Faire Le Shopping: CVS and Publix

Dude, this week's deals were pretty fun. I didn't do a huge major shopping trip last week, and grocery supplies were running low, so it was time to make the doughnuts.

At CVS these days, I'm only going for the low-hanging fruit. I don't have tons of ecb's I need to roll over, and I'm pretty stocked on everything, so it takes something free or very close to free to get me in the door. I did two transactions yesterday--I never do that, but I'll explain. For the first transaction:
1 newspaper for $2
2 Sunsilk shampoos for $7
some clearance filler to get up to $10 (so I could use the $2 off $10 coupon)

Minus the $2 off 10 coup and $3 in coups for the shampoo, so I paid like $5 out of pocket and got $2 ecb's back. Not super great, because the shampoo was only cheap, not free. (I should have my silky, lustrous head examined because I have plenty of shampoo.)

But THEN, I took the paper out to my car and got the Cover Girl coupons out of the P&G insert. One was the get any free CG face product when you buy a CG foundation, and the other was the $1 any CG product. I went right back in and got:

Cover Girl foundation, $5.49
CG Tru Blend minerals blusher in "Pure Romance," $7.99

Here's where things got tricky. The cashier rang up those two things, and took my coups. For the free CG item, he deducted the price of the foundation, the cheaper of the two. Not sure whether he chose to do it that way or if it was automatic. I had been thinking that, since the coupon said free item wyb foundation, that I would pay for the foundation and get the other item free, thus making this a total exploit. But knowing that he was about to hand me $5.79 in ecb's (don't know why it pays off more than the cost of the foundation) made me reluctant to whine about it. I don't know how exactly that coupon is supposed to work, because it didn't specify a maximum value. Anyway, so I paid with the $2 ecb I had just gotten from the Sunsilk, and $4.xx out of pocket. After the return of $5.79 in ecbs, I profited like fifty cents. Plus the CG makeup.

Which brings me to the makeup, which I test drove when I got home. I opened the CG foundation and boy, it was like getting in a time machine. I hadn't been near CG liquid foundation since I was thirteen. It smells exactly the same. And when I was fifteen, I had a little compact of pressed powder that I used to dab on my nose. Why did I do that exactly? Anyway, the coverage seems good, but I don't use liquid makeup anymore so I have no idea how the technology has advanced. Then, the blusher. It's a big container of loose powder, and I laughed when I put it on, because it shimmers. Are we doing that now? Like, if you're a JV cheerleader on Friday night, this is the stuff for you. It made me want to practice my herky jump. Who knows? Maybe I'll go around covered in the stuff.

Then to Publix, where I had about 20 coupons. Highlights were the bogo CFL lightbulbs, which I had 2 $1 off coups for; the bogo Quaker oatmeals (with coups); the free Sara Lee bread wyb 2 Hilshire Farms lunchmeats, which were on sale AND which I had coups for; the Friendship sour cream, on sale with $.35 cent coups, doubled; and the Publix peanut butter that was the mystery penny item. Bogo Ocean Spray, Velveeta shells and cheese, Bird's Eye Voila meals. Oh, AND the awesome Food Lion $2 off $5 in produce coup. The stars aligned between sales and coupons. I got a lot of stuff that wasn't couponable too, like meat and cheese. Spent $74.05 and saved $66.12. Good times!

Then I came home and was reunited with my people (see last night's post). Thanks as always to Bren and Fiddledeedee for doing all the Publix work!