Today was Columbus Day. Yay! That means school holiday and I can get my drugstore deals done early!!

I discovered something I felt like sharing with you guys I’m helping out. I’ve told several of you that if CVS offered a deal where you had to spend a certain amount to get ECB’s that the amount had to be after coupons. Well, I stand corrected. It’s a before coupon total. Which is good news for you…less OOP!

I apologize for the misinformation. I distinctly remember getting the impression from one of my receipts that I needed x amount of money to get a deal and thinking I must need to get the amount advertised. I knew other CVSers were getting the deals before coupons, but I assumed that it was something about my store. It seems I was just being a doofus.

So…it appears that if the deal, say the Swiffer deal this week, says spend $10 get $5 ECB’s then you can use coupons to bring your OOP lower. In fact, here’s what I did.

(1) Swiffer sweeper starter kit $7.99
(1) Swiffer dusters starter kit $6.99

Total before coupons: $14.98
Coupons used:
Buy any swiffer sweeper starter kit get a free Swiffer dusters kit
$1.00 off Swiffer sweeper kit

New total: $6.99
ECB’s earned: $5

(Of course, I paid with ECB’s so my OOP was quite a bit lower! I also got a truckload of other things since I had a nice, shiny $10 off of $50 coupon. Wanna know my final OOP? Huh? Do ya? It was a mere $6.26…for $73.00 worth of product! )

So have fun with those ECB deals that require you to spend a dollar amount! They just became more fun for me!

And just an FYI, I went to Rite-Aid today and they were very well stocked on their FAR items. I couldn’t find two of them. I used $15 dollars worth of coupons! I should be getting a pretty good check from Rite-Aid, come November.