we were planning on buying it anyhow and I happen to have a coupon.

Beauty and home items are completely different though. I’ve been really couponing where these are concerned by shopping at CVS. It’s really amazing the deals you can get! I start by looking over my CVS ad that arrives each Sunday with the coupons. I’ll find any items that are on sale that we need. Then I look through my coupons and match things up. Finally, the deals where you get ECBs back are the best possible deal!

You do know what ECBs are, right? That stands for Extra Care Bucks. Basically it’s free money to use in the store!!  Just sign up for the CVS Shoppers Card and be sure to have them scan it each time you make a purchase. As a matter of fact, you can also scan it yourself at the Coupon Box in the store for even more coupons! The first week of shopping you’ll have to pay a little more out of your pocket, but after that you’ll have ECBs to use each week as you roll them over in your transactions.

I’m still learning, of course, but already we are beginning to build a nice stockpile without spending very much out of our pockets. It makes me so happy to look at the shelves in our bathroom and see lots of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant, tooth paste and so on. This was especially helpful as we were getting Ashley ready to go off to college. We simply “shopped” the shelves in our bathroom instead of spending any money.  That is why CVS couponing rocks!

Bye,
Lisa