Plan for Starting from Zero

Here's my plan for later in the day *if* the other store I go to has the diabetes monitor in stock. I have zero ECBs on my other card right now so I figured I'd post this as an idea for those of you starting from scratch - but you would have had to be saving your coupons since June and/or have another way (ebay, etc.) to get a monitor coupon.

Transaction 1:
1 Breeze 2 monitor - $14.99
Use Breeze 2 coupon from June. Pay nothing, get back $10.

Transaction 2:
1 Always pads - $4.98
1 Bic Soleil razor - $5.99
1 Colgate Max Fresh toothpaste - $2.99 [*NOTE* A friend of mine just told me that there are some little stand-up bottles of this toothpaste on clearance for 83 cents that still generate the ECBs! So look for those - and/or combine with a coupon for overage! You can also use the Colgate cavity protection as 25 cent filler if you have the 75 cent coupon from last week!]

Use $2 printable Soleil coupon, $1 Colgate coupon from the newspaper last week (and if you were lucky enough to get a CRT, throw that in - but you'll have to redo the math a bit).

$10.96. Use $10 from the monitor, pay 96 cents plus tax, get back $10.98 - $4.98, $4, $2.

Then do it all over again (because you can print 2x the Soleil coupons per computer, and there's a printable Colgate coupon out there and/or you may have two just like I do...) and pay zero OOP, get back $10.96 again!

To recap, you'll spend about $1 and get a diabetes monitor, 2 boxes of Always pads, 2 tubes of toothpaste, and at least 2 razors (the more coupons you have, the more you can roll that $4 razor ECB to get even MORE razors up to the max of 5).

Then if you're really feeling frisky and your store has them in stock, you could use the $4 and the $2 to get a few boxes of Wellpatches for you or your friends or family - they're on sale for $5.99, get $5.99 back, limit 5, all month. There's also a coupon out there for $1 off, if you have it (in that case you could get the patches plus $1 of something else - toilet paper? paper towels? baby wipes? - and still get the $5.99 back...).

Basically, if you've been saving coupons for a while and always wanted to try CVS, this is a GREAT week to start!